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Photo by Chris Young / THE CANADIAN PRESS

So Ford has promised the biggest consultation in the history of Ontario, with sessions in all 124 provincial ridings, to inform another whack at what was already the most-consulted-upon curriculum document in the province. In the meantime, this fall, we’re expected to go back to 20-year-old materials that reflect 1998’s ideas of what kids needed to know about nutrition, exercise, peer pressure, drugs and sex.

The Tories have said we’re just going back to the curriculum we used in 2014. That is literally true but the material was 16 years old then and everyone knew it was outdated.

Among the subjects the 1998 health curriculum does not cover is mental health, for instance. It’s just nowhere in the 40-page document. In the 2015 version, emotions and psychology were everywhere, with detailed instructions for teachers on how to handle delicate subjects like suicide. Now we’re going back to the old way.

Depressed? Anxious? Suicidal thoughts? Yeah, sorry, we’ve got nothing for you, kid. Maybe next year. For now, we’re trying to deal with some made-up complaints.

The campaign against the 2015 health curriculum was profoundly dishonest. Opposing sex-education in schools is one thing. Disputing which facts and concepts should be taught when is another thing a reasonable person might do. But the document simply did not say the things the people attacking it claimed it said, which is easily checked by reading it.

It was more detailed than the one it replaced, which is a key reason it was six times as long. It was full of sample questions and answers, so teachers — very few of whom likely got into the business because they were eager to go on about penises to six year olds — would be better equipped to deal with students’ inquiries. It was blunt but clinical.