The 1 Million March 4 Children held last Wednesday had a mission: to promote the safeguarding of children鈥檚 rights through greater interaction and involvement of parents in the education of their children.
For Bahira Abdulsalam, one of the organizing driving forces behind the parental rights movement across Canada and this particular protest, while she acknowledged that other groups and political adjectives were likely to 鈥減iggyback鈥� on the protest, she feels they鈥檙e all united by a common cause 鈥� human dignity, freedom of thought and religious freedoms.
鈥淲e have no objection to diversity of acceptance. We definitely accept others, no matter what their gender identity, but we refuse to impose ideology on our children and for our children to be in contradiction of human nature as we see it,鈥� said Abdulsalam in an interview with Black Press before the Sept. 20 march.
Abdulsalam is a professional engineer and past mayoral candidate for the City of Toronto.
She knows something about the minority ethnic experience in Canada, having first come to this country as an international student, applied for permanent residency and then ultimately gained her Canadian citizenship.
鈥淚t took me 10 years to gain my citizenship. During those 10 years, I did not feel like I belonged in this country. Not being a citizen of Canada, I did not feel my views mattered,鈥� she recalled.
鈥淚 think that is what a majority of Canadians feel like today.鈥�
Her focus on schools comes from a belief that social transition is taking place across the country, imposed by unelected bureaucrats and politicians playing to the 2SLGBTQIA+ movement vote, which is being done without the knowledge, support or consent of parents.
Then there is also a symbolic opposition to the establishment of universal washrooms in schools, while intended in part for queer community students but also provides a service to disabled students and others who just don鈥檛 feel comfortable using multiple-stall washrooms.
But while Abdulsalam draws a line between those youth who choose an alternative gender identity and younger children entering school and being 鈥渋nfluenced鈥�, as she put it, without parental consent or knowledge to make those choices, the reality is that line was blurred to non-existent at the 琉璃神社 protest.
The vitriol back and forth between the 1 Million March 4 Children supporters and the queer community at Stuart Park said nothing about acceptance on any level, the intense insults raging back and forth along the political protest reference points that had little to do with what children learn in school.
While Abdulsalam is critical of administrators running the public school system and how teachers handle sex education topics in class, she doesn鈥檛 really have an answer for the influence students get from their peers both in and out of school, particularly for students who can鈥檛 communicate with their parents on these difficult and sensitive life choice questions.
She doesn鈥檛 have an answer to families who break up or have an absence of communication to address issues involving their child鈥檚 sexual identity, other than there should be more counselling services in schools.
She also acknowledged that while she calls the 1 Million March 4 Children a national movement, issues of parental involvement in the school system vary widely from province to province, and even within B.C. from school district to school district.
However, she does feel an overwhelming majority of parents support the public education concerns she and her supporters are raising, the numbers in the Central Okanagan would tend to indicate otherwise.
The turnout for the 琉璃神社 protest was not a large representation of more than 24,000 students currently in the public school system, and parent advocacy candidates in the last school board election all failed to get elected, even with the assistance of a provincewide civic candidate initiative to support their campaigns.
With a low voter turnout of 19.9 per cent in West 琉璃神社 and 30 per cent in 琉璃神社, it was not an issue that proved to drive voting parents to the polls in large numbers.
For her part, Abdulsalam says she is not advocating for any political party or political agenda.
鈥淲e are completely against that鈥�.I tell people what party you vote for does not matter, what matters is electing politicians who will represent you鈥ho will stand up for your values,鈥� she said.
