Editor’s Note: This is the fourth installment of an ongoing investigation into Ontario’s public-school system. The first installment, on the district’s adoption of “progressive discipline,” is available here. The second installment, on the district’s compromised mathematics curriculum, is available here. The third installment, on how progressives eliminated the province’s personalized approach to education, is available here.

Ontario’s Halton District School Board made international headlines in September 2022 after a series of viral videos showed a transgender shop teacher, Kayla Lemieux, wearing massive prosthetic breasts while operating a table saw.

Remarkably, Lemieux’s prosthesis didn’t break any school policies because the district simply lacked a professional dress code to begin with.

The startling loophole didn’t bother Curtis Ennis, Halton’s director of education, who clarified it in an interview: “The dress code is for students, and the dress code is not for staff.” While students were explicitly prohibited from having visible nipples, Lemieux was given a pass. Rather than proactively confronting the scandal, Ennis and the board dithered as Halton became a laughingstock.

The district, which proudly embraces progressive discipline, began liberally threatening students with suspensions if they were caught photographing Lemieux. All the while, as Halton ignored parental wishes, the board upheld strict guidelines warning students against dabbling in cultural appropriation.

With the threat of a lawsuit from parents looming, Halton finally released a “consultation survey” in February 2023, six months after the images of Lemieux first went viral. The document made no specific references to concrete dress-code changes and simply reiterated other board policies governing teacher conduct. Lemieux was eventually placed on leave as of March 1, but it remains unclear whether he will be allowed to return to the classroom wearing his prosthetic breasts, as the district has not yet adopted the teacher dress code parents are calling for.

“The resistance we have seen from Halton’s administration, from the director of education and from the superintendents is just mind-blowing,” Julia Malott, a former school-board trustee candidate in neighboring Waterloo, said. “It is discouraging, but not surprising, to see that HDSB sits where it sits now in terms of complete paralyzation on being able to act.”

The district and Lemieux both declined to comment when reached by National Review. Lemieux insists he suffers from gigantomachia, a medical condition, and was born intersex. Recent reporting suggests otherwise, as Lemieux has repeatedly been spotted dressed as a man in public, without his prosthetic breasts.

Malott, who identifies as transgender but believes a school dress code is necessary and would be beneficial, laid blame for the ensuing chaos at the feet of Ennis and Halton school-board members who “are deeply entrenched in critical social justice. When they are taking that approach to these sorts of matters, they’re not looking at equality. They’re looking at equity.”

The values that prevented the district from taking swift action in response to Lemieux’s bizarre mode of dress have trickled down throughout the local school system, instilling a rigid intellectual homogeneity on the subject of gender ideology.

One parent, Lynn Petruskavich, a self-described “mainstream media consumer,” admitted she was “in a little bit of an echo chamber” and had begun reading new publications to get outside her comfort zone.

“I really believe in democracy, frankly. You should be able to engage with any idea. There’s nothing fearful or harmful about ideas, even if they’re difficult,” she told NR. “I encourage people to do that. In fact, to me, what I went to university for was to learn how to be a critical thinker and evaluate all positions.”

But Petruskavich’s daughter, while in high school in Halton, was shocked when she discovered a copy of Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier in their home. The teenager was “taken aback that I even had that book in the house,” Petruskavich said. Shrier argues that skyrocketing rates of transgender identification are tied to a “social contagion” and cites a number of similar historical episodes affecting young women, notably anorexia and bulimia. Controversy surrounding the book led protesters to demand that bookstores and libraries boycott the publication to protest Shrier’s alleged transphobia.

What happened with Shrier’s book stuck in Petruskavich’s mind and bothered her. “I thought that was an interesting strategy if you’re trying to teach young children not to engage with ideas: just label someone blasphemous and bigoted just for owning the book.”

Petruskavich used the incident to speak to her daughter about the importance of engaging with different perspectives. “I said, just because I own a book doesn’t mean I agree with it; it doesn’t mean I believe 90 percent of it or even 10 percent. But the point of having a brain that can think is that you should engage with all these perspectives and then start to formulate your own stance.”

The notion was alien to Petruskavich’s daughter, who’d spent all her school years in Halton classrooms. Her daughter’s inability to grasp that people might own and read a book they disagree with felt to Petruskavich like a failure of the public-education system.

More troubling were the concepts that formed her daughter’s view of the world: equity, inclusivity, diversity, and a warped version of tolerance that doesn’t extend to ideological or political differences. Petruskavich, who had worked for various nonprofits over her career and in 2015 was chosen to be the torchbearer representing her community when Canada hosted the Pan Am Games, was familiar with those concepts.

“I have been on staff teams that look like a United Nations advertisement,” said Petruskavich.

“There’s no group in my mind that is diverse if you are all ideologically the same. That’s what I was noticing. There was more and more of this sense of being ideologically consistent with one another. So as long as you say the same talking point and language, then that was accepted. I think that’s what we’re starting to see with the school boards.”

The controversy at Halton led Petruskavich to join a group of concerned parents advocating for greater accountability and the creation of a professional dress code. Rather than addressing the evident policy gap, Ennis tarred the group and its legal representative, Rishi Bandu, as “far right” and “transphobic.” Ignoring a petition signed by 16,000 concerned parents, Ennis dallied as bomb threats wracked Oakville Trafalgar High School — Lemieux’s workplace — repeatedly shutting down the school.

A fellow Halton mom shared with Petruskavich that her daughter called her a “transphobe” for objecting to Lemieux’s overtly sexualized attire.

“Schools are wading in dangerous territory by pitting children against their parents,” Petruskavich said. “The bond between parent and child is sacred and should never be weaponized by activists posing as school administrators. It reminds me of the youth that were [encouraged] to turn their own loved ones in for wrongthink/wrongspeak in China and Germany.”

Malott, the transgender former school-board candidate, is deeply sympathetic to the plight of transgender kids. She grew up in an Evangelical household and struggled with gender dysphoria throughout her life, leading her to attempt suicide. “I want kids to be accepted,” Malott says.

However, she fears that social pressures may be influencing many impressionable children, too. “It’s gone entirely the other way where it’s come to a place of promotion. It’s become such a place of rah-rah LGBT pride that you can’t do anything but advocate and cheer it on. In a way, that is what got me really concerned.”

Although Malott determined that medical transition was right for her, she feels that many children have been pushed into making the same choice out of social pressure. “I don’t want to see some kid fall into this because their friends are doing it, because it’s cool, because it’s glamorized at school. My experience with the education system has been that that absolutely happens with some kids.”

“When you’re entrenched in that postmodern, deconstructive angle,” Malott added of Ennis and HDSB, “this is where you end up.”

Halton is just one of the many school districts across the province that have been captured by an extreme version of gender ideology that tolerates no dissent.

Carolyn Burjoski, a veteran teacher with two decades of experience, was excoriated by Waterloo’s board after attending a meeting in January 2022 to express her concerns about the age-appropriateness of books offered in elementary-school libraries.

The district was in the process of “culling” classics from schools while turning a blind eye to disturbing sexualized content. The disconnect led Burjoski to approach the board with her apprehensions.

“I am very concerned that some of the resources in some of our elementary school libraries are inappropriate for young children,” Burjoski said during a digital presentation she gave at a board meeting.

Burjoski walked the board through a PowerPoint slideshow of books offered to children from kindergarten through sixth grade. The first was Rick by Alex Gino, an award-winning LGBT children’s author. The book features conversations between two boys — Rick and Jeff — about naked girls. The former fears that something is wrong with him because he does not think about naked girls, which leads him to being invited to the school’s “Rainbow Club” and consequently to self-identifying as asexual.

“While reading this book I was thinking, maybe Rick doesn’t have sexual feelings yet because he is a child. It concerns me that this book leaves young boys wondering if there is something wrong with them if they aren’t thinking about naked girls all the time,” Burjoski noted. “Also, what message does this book send to young girls who might be in grade 3 or 4? They are children. Let them grow up in their own time and stop pressuring them to be sexual so soon.”

As Burjoski turned to the next slide in her presentation, school-board chairman Scott Piatkowski stopped the teacher. “I am just getting a little concerned that your content may be problematic. I’m not sure exactly where you’re headed but I would caution you to make sure that you are not saying anything that would violate the human rights code.”

“Oh, I’m not saying anything that would harm—” Burjoski tries to respond before Piatkowski interjects.

“I am just concerned, so please continue. That will not count against your time.”

The next book Burjoski highlighted was The Other Boy, by MG Hennessey, which follows the story of a biological girl named Shane who identifies as a boy, takes puberty blockers, and is eager to begin hormone-replacement therapy. When a doctor warns that the procedures may leave Shane infertile, the character responds nonchalantly: “It’s cool.”

“This book is misleading because it does not take into account how Shane might feel later in life about being infertile. This book makes very serious medical interventions seem like an easy cure for emotional and social distress­—” Burjoski explains before Piatkowski jumps in again.

“Ok, so I’m gonna have to stop you,” Piatkowski insists, adding that the teacher may have violated the provincial human-rights code, which prohibits discrimination based on the broadest possible interpretation of gender identity and expression. Shortly thereafter, Burjoski was placed on “home assignment,” forbidding her from retiring, just weeks later, with “dignity and respect.”

The board’s treatment of Burjoski is unsettling, given her exemplary track record as a teacher.

In 2013, she was featured in a local newspaper underscoring her work teaching young refugees freshly landed in Canada after fleeing war-torn regions such as Myanmar, Uganda, and Iraq. “I worked with children who had gaps in their education because they came from countries with political strife and war. I loved working with new Canadians, meeting their families, and being invited into their homes for wonderful meals,” Burjoski told a local news outlet.

Burjoski’s lawyers encouraged her not to comment on the matter because of an ongoing lawsuit with the board.

While the district has historically preserved its meeting recordings online, Waterloo removed the exchange from YouTube and never reposted it. According to the board, it would not publicize the matter over concerns that it may amount to a human-rights violations and harm the LGBT community.

Burjoski has since shared the recording online.

Piatkowski did not respond for comment. However, statements he made to a local news station reveal he has no misgivings about his behavior during the meeting.

“I felt that the delegate was erasing the existence of trans people, that they were essentially questioning whether people who identify as trans or nonbinary had a right to exist and really that was the fundamental issue,” Piatkowski said.