'Tamil students protest outside school board', Feb. 13
Three cheers for Tamil-Canadian students protesting outside their school board's offices. Schools are supposed to be about education and exchanging information, not silencing students who want to discuss something controversial.
Telling Tamil students they can't discuss the war in Sri Lanka in class because their views are one-sided is not unlike a school board telling First Nations students they can't discuss the abuse their relatives suffered in the residential schools because their views would be one-sided. So why not present a balanced unbiased discussion of the war in Sri Lanka?
The facts are freely available from Amnesty International, the Red Cross, the UN and many other neutral sources. What happens in Sri Lanka is very topical in Toronto schools because Toronto is home to the largest Sri Lankan Tamil population outside of Sri Lanka. And yet, most non-Tamil Canadians know nothing about the war in Sri Lanka that has claimed nearly 100,000 lives.
Clearly, on this subject the Toronto District School Board gets a failing grade.
Steve Pitt