If you were scrolling through social media this week, you may have seen a claim by the BC Conservatives that the NDP government defunded SOGI 123.
And yet the BC NDP Minister of Education, Lisa Beare, insists that this is not the case.
So which is it?
In their press release, the BC Conservatives explain their headline a bit more: the “government has ended funding for the ARC Foundation, which developed and promotes SOGI.”
The latter half of the statement is certainly true. The ARC Foundation did indeed pioneer the three-part SOGI 123 within schools in British Columbia and beyond. The first part of SOGI 123 was to convince schools to establish policies that would “protect” students who identified as LGBTQ. The provincial government supported this endeavour in 2016 by requiring that all schools include references to sexual orientation and gender identity in their school’s anti-bullying policies.
Part two of SOGI 123 was to create “inclusive environments” for students who reject the sexual and gendered identities that God calls them to. This might include filling schools with rainbow flags, organizing LGBTQ clubs, or celebrating Pride Month.
But the final part of SOGI 123 – teaching resources – has received the most attention. ARC has developed 147 teaching resources and lesson plans in both English and French for kindergarten to grade 12 students to promote alternative gender identities and sexual orientations. While strictly speaking this isn’t a “curriculum” – it isn’t mandated by the provincial government in any course – the government boasts that all 60 public school districts across the province voluntarily use these teaching resources.
It also appears that the provincial government has decided to end funding for the ARC Foundation. A leaked letter to the ARC Foundation community states that, “due to provincial budget cuts in various sectors, the BC Ministry of Education has made the decision to discontinue funding for SOGI 123 as of this year.” The CBC confirmed that ARC received $350,000 from the provincial government in the 2023-24 and the 2024-25 fiscal years, $200,000 in 2025-26, and zero dollars this fiscal year.
The withdrawal of money to activist organizations like the ARC Foundation that promote gender ideology is certainly a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, it is unlikely to make that much of a difference in the classroom for a few reasons.
First, the ARC Foundation receives money from sources other than the provincial government. It is true that they received a substantial portion of their funding from the provincial government. According to the CRA, 54% of ARC’s revenue came from provincial governments in 2024, with the remainder coming from private donations, annuities and interest. That’s a significant portion coming from provincial governments, but barely a majority. In 2025, ARC reported that government funding came not just from the BC government ($236,000), but also from the Yukon government ($75,000), the Nova Scotia government ($23,631), as well as a new federal government grant ($471,352). Even if the British Columbian government does cease to fund the ARC Foundation and, by extension, its SOGI 123 program, both will continue to exist.
But even more importantly, the government doesn’t directly control SOGI 123. Even if it turns off the funding taps to the program, the SOGI 123 teaching resources are still online for any teacher to use, schools likely have accumulated much Pride paraphernalia over the years, and school policies have already been rewritten over the past decade. Only defunding organizations that promote gender ideology in schools, although one of the recommendations in our Back to Basics policy report, won’t fix the problem.
More aggressive action is needed. Governments must add a curriculum requirement to teach that there are only two sexes/genders, remove references to ideologically laden concepts from curriculum and ministry-approved teaching resources, and require that parents opt their child into any class that will explicitly discuss gender ideology. And a host of policies – from bullying policies to sport policies to bathroom policies – need to be altered too.
All of these changes will require the government to change legislation and regulations, not just funding decisions. Alberta moved in this direction with Bill 27 in 2024 when, among other things, it required any resources or presenters related to gender identity, sexual orientation, or human sexuality to be approved by the provincial government. Such a policy allows the Alberta government to prevent teachers from using any SOGI 123 teaching resources if they so choose. In case teachers wanted to teach on these topics without using external resources, Bill 27 also required parents to opt in their child to lessons that deal with gender identity, sexual orientation, or human sexuality. If administered properly, these policies could actually keep SOGI out of the classroom.
And so, even if it is accurate to say that SOGI 123 has been defunded by the provincial government in British Columbia, it is a very long way from being defeated entirely. Even if the cash-strapped BC NDP government is ceasing to fund SOGI, it still is very much behind gender ideology.
