'Balance the narrative': Rallies speak to both sides of school division conflict

At the LRSD offices on St. Mary's Road, dozens rallied in support of the LGBTQ2S+ community Tuesday. (Source: Devon McKendrick, CTV News)

It was a tale of two rallies in the Louis Riel School Division (LRSD) on Tuesday, as groups on opposite sides of a hot-button issue gathered in different locations to express their views on LGBTQ2S+ education for students.

At the LRSD offices at 50 Monterey Road, representatives from Action4Canada.com gathered to protest the school board's actions at its last meeting, as well as to criticize the shifting of the board's Sept. 5 meeting online to avoid protestors.

"This is all in the same genre of defending our children, and standing up and saying 'no more of this nonsense,'" said protest organizer Karl Krebs. "We need to balance the narrative in our school divisions."

The conflict began at the LSRD's final meeting of the school year on June 20, when a group of people showed up in support of Francine Champagne, an LRSD trustee who had been suspended without pay for making transphobic comments on social media that were deemed disrespectful to the LGBTQ2S+ community.

Krebs said the LRSD overstepped its bounds when it cut that meeting short before everyone could voice their support for Champagne, and also for banning 35 people from all future school board meetings.

"Many of us have received letters banning us from the Louis Riel School Division properties indefinitely," said Krebs.

At the LRSD offices on St. Mary's Road, dozens rallied in support of the LGBTQ2S+ community. Rainbow flags and signs of support could be seen as event organizers addressed the crowd.

"It fills me with such warmth here today to see this overwhelming turnout," said rally organizer Kay Wojnarski, "This diverse, beautiful, wonderful, caring group."

Wojnarski told supporters the group that disrupted the June 20 board meeting shouted messages of intolerance and hate.

"We will not stand idly by and allow hate and misinformation to thrive and spread in our community," she said.

Wojnarski told CTV News she believes the group's anti-LGBTQ2S+ messaging originates in the U.S. She said it's about removing LGBTQ2S+ material from schools completely.

"There are people who think Trans kids, Trans people, are sexual deviants and groomers and pedophiles – all without any shred of evidence by the way- and they're using this as rhetoric for 'we need to remove as much of this as possible from schools and classrooms,'" said Wojnarski.

"It's all a very calculated effort to make queer people, and especially Trans people, look like the enemy and focus hate on that," she added.

Pierre Attallah with Action4Canada.com has a child at an LRSD school. He opposes the sex education curriculum being taught there, and believes his parental rights are being taken away.

"This is about protecting children from sexualization and grooming via the school system," Attallah said.

He and other members of Action4Canada.com distributed flyers in the neighbourhood to raise awareness of the issue.

"We wrote an invitation flyer to the constituents of the Louis Riel School Division inviting them to come to the school board meeting today," Attallah said.

He agrees that the LRSD board abused its power by cutting the June 20 meeting short, and moving the Sept. 5 meeting online. "People have a right to an opposing view," said Attallah. "It's not hateful to have an opposing view, and it's their right to be able to come to a school board meeting."

He and the 20 or so protestors at the Monterey board office are calling for the entire LRSD school board to be dissolved, and for a by-election to be held to replace it.

Wojnarski said this is about helping kids be comfortable in expressing who they really are.

"These students who are at risk, the ones who are questioning who they are, the ones who are in unsafe situations at home and are not willing to talk about it," said Wojnarski. "We need to be there for these students more than ever by providing them a safe space to be themselves."

CHAIR OF THE BOARD SPEAKS OUT

Sandy Nemeth, chair of the LRSD board of trustees, said the protesters were given a chance to speak during a public forum at the June 20 meeting. However, she said they started to say “nasty” and “cruel” things, which is why the board opted to end the meeting early.

“In wrapping things up and doing a bit of a debrief after, the folks that were in the room, the board members, the senior leadership team and a few a members of the public were really open about how palpable the tension was and how visceral the reaction was in terms of just the bad energy that they brought,” she said.

Nemeth said they chose to move Tuesday’s meeting online because they were acutely aware of protests of demonstrations. Nemeth noted the board is not against protests, but did not want to bring any disruption to the residential neighbourhood where the meetings typically take place.

“We’re just mindful of not making any decisions that were going to bring any more disruption and upheaval to a community,” she said.

“They don’t deserve that and they don’t need to have to navigate that.”

She said the board is open to respectful conversations; however, this group of protesters doesn’t approach situations in this way.

“They yell, they lie. The words and the signs that they brought – we had a lot of people saying how nervous they felt,” Nemeth said.

“They bring harm and we are the opposite of that.”

Nemeth said the protesters are entitled to their opinion; however, it is a provincial curriculum that’s been developed by the Department of Education.

She said the division has conversations with parents all the time about the importance of talking about gender identity and human sexual diversity.

“The idea that we would go out of our way to label folks who are members of the 2SLGBTQ+ as anything other than part of our community and welcome for who they are, who they tell us they are, is absurd,” she said.

“I think that’s part of the real challenge for me is that [the protesters] are not interested in a conversation.”

- with files from CTV's Devon McKendrick