A local woman from a group of Burnaby parents that formed in opposition to the Burnaby school district's anti-homophobia policy plans on delivering more than 1,100 signatures to Premier Christy Clark on Thursday, in support of a statement on parental authority, drafted by a Catholic advocacy group.
The Catholic Civil Rights League penned the "declaration on the authority of parents and guardians in the education of their children," which is meant to remind government and people in power that parents are the most important protectors of children.
Helen Ward, president of Kids' First Parent Association of Canada and a former Burnaby Parents' Voice trustee candidate, planned to join another Burnaby parent and Ed De Vita from the Catholic Civil Rights League to deliver the declaration to Clark on Thursday, Feb. 23 in Vancouver.
The declaration is based on the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and calls on governments to respect the primacy of parental authority with regard to the education of their own children.
According to a press release, the move is in response to a recent Supreme Court decision disallowing Quebec parents to pull their children out of an ethics and religion course based on parental assertions that the course violated their religious freedom.
"The government is eroding parental authority in B.C. by spending millions of public funds supporting policy groups, such as UBC's Human Early Learning Partnership, which are aggressively embedding the notion of 'shared responsibility' between parents and the state for child-rearing," said Ward.
To read the declaration, go to http: // theparentsvoice.org.
