Ontario’s new sex education curriculum will not be changed once it’s made public later this winter, and students will begin learning it next fall, Education Minister Liz Sandals said Wednesday.

“We have done a lot of consultation,” Sandals told reporters after Progressive Conservative MPP Monte McNaughton, a candidate for his party’s leadership, complained parents have not had enough input.

Sandals inherited the job of updating the health and physical education plan after former premier Dalton McGuinty’s government withdrew it in 2010 with an election looming the following year.

There were objections from some religious leaders and parents concerned that children would be taught about masturbation and homosexuality, but McGuinty was also criticized for bowing to a vocal minority in the faith community.

Premier Kathleen Wynne said the new version — now being translated into French and recycled from 2010 in consultation with 4,000 school council representatives across the province — will be posted on the ministry’s website “within weeks.”

It’s expected to teach Grade 3 children about same-sex marriages and homosexuality, include discussions about puberty and masturbation in Grade 6, and cover sexually transmitted diseases in Grade 7 — possibly including information on oral and anal sex.

McNaughton said a “real consultation process” should begin once the document is made public and called for any sex-education instruction to be “age appropriate” — but repeatedly refused to outline what topics are suitable at various ages.

“Enough of the secrecy,” he said to Wynne in the legislature. “When are you going to start respecting the role of all parents in the education of their children?”

The last time the curriculum was updated was in 1998 — well before the Internet and sexting took hold with school kids — which makes it “dangerously out of date,” said Wynne, who accused McNaughton of “fear-mongering.”

Citing research from the World Health Organization, Sandals said “when kids get the information they need in a timely fashion . . . they are less likely to have inappropriate sexual behaviour.”

“We want our kids to be safe. We want our kids to be healthy. We want our kids to have accurate information.”

Teachers will begin learning the new curriculum this spring in preparation for teaching it in September, Sandals added, saying the ministry is making it public so parents can talk to their kids about it.

“We’re not trying to replace the conversations parents have with children . . . about their religious beliefs, about their ethical beliefs, about their moral beliefs, about their cultural beliefs.”

Rev. Charles McVety, who spearheaded opposition to the sex ed curriculum five years ago, said he would find it “appalling” if the new version is the same the one introduced five years ago.

“It was tried, and found wanting. It was rejected by Ontario so to bring it back exactly the way it was would be horrific.”

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McVety said he wishes the education ministry had brought “real people to the table” to discuss the changes.

“Why are parents being kept in the dark about what their children are going to be taught?”

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