Our council began to form in 1996 in response to sex-education which was being offered by public schools in partnership with Public Health. At that time we found the approach and support materials to be vulgar and something which would lead to sexual experimentation among our children. Since that time we have been committed to changing the approach and ideology and have been successful in some respects.

Public Health referred to their approach as comprehensive safe-sex education, I refer to it as condom-based, value-free, have more sex education.

Does it really matter? After all, don't we live in a free country? It is not illegal for our adolescents to engage in premarital sexual activity. Our kids have the right to choose what they do with their sexual organs! That is why we currently spend $587,000 annually on our sexual health clinics which assist our youths who choose to exercise their right to pre-marital sexual activity. This is one popular perspective, not one however which I share.

I propose that the question should not be if adolescent pre-marital sexual activity is legal but rather, is it beneficial? Is it beneficial physically, emotionally, spiritually or financially? If the answer is Yes, then let us spend more money to hire more public health nurses to run more sexual health clinics in order that more of our adolescents may exercise their right to pre-marital sexual activity. However, if the answer is No, then we must make every effort to ensure our youth understand their responsibility to themselves and to society to not engage in pre-marital sexual activity and see that they fulfill their responsibility.

Rights versus responsibilities? Sadly this question is rarely posed. Please refer to page 1 of your package, Ten Reasons Your Taxes are Going Up, from the Hamilton Spectator dated December 28, 2002.

Here, the first bar chart shows that social-service taxes for a home assessed at $200,000 is $550 in Hamilton versus $340 in Halton. More concerning is the second chart which shows that for an industrial building assessed at $200,000 in Hamilton, social-service taxes are $2,463 versus $803 in Halton. I believe we all understand the impact of high business taxes; that is, less businesses to tax.

What is the relationship between adolescent pre-marital sexual activity and social-service taxes?

Increased adolescent pre-marital sexual activity equals increased teen pregnancies;
increased teen pregnancies equals increased single teen mothers;
increased single teen mothers equals increased reliance on social services;
increased reliance on social services equals higher social service costs;
increased social service costs equals increased social service taxes.

There is a direct relationship:

Increased adolescent pre-marital sexual activity equals increased social service taxes; therefore reducing adolescent pre-marital sexual activity equals reduced social service taxes. The question now becomes, How do we reduce adolescent pre-marital sexual activity?

Please refer to the first page of your package where you will find a graph prepared by our Council which was presented to the Committee of the Whole in February of 2002. This graph illustrates 15 - 19-yr.-olds' pregnancy rates for both Hamilton-Wentworth and the province of Ontario. At the time of our 2002 presentation, 1997 was the latest data available. We now have more current data which will be discussed a little later. It is important to note also that this is more than just a graph, it is also a time-line displaying chronological events which have occurred at various points in time and shows how teen pregnancies reacted to each significant event.

The pregnancy rates are expressed in pregnancies / 1000 population, ages 15-19. For example, if we look at 1976, we see Hamilton's rates at 61.5 / 1000. Today, in Hamilton, that would result in approximately 940 of our 15-19-year-old girls becoming pregnant each year. Imagine the social service costs for 940 unwed teen mothers?

The province recognized this as a significant concern and, as noted along the top of your graph, it was in 1976 that the province mandated sexual health education programs. Programs which were relatively short in duration, encouraged students to refrain from sexual activity and held the expectation that sexual activity was something to be maintained within the bounds of marriage.

Sadly, in 1986 another significant event occurred which would wipe out much of this positive progress; this was the forming of PHRED. As we can see by the graph, the next 10 years following PHRED's founding did not bode well for teen pregnancy rates either provincially or locally. I would ask you to keep this graph in mind as we now review pages 3 and 4 of your package, as follows:Pertinent Questions

Please return to your graph on page 1 of your package and look at the year 1997. There we see Hamilton-Wentworth 15-19-yr.-old's pregnancy rates at 51.3 / 1000; 23% higher than the province. Also, please note the time-line notes that in 1997, Hamilton-Wentworth Family Action Council intervened.

In late 1996, HWFAC looked closely at what was happening and researched the claims of Public Health and Planned Parenthood, that their condom-based/value-free/comprehensive sex-ed approach was the most effective way to combat teen pregnancies. After a period of diligent research and data collection, we found that in fact, as can be seen on the graph, this approach had significantly increased our teen pregnancy rates.

Immediately our council began to educate regional councilors, one at a time, and made presentations to the social services and public health committee and to the school boards. We informed parents across the region of the vulgar curriculum and support material being used in the public school classrooms and in public health/planned parenthood clinics.

What impact did HWFAC's efforts in educating councilors, trustees and parents have?

• Regional councillors directed public health to put more balance in their approach with respect to abstinence.
• Some of the vulgar posters, brochures and flyers were removed from the sexual health clinics.
• Parents withdrew their children from public health school programs in significant numbers and informed the school board of their distrust in public health program.
• Regional councilors directed Public Health to establish and fund the Sexual Health Network whose mandate is postponement of sexual activity in Hamilton's adolescents.

Please turn to the table on page 5 of your package. Here it can be seen that:

• clinic funding was reduced 11.4% from 1997 to 1999;
• clinic hours were reduced 29.7% from 1997 to 1999;
• most significant was the In-Clinic Client Visits Under 19 years of age. This teen population attendance declined 57% over the 2 years from 12,637 to 5,445.

This is a Hamilton Spectator article of February 13, 1997, written during the time period when HWFAC was educating the public. It is entitled Planned Parenthood Makes its Case. I wish to review the highlighted portion:

"Program reduction will result in reduced use of medical services by sexually active teenaged girls. This will lead to increased adolescent pregnancy, increased abortions, increased numbers of adolescent mothers on social assistance, and increased rates of sexually transmitted diseases. A key Ontario study has clearly demonstrated that adolescent pregnancy is lower in communities with a combination of sexuality education in schools and sexual health clinics that provide contraceptives."

Let me be fair about this point; Planned Parenthood was not alone in these claims. Public Health also claimed that what was needed to lower teen pregnancy rates was more nurses to bring more of the same condomized social engineering program that had been failing for 10 years. At least one councilor who supported our intervention, remarked to me, "You had better be right about all of this."

Key social service agencies, councilors and newspapers cried that HWFAC intervention would bring doom for Hamilton's teen pregnancy rates. What really did happen? Had reduced exposure of our teens to Public Health/Planned Parenthood ideology cause our teen pregnancy rates to spiral out of control?

Please turn to page 7 of your package where you will again find a graph similar to the one on page 2. However, it is different. The years 1998 and 1999 have been added. It has taken our council 3 years to obtain this information from the Ministry of Health through the Information & Privacy Commissioner's Office who ruled that the Ministry of Health must provide it to HWFAC.

Here it can be seen that, during the first 2 years of our intervention, while attendance in clinics declined 57%, Hamilton's 15-19-year-old pregnancy rates declined 22.4% from 51.3/1000 to 39.8/1000; the lowest recorded 15-19 year old pregnancy rate on record. As you can see by the steepness of the slope, it was the most dramatic rate of decrease ever recorded over a 2-year period.

What does this mean in real terms?

It means this: in 1997, there were 754, 15-19-year-old pregnant girls in Hamilton; in 1999, 2 years later, that dropped to 610. 144 fewer pregnant 15-19-year-old girls in 1999 alone. For 1998 and 1999 combined, there 190 fewer. Is that significant? It is more than significant , it is astounding!!

In summary, during the years 1998 and 1999, attendance at public health/planned parenthood clinics was diminished to less than half with a 57% decline, and during that same period the pregnancy rates plummeted 22.4%; the steepest rate decrease in recorded history for Hamilton.

The impact on social service costs as a result of these 190 fewer pregnancies? I do not have the data to calculate, but would suggest it could very well exceed one million dollars ($1M)for 1999 alone, not to mention each year following. I would suggest that this committee inquire from your staff as to the financial impact of this pregnancy rate reduction.

To this day, HWFAC has not been offered any public funding nor would we accept it. We have been offered tremendous criticism, hostility and very little thanks publicly. Today we are not seeking funding or thanks, we are however continuing to request the same policy that we have sought over the past 7 years: That Public Health dollars be spent on promoting good health.

This we feel is rational and reasonable. It is long past time the song of "safe-sex" be dismantled and discarded. The damage has been clearly illustrated today, the evidence strong and the research solid. We must do everything we can to influence our children to postpone sexual activity until marriage. We and our children have paid the price of mixing social engineering and political correctness into our children's health classroom and it must stop. To continue to do so in light of all of today's evidence would not be ignorance - it would be foolish and needlessly destructive.

This brings us to the recommendations which you have had for 7 weeks now. Please allow me to read through them after which I welcome any comments or questions.