Protect Alberta Education - “OPT OUT” of Bill 44

May 04, 2009

CFI Community of Calgary needs your help! The Alberta Government is attempting to pass new legislation that is a serious threat to the province’s education system.

Bill 44 to amend the Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Act would give parents the right to opt their children out of school lessons that deal with religion, sexuality or sexual orientation. This opt-out provision is a very real threat to the rights of children to a good education. Universities already feel Alberta Education standards do not prepare students for post-secondary schools, and this act will further weaken our education standards.

We are asking you to email or call your concerns to:

1. your MLA
http://www.assembly.ab.ca/net/index.aspx?p=mla_home ,

2. Lindsay Blackett (Minister of Culture and Community Spirit)
calgary.northwest@assembly.ab.ca, (780) 422-3559;

3. Dave Hancock (Minister of Education)
edmonton.whitemud@assembly.ab.ca, (780) 427-5010; and

4. Premier Ed Stelmach
fortsaskatchewan.vegreville@assembly.ab.ca, (780) 427-2251.

We’ve provided a sample letter that you can modify with your own words or send as is (see below).

Time is running out, so we ask that you act fast. Please share this request for help with anyone else who may share our concerns.

Thank-you for taking the time to help protect Alberta’s education system from this poorly conceived piece of legislation.

Sincerely,

Cliff Erasmus
Executive Chair
Centre for Inquiry Calgary
http://www.centerforinquiry.net/calgary
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=13019138958&ref=ts

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Sample Letter (A personal letter is even MORE effective)
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Re: Bill 44: Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Amendment Act, 2009

I am writing to express my deep concern about planned amendments to Alberta’s human rights legislation which would give parents the right to opt their children out of school lessons that deal explicitly with religion, sexuality or sexual orientation.

Parents already have the ability to pull their children out of sex education so there is absolutely no need to enshrine this into human rights legislation.

The right to pull children out of a classroom due to religious objections is fraught with potential problems and unintended consequences. Topics in science class—such as evolution—could very well trigger religious objections, prompting a parent to shelter children from fundamental parts of the curriculum. Evolution is not the only science topic at risk. Any topic that contradicts a particular religious belief could be affected—astronomy, geology, dinosaurs, ice ages and so on. To make matters worse, the provision could affect other school subjects including literature and history.

This opt-out provision is a very real threat to the rights of children to a good education. Since all kinds of subjects could prompt parental objections on religious grounds, the quality of children’s education could suffer greatly.

By all accounts, the proposed opt-out provision is vague, poorly thought-out, and has the potential to be very difficult and costly for schools to administer. For every parental objection, human rights cases could be brought against teachers or school boards for failing to notify parents about any lesson that violates the opt-out provision. Teachers, schools and school boards do not need this unnecessary burden on their already strained financial and human resources.

In closing, I strongly urge the Alberta government to remove the parental opt-out provision from Bill 44.

Sincerely,