by Eva Kurilova
SOGI 1 2 3, a program that pushes gender identity ideology in Western Canadian schools, is preparing to expand nationally with the help of a substantial grant from Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government.
To date, the SOGI 1 2 3 program, which teaches students from K-12 that they have a sexual orientation and gender identity, is in all 60 British Columbia school districts and six divisions in Alberta.
Rather than continuing to move province by province, school district by school district, the ARC Foundation has set its sights on a national scale.
On August 29, 2022, the organization announced that it was the recipient of a Canadian government grant to support the national adaptation of SOGI 1 2 3. The ARC Foundation has previously received several smaller federal grants (in the amounts of $3,451, $4,411, $4,654, and $5,000) but, this time, it was awarded a much larger sum of $396,497.
The foundation has big plans for the funding, including a 25-month project to “adapt, pilot, and evaluate tools and models to expand the capacity of K-12 educators to create Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI)-inclusive schools.” The project will involve two environmental scans of new regions.
The ARC Foundation also plans to design and pilot models for delivering its program in French. It recently created a job posting on LinkedIn for a SOGI 1 2 3 Lead to head the program’s expansion into Francophone school districts across Canada.
I first wrote about the ARC Foundation and their Stollery family-funded expansion into Alberta in November of 2021. In February of 2022, I explored the ARC Foundation’s development and support from the Government of British Columbia.
The Alberta School Council’s Association and the ARC Foundation currently have a SOGI 1 2 3 program participation agreement set to last until August 31, 2024. On September 16, 2022, the British Columbia Minister of Education and Child Care, Jennifer Whiteside, reiterated her government’s support of the program.
The funding for the expansion of SOGI 1 2 3 will be provided through the Department for Women and Gender Equality (WAGE) over two years.
It might seem ironic that Canada’s department for women is giving money to a program which argues that sex is not binary and that feelings rather than physiology make someone a woman, but not when you know a bit about the department’s history.
The department that eventually became WAGE was created in 1976 under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau as Status of Women Canada, an agency under the Department of Canadian Heritage. The goal of the agency was to work towards greater equality between the sexes.
On December 13, 2018, under Justin Trudeau, Status of Women Canada was granted full departmental status and renamed the Department for Women and Gender Equality. The announcement was celebrated by Maryam Monsef, Minister for Women and Gender Equality, as “an historic day for gender equality in Canada.” She added:
The new Department for Women and Gender Equality (WAGE) continues the work of advancing more equitable economic, political and social outcomes for Canadian women, and has an expanded mandate for gender equality that includes sexual orientation, gender identity and expression.
Today, the WAGE website proudly declares that the department works towards equality for “all genders, including women.”
As with most institutions and organizations that have been colonized by gender identity ideology, the department is working directly against the interests of women. The idea of “gender identity,” which has been uncritically embraced by the Canadian government, completely erases the importance of sex in law and policy.
SOGI 1 2 3 does exactly the same harm at the school level. Under the program’s policies, girls are no longer allowed to have single-sex spaces like washrooms and change rooms. Participation in school sports is also on the basis of self-ID, which means that girls must compete with boys for team spots and podiums.
All of these policies and more are laid out in the guidelines for effective SOGI-inclusive policies and procedures compiled by Alberta Education.
Despite the glaring and obvious issues with such policies, SOGI 1 2 3 is going full steam ahead. ARC Foundation executive director Reg Krake expressed that the foundation is “very pleased that the federal government recognizes the work we do and wants to support it through this financial contribution.”
This also leaves one asking what business the federal government has meddling in education, which is the sole responsibility of individual Canadian provinces. It wouldn’t be the first time that Trudeau’s liberal government has given money to an initiative pushing gender identity ideology into schools, either.
In fact, in 2021, WAGE provided a $363,545 grant to an organization called Gender Creative Kids Canada for a country-wide “educational project” targeting elementary school students. The project stars “Sam,” an animated young girl who believes she should be a boy because she likes toy cars and hoodies. Gender Creative Kids Canada also created transforming Sam nesting doll, calling it “the world’s first educational transgender toy.”
Also in 2021, a research team from Ontario launched Gegi.ca, an online resource directed at children that teaches them how to “advocate” for their gender identity. The website was made possible by a $66,568 Insight Development Grant from the federal government’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).
Funding these programs is an indirect way for the federal government to influence school policy and what children are taught in schools. The last thing Canadian schools need is hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal funds contributing to the promotion of gender identity ideology. If provinces and school boards ever decide to push back, this federal support might make it even more of an uphill battle. It is crucial for parents and all Canadians to be aware of what is going on and what ideas are being implemented in schools across the country.
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