In a recent column, Heather Ganshorn accused parental rights groups such as Parents for Choice in Education (PCE) of importing American-style “culture wars” into Alberta schools, What she calls a “connection” to the UCP government is simply ordinary citizens using ordinary democratic means to be heard.
PCE is not “connected” to the UCP in any institutional or financial sense. We receive no taxpayer funding. The source of PCE’s influence is no secret. We make sound public arguments in forums like this. We then request meetings with officials, explain our reasoning, and answer their questions. This is the sort of engagement available to anyone in a democracy. We have influence not because of identities or connections, but because of the quality of our arguments.
Consider the matter of names and pronouns. Ganshorn objects to notifying parents when a child adopts a new name or pronoun at school. Yet “affirming care,” the model underlying this approach, has been thoroughly debunked by the British government’s Cass Review, which found no reliable evidence that social or medical transition benefits children and ample evidence of potential harm. Keeping parents in the dark about such decisions undermines trust — and that has consequences.
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The same logic applies to sex education. Requiring parents to opt in before their children receive sexual content instruction is nothing more than the standard of informed consent that schools themselves teach students to apply in sexual encounters. Sunlight prevents potential sexual or physical abuse — but when activists insist that parents should not be informed, they are effectively arguing for the right to deliver sexual material to minors without parental consent. That, too, has consequences.
Bans on transgender athletes in girls’ sports are likewise not “anti-trans.” They exist for the same reason girls’ leagues exist at all: to preserve fairness and opportunity for female athletes. Such protections are becoming the international norm. Dismissing them tells parents that their daughters’ safety and opportunity are secondary. Again — consequences.
Even the supposed “book ban” has been distorted. As I have written in these pages, the government’s clarification on explicit materials was a reasonable response to the discovery of sexually graphic images in school libraries. The “comedy of errors” belonged to the Edmonton Public School Board, whose overreaction created the confusion. Defending the presence of explicit material in K-12 libraries tells parents that ideological purity matters more than safeguarding children’s spaces. That message, too, has consequences.
The consequences should come as no surprise: Statements like Ganshorn’s give parents reason to distrust the public system — which drives them away.
And they are leaving. Nearly 11 per cent of Alberta students are now in private, charter, or home-education programs, up from eight per cent in 2016. Available data show roughly twice as many students on waiting lists as there are seats in those alternative systems. In other words, almost a quarter of families have either left public education or are trying to. That represents a monumental loss of confidence in the system.
Far from attacking public education, the policies PCE has advocated — transparency, accountability, and genuine parental involvement — aim to restore that lost trust. Ganshorn and her allies appear determined to erode it further by telling parents that their voices are unwelcome in their own children’s schooling.
Her rhetoric reveals why her arguments fail to persuade anyone outside her activist circle. When she dismisses our policies as “American,” she substitutes name-calling for reasoning. When she claims we are “tied to the UCP,” she exposes her dependence on partisan reflex rather than evidence.
Education should never be partisan. PCE’s positions are not conservative or progressive; they are common sense. Protecting the role of parents is not a threat to public education; it is the only way to preserve its public character.
That is why PCE’s arguments have influence — not because of “connections,” but because they are true.
John Hilton-O’Brien is the Executive Director of Parents for Choice in Education, www.parentchoice.ca
This column originally appeared in the Edmonton Journal on October 16th, 2025. A printable pdf is available.