Controversy in Toronto.

In southern Ontario the AIDS program was to be piloted first in the area west of Toronto with the Dufferin-Peel board. But parents in Brampton and Mississauga rallied to oppose it, starting in the fall of 1997.

At this moment, plans to introduce the AIDS program have apparently stalled, as board personnel claim the program is being put through a democratic "due process." This follows fierce objections to the curriculum by Jim Duffy, a Brampton grandparent, and other concerned parents (see Nov. 1997 CI).

Beverly Williams, Superintendent of programs for Dufferin Peel, refused to comment one way or another on the fate of the AIDS curriculum. "We're interested in what is good for the children," she told Catholic Insight. She would not say if the program would, or would not, be implemented by the fall, nor could she predict with any certainty when the due process, which she says involves collecting data and assessing feedback from parent group representatives, would be completed. Ms. Williams did say that response from parents at this point has been "very positive."

The Chairman of the board, Patrick Meany, holds the same line. No one can say if, or when, the AIDS program will be adopted in the schools, he told Catholic Insight, but he added that the bishops have approved it. He said that he relies on the bishops for guidance on these matters. In his opinion, Mr Meany said, by the time children reach the ages of 13 or 14, "their minds have been made up by a secular point of view," and therefore seems necessary to counteract this view with a Catholic program.

Unfortunately, the process of consulting parents is as faulty here as in Ottawa: parents are not given the published critiques and therefore have no idea what the arguments are all about. The main criticisms are, of course, that it is not a Catholic program, indeed, that it undermines Church teaching, and that it provides the wrong information about AIDS and homosexuality.

Consequently, while board personnel are cagey about the future of the AIDS curriculum, the objecting parents are not appeased. For them, it's "like deja vu all over again" as Yogi Berra said: a similar battle over Fully Alive, the bishops' approved sex education program which came under fire in 1987 and following years, is now being revisited.

Lianne Laurence