‘Rouge area constituents were taken for a ride’

Letter to the Editor

‘Rouge area constituents were taken for a ride’

Dear Editor:

I have been following the Scarborough-Rouge River byelection, as I lived in the area for ten years and still have ties there.  I am wondering if I am the only person who sees a problem with the chain of events leading up to the byelection.

I am concerned about the turn of events leading up to the elections and the fact that the Conservatives campaigned with a heavy focus on exploiting the unpopular changes to the Ontario Sex-Ed Curriculum.  There were promises to change the unpopular changes to the Sex-Ed curriculum by Mr. Chu and by the PC Leader Patrick Brown.

I have a serious issue with the Conservative Leader for Ontario, withdrawing his statement that they would scrap the “sex-ed” curriculum after campaigning on it. The retraction of his statement may have been before the election but they campaigned on this issue and many voters may not have seen the coverage on the retraction and voted, thinking that their position on this issue, is that they will undo the changes to the sex-ed curriculum.  I find this to be alarming and feel that the public was misled, with false promises and may have voted for this reason.

It also appears that Mr. Brown and his party distributed a letter, confirming they will cancel the sex-ed curriculum.  It is to convenient, to simply withdraw that statement after an entire riding is already convinced of promised actions on a key issue and many voters may have missed that retraction of the statement.

I feel that the entire Rouge area constituents were taken for a ride. This need to take front page and serious advocacy is needed from the population in Scarborough. The public was used and misled and their moral stance on the sex-ed curriculum was exploited.  Advocacy is needed until the next federal election.  There is only democracy, when fairness, honesty and transparency are at play. I am not sure many voters were aware of the retracted statement and that is alarming for me.

Yours truly,

Lisa Ramkissoon