A shocking disregard for the well-being of children

In fall 2023, my child’s school shared information about its upcoming “Human Sexuality” unit. I checked the website provided. Prominently displayed on the launch page are their six partner organizations, one of which is the Fyrefly Institute at the University of Alberta. This alarmed me because in 2021 I had raised concerns with my employer, the University of Alberta, about Camp Fyrefly (a project of the Fyrefly Institute) promoting Sophie Labelle on their website.

Sophie Labelle had been an “artist in residence” with Camp Fyrefly in 2019. By 2021, it was public knowledge that Mr. Labelle was a producer of fetish drawings of “diaper porn” that used photos of real human babies as source inspiration. Why, then, was he was still being promoted on a University of Alberta website? To my astonishment, it took quite a bit of back and forth to get the University to treat this with the appropriate level of concern – although Mr. Labelle’s photo and information were, ultimately, removed from the Fyrefly Institute’s website. I include the relevant correspondence at the end of this post.

In fall 2023, I contacted both the Edmonton Public School Superintendent Darrel Robertson and School Board Chair Julie Kusiek to apprise them of this history and explain that I did not believe Fyrefly was appropriately serious about child safeguarding and, thus, should not be used as a partner by Edmonton Public Schools. After several email exchanges and phone calls EPSB indicated that it would not be advising me of any future decisions about the matter. Fyrefly remains partnered with the Edmonton Public Schools and Alberta public schools more broadly, though its Fyrefly In Schools program.

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