It’s been raining all day in the GTA, as if even the weather is protesting Ontario premier Doug Ford’s asinine and tyrannical decision to invoke the notwithstanding clause to get his way and reduce the size of Toronto’s city council after a Superior Court judge ruled against his plan.

“It appears that Bill 5 was hurriedly enacted to take effect in the middle of the city’s election without much thought at all, more out of pique than principle,” Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba wrote. “As things now stand — and until a constitutionally valid provincial law says otherwise — the city has 47 wards.”

But you probably know this. Today it’d be hard not to hear that particular news, and Doug Ford’s reaction to the ruling. It’s been everywhere. Doug Ford borrowing pages from the Trump play-book like facts don’t matter, like The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms doesn’t matter. But they do. Doug Ford doesn’t represent Ontarians when he picks a fight with Toronto, then with vulnerable Ontarians who'd been taking part in the basic income project he cruelly and thoughtlessly axed, then Ontario teachers (via his supremely ugly snitch line), and now with the Charter of Rights itself.

It’s pretty clear that Doug Ford doesn’t care what most of us think or value—that Ford only cares what he thinks and values—and that he keenly enjoys acting punitively à la the current small-minded U.S. president. Want decent representation for your city? Too bad. Want decent sex ed for your kids? Doug says nah.

Or tries to say nah. Because Toronto and Ontario will fight him every step of the way. I’m enormously proud of Ontario’s teachers for insisting on doing right by the province’s young people despite what Ford decrees. “Ontario's largest teachers' union is asking a court to stop the provincial government from forcing educators to use a 20-year-old sex-education curriculum and to cancel a "snitch line" for parents to anonymously report concerns about what is being taught in classrooms.”

If you want to know the difference between Ontario’s interim sex-ed curriculum and 2015′s the Globe and Mail have summed up points where the two versions markedly differ. You can also read the full texts of the 1998 curriculum and the 2015 update here. It’s incredible to note that the interim version doesn’t even mention the concept of consent while in the 2015 version, "students learn in Grade 6 that consent is defined as “a clear ‘yes’ ”, and that anything else, including silence or uncertainty, is not consent. In Grade 7, students learn the importance of clear communication with a romantic partner about all aspects of sex, including consent. Consent is taught again in Grade 8."  The interim sex-ed curriculum will also be letting kids down in woefully inadequate coverage of concepts including LGBTQ rights, sexting and online bullying.

The Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario union argues that the  government is

 “preventing them from communicating accurate information that is critical to students’ health … in a modern, diverse and pluralistic society." and violating the Charter by “increasing the risk of physical and sexual violence, transmission of sexually transmitted infections, cyberbullying, and online child exploitation.” And it is perpetuating “discrimination against LGBTQ+ students ... by excluding topics related to sexuality, gender identity and same-sex marriage” in a way that casts them as “abnormal.” By “restricting and coercing teachers” from providing up to date information, the government is undermining their professionalism.

Keeping kids in the dark about sex won't keep them safe. It never did—ignorance isn't a shield—and now, when the outside world infiltrates all our homes more than ever, we need to arm young people with knowledge to a degree some parents are uncomfortable with. Frankly, our own discomfort shouldn't even come into the equation.

By the way, Toronto sex educator Nadine Thornhill is teaching Ontario's nixed sex ed curriculum on YouTube starting today when she's covering anatomy for primary students. Such a terrific and important project!

Finally, if you're in Ontario, please email your MP and tell them to vote no to the legislation that would override the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We can't afford to let Doug Ford to go unchallenged. He's only been in power for two and a half months and is just getting started:  Stop Ford Trampling Our Rights.

Every time I think the wind's died down another gust threatens to blow my apartment windows in. It's definitely a good day to be indoors, staring askance at the outside world which actually looks surprisingly bright considering the strength of those blasts of air. Still, I'm half-expecting Mary Poppins to rocket by clinging to an out-of-control umbrella or The Wizard of Oz's Miss Gulch to cycle past in mid-air. I hope the weather's calmer wherever you're reading this from and if, like me, you're in Southern Ontario, hold on to your hat!

But I didn't really hop onto the blog to talk about the weather. Yesterday I learned Just Like You Said It Would Be was accepted into Library Journal's curated SELF-e Select collection of best indie books. This means readers will be able to check-out the e-book from participating Canadian, American and international library systems with their library card.

I'm very happy that this could potentially expose the book to more readers. As I've mentioned often since releasing Just Like You Said It Would Be, it's truly the book of my heart, a novel I spent eighteen years with, something I doubt will ever happen again. It's also a book I was given a Canada Council grant to write, an enormous honour which makes me doubly pleased JLYSIWB's availability in more libraries could bring it additional Canadian readers. Recent Library Journal post "A Coming-of-Age Summer" highlighted a number of SELF-e Select books about teens having exceptional summers including Just Like You Set It Would Be.

Like Just Like You Said It Would Be, my middle-grade sci-fi novel Stricken (due out in the U.S. next month) is also set in Ireland. If you're curious about it CM Magazine has a cool review of the book up. Here's a snippet: "Martin also does an excellent job capturing both the voice and viewpoint of the teenage characters. The voices are authentic, never forced, and carry the story along in a very engaging way. The plot, itself, is tight, with enough mystery to keep the pages turning without feeling like you’re being toyed with – for the most part."

I hope to jump back into Naomi's world and continue her story, if fortune is in my favour!

The Canadian Goodreads giveaway for DELICATE opens November 24th, so if you'd like to know about Ivy and Lucan, and their respective and combined togetherness, you should head over there to enter. In Canada you can also pick up or order paperback copies now. E-books should be available later in the month with the U.S. release date of DELICATE set for May 16th.

The Delicate blog tour will also be happening très soon, but in the meantime I wanted to post some more photos of the stone messages from the rocky beach in Oakville. The below were taken earlier in November and are all different from the messages I captured in October. This time around I noticed someone had gathered many of the stone messages about love together with a few others mixed in. Guess which is my favourite!

But first, some Oakville fall colours.

 

 

* Look at October 26's stone message photos

Last Monday, Election Day, was gorgeous in my neck of Southern Ontario. And what a glorious night it was too, with Stephen Harper's government at last being swept into memory and our next Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, speaking of 'sunny ways.'

Hope and light is in the air, even as winter approaches.

The beauty of fall seems to be a rough, wild one - a final glimpse at the natural world before the veil of winter drops and steals it from view.

Fall colours, gentle sunshine, Bronte Harbour,October 25:

By the water's edge, Bronte, October 25:

 

Fall canoeing in Bronte, October 25:

Oakville's Lawn Bowling club lit by golden autumn sunshine, October 25:

Speaking of hope, the dreams, wishes and wisdom of fellow Canadians were jotted down all over the stones of an Oakville Beach this summer and fall. Yesterday I finally made my way down to the water's edge to examine them in earnest. Although some messages were faded and difficult to read the very idea still seems laced with magic. And thankfully whoever is fond of making Inukshuks (half dissembled here) by the lake on a regular basis is still at it too.

Not sure about this one. I can make out the words 'happy' and either 'Canada' or 'Canadian'

 

Yes it is:

A warning to heed:

John still loves you Lewis!

If anyone can provide an English translation for this, let me know.

Not sure you can read this but it says, 'I wish I could fly."

 

I wish people were more thoughtful.

Peace to the world

 

I'm better off for the knowing of you. 

 

And this last one obviously isn't a stone, but it's a message too. Many of the downtown Oakville benches by Late Ontario feature dedications that tell a story. This is just one of them and is of the infinite variety. 

What are your hopes and dreams this fall? What message do you have for the rest of us? Or perhaps for one specific person?

* See the additional stone messages I captured in November

I had to groan inwardly when I read this section of an article on my local candidates' debate: When asked about his party’s plans to help youth joblessness, Terrence Young told the moderator, “I’m just going to change the subject a little bit” before launching into a critique of the Liberals’ drug policy.

Never once when I've emailed Terence Young (my local MP) with concerns has he offered an actual response to the issues I've contacted him about. On each and every occasion his reply has instead told me what my concerns should be and/or has trotted out the official Conservative Party line. Stephen Harper must love this guy to bits. He's a faithful little Tory puppet with no thoughts of his own. Heck, he even looks much like a Harper clone.

And, like Stephen Harper, he seems to have no understanding of the fact that elected officials' function is to represent and serve their constituents, not the other way around. With Harper playing divisive politics, fanning the flames of hate while paying lip service to gender equality when any Canadian who has been paying attention for more than five minutes knows that he couldn't care less about women's rights, our dishonourable Prime Minister seems to be hitting new lows daily. Like Greg Keelor of Blue Rodeo sings, "Sometimes I wonder, just how do you sleep?" I wonder, too, how Canadian voters let it come to this? The kind of nation I want to believe Canada is would have voted out such intolerance and small-mindedness the last time we were at the polls. In fact, by some measures they did -- a majority of Canadians voted for someone other than the Conservative Party in 2011 who only garned 39.6% of the popular vote.

We desperately need new leadership in this country. We just as desperately need to rid ourselves of our antiquated (how did this ever seem like a decent idea?) first past the post electoral system. And Stephen Harper and Terence Young, no, I'm not letting you change the subject.

Yesterday Paddy and I were driving along Hurontario (near Steeles Avenue) through Brampton and noticed a cavalcade of cars sporting red flags and stickers. They seemed to be protesting something and I was straining to read the text on the flags when we cruised by a car with a large sticker plastered across one of the back doors. “SAY NO TO IRRESPONSIBLE SEX ED,” it commanded, not understanding the irony it was presenting. You see, irresponsible sex ed is what we had in Ontario for years. Until this coming fall, in fact, this province had the oldest sex ed curriculum in Canada, one from way back in 1998. We were originally supposed to get a new curriculum in 2010, but the Ontario government got spooked by a backlash from religious groups and a small minority of parents.
 
Meanwhile, according to Safe Families stats, the average age of first Internet exposure to pornography is 11 with the 12 - 17 year old group being the largest consumer of Internet porn. And meanwhile a survey of Ontario high schools revealed “29% of Ontario Grade 9 girls ... felt unsafe at school partly due to sexual comments and unwanted looks or touches; 27% of the girls in Grade 11 admitted to being pressured into doing something sexual that they did not want to do; 14% of the females reported being harassed over the Internet.” And meanwhile more than 50% of transgender youth will have had at least one suicide attempt by their 20th birthday. And meanwhile a New York City study revealed only 23% of straight women use condoms during anal sex as opposed to 61% of gay men, and women 18 to 24 years old are nearly six times more likely than those aged 45 to 64 to report unprotected anal sex.

And meanwhile seventeen-year-old Nova Scotia girl Rehtaeh Parsons committed suicide because of sexual bullying aimed at her after she was the victim of sexual assault. So did 15 year old Audrie Potts of California and fifteen year old Amanda Todd from B.C. And meanwhile eighteen year old Tyler Clementi threw himself off the George Washington Bridge after being bullied because of his sexual orientation. And meanwhile we let the world break fifteen-year-old Jamie Hubley’s heart as he was relentlessly tormented by his peers to the degree that not living another day seemed like a better option. We let that happen because this is the world—the society—that we have constructed, a society some people would like to look away from and pretend doesn’t exist. But young people don’t have that choice. They’re right smack in the middle of it.

And meanwhile two awesome thirteen year old activists, Lia Valente and Tessa Hill, started a petition requesting that the issue of consent be covered in the new Ontario sex ed, a petition which garnered more than 40,000 signatures.

“We hear stories from our friends about cat-calling and slut shaming in the hallways and in the classroom,” the girls wrote in their online petition. “We also notice the lack of awareness about safe sex and consent. … Our society is scared to teach teens and young people about safe sex, and most important, consent.”

Yes, parts of society are scared. I’m scared too. I don’t want young people to be sexually bullied or harassed or have unsafe sex. I want them to know how to keep themselves safe and understand the importance of consent. I want them to respect their peers no matter what their peers’ gender, sexual orientation or experiences are. I want rape victims not to be re-victimized by people who should know better than to blame them for a crime committed against them but apparently don’t because the society we’re raising young people in is full of shame and double standards and early exposure to hardcore pornography which up until this point has not been balanced by good, comprehensive sex ed.

Yes, we used to have irresponsible sex ed in Ontario, but that’s over with, and we should all be very glad of it. The true irresponsibility resides in the fact that it took too long to make the change, an irresponsibility which still hangs on the shoulders of the folks flying those red flags from their cars, embracing ignorance like it’s a shield when it won’t protect their child or anyone else's from a thing. Only knowledge will do that.

"Don't limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time."
—Rabindranath Tagore.