Image Credit: ADOBE STOCK

The incoming president of the Central Okanagan Parent Advisory Council is calling on the school board to take action against leafleting at schools by Action4Canada.

Action4Canada is an extreme right-wing organization that has been challenging schools throughout the Okanagan, including handing out leaflets near numerous Central Okanagan schools this school year, accusing them have having pornography in their libraries and promoting homosexuality.

Most recently, on May 31, they confronted parents waiting in their vehicles near Chute Lake Elementary School to pick up their children with similar allegations about library materials and targeting gay and trans families.

“There were families getting out of their vehicles with pre-school aged kids and so, for this kind of confrontation to take place, with children around of any age, feels very inappropriate,” Nicola Baker told iNFOnews.ca. “I would have hoped that the people who were disseminating this material would have thought better of their actions in that moment. That was upsetting to those families.”

Baker is president of the Chute Lake Parent Advisory Council and currently vice-president of the Central Okanagan PAC. She takes over as president next month.

“The kinds of language that are being used that marginalize or stigmatize any individual or group of students is unacceptable,” Baker said. “I think we need to have respectful dialogue and open conversations but we need to prioritize the well-being of all students and promote well-being and acceptance and I think that’s what this district does.”

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She has co-written a letter to the Central Okanagan school board explaining the incident and calling on the board to do more to counter Action4Canada's efforts. That letter goes to the board tomorrow, June 14.

“We want the school board to take some action to put in some proactive steps to ensure this sort of thing isn’t happening,” Baker said. “We want to emphasize the importance of fostering safe and inclusive environments for all of our students and we’re concerned about the impact that the distribution of this material might well have on the well-being of any students or family members in our community, for any 2SLGBTQ+ individuals and allies.”

It's unclear what, if anything, the school board can do. Action4Canada, like all other organizations, is not allowed to leaflet on school property so its members have maintained their distance.

So-called bubble zones have been created around health care facilities to limit activities of anti-vaccine or pro-life activists.

“That’s health care, that's not education so I'm not 100% certain how that applies,” school superintendent Kevin Kaardal told iNFOnews.ca.

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A letter from Action4Canada will also go to Wednesday’s board meeting, objecting to the board declaring June as Pride Month.

“I am wondering why no other group is given the same attention as the LGBTQ population,” Laurie Baird, Action4Canada’s Kelowna leader, wrote. ”According to 2021 statistics, Christians make up only about 40% of the population identifying as religious in Kelowna and this group just celebrated a very important season of Passover to Pentecost, April 5 – May 29. There was no special observance in recognition of the many Christian students in the district.”

That letter suggested the Pride “celebration” be limited to one day. It also says, by law, schools have to be neutral.

“Giving special rights to any one group is divisive and unlawful,” Baird wrote.

Action4Canada has also lobbied against vaccine mandates, the 15-Minute City concept, the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identities (SOGI) concept in schools and more.

While neither Baker nor Kaardal have copies of the current leaflet, they suspect it's similar to one posted on the organization's website.

That alleges that SOGI is a "Trojan horse" that's really aimed at "sexualizing children at the earliest possible age," that it “endorses vile sexually explicit and pornographic books” in schools and promotes homosexuality, transgender ideology and normalizes sexual deviancy.

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