In the small Ottawa Valley town of Pembroke, hundreds gathered for an annual freedom rally featuring doctors, scientists, analysts, and educators who sounded the alarm on what they described as Canada’s “quiet cultural revolution.” Among the most powerful testimonies came from Matt Alexander — a former teacher with 23 years of service — who revealed how he and his wife lost their careers, pensions, and livelihoods because they refused to comply with new ideological mandates inside local schools.
The Alexander Family: A Case Study in Cancel Culture
Matt is the father of Josh Alexander, the high school student expelled from a Catholic school after speaking out against biological males entering girls’ bathrooms. That controversy drew national headlines. But as Matt explained, his own story, and that of his wife, may be even more revealing.
After more than two decades of teaching in Renfrew County, Matt and his wife were abruptly terminated. Their “crime”? Refusing to celebrate and affirm LGBTQ ideology to children as young as three years old.
“For clarity, this wasn’t a requirement to not discriminate,” Alexander told the audience. “This was a requirement to celebrate and affirm. Every teacher, in Catholic or public boards alike, was told they must endorse homosexuality and transgenderism — or risk being canceled.”
Fired for Refusing to Indoctrinate
Matt’s testimony detailed a chilling sequence of events. He was suspended without warning after his son’s activism in Toronto, where Josh distributed Bibles and prayed with students. Days later, his wife was suspended after quietly removing a rainbow poster that had been taped to her kindergarten classroom door.
“She didn’t make a scene. She didn’t deface anything,” Matt recounted. “She simply removed the poster, began teaching her class, and was summoned to the office. Within minutes, she was suspended and ordered to pack her belongings.”
Both husband and wife were later terminated unless they signed a written pledge to “celebrate and affirm” LGBTQ identities in classrooms.
Josh Alexander’s Punishment: The “Exclusion” Loophole
Matt also revealed how Josh himself was erased from the school system through a little-known disciplinary mechanism called an “exclusion.”
“A student who brings a weapon can be expelled,” Matt explained. “Josh simply used words — and he was excluded. They invented a new category to silence him.”
Unlike suspension or expulsion, exclusion leaves no formal record, but it permanently barred Josh from completing high school. It was a bureaucratic trick designed to neutralize dissent without public scrutiny.
Sons Under Siege
The Alexanders’ younger children also became targets.
- Nick, Josh’s brother, was physically attacked by LGBT activists in Toronto — what Matt referred to as the “rainbow mafia” — leaving him bloodied.
- The family’s youngest son was suspended for wearing a Save Canada hat, declared “against board policy.”
“These are not isolated incidents,” Matt warned. “Catholic or public, they’re all the same. Parents must be nosy — get inside the schools and ask questions.”
A Larger Crisis: From Faith to Forced Compliance
Once a proud atheist, Matt told the Pembroke audience that his Christian faith now drives his defiance. He warned that parents must stop treating schools as neutral institutions.
“What happens in schools, stays in schools,” he said. “Your children will not come home and tell you what’s happening. Parents must ask questions — demand answers — because indoctrination is happening behind closed doors.”
He described rainbow flags suddenly appearing on classroom doors after his suspension, comparing it to biblical symbolism:
“They knew where the judgment would come from, and they bowed.”
The Union’s Betrayal
Even the teachers’ union, which initially admitted that his dismissal was wrongful, refused to defend Matt’s Charter rights of religion, conscience, and expression.
“When you’re unionized, you don’t have any rights,” he said. “The union owns your rights.”
He warned that teachers’ dues are funding the very ideological agendas being weaponized against them.
The Communist Drift
Throughout his speech, Alexander drew a direct line between ideological mandates in Canadian schools and broader authoritarian patterns.
“Canada is no longer free,” he declared. “We live in a quasi-communist state where dissent is punished, and compliance is bought with paychecks and pensions. The school boards demand ideological obedience, and the unions enforce it.”
His warning extended beyond education to the survival of Western values themselves:
“If we sit back, our children will inherit nothing. They will own nothing — and be told to be happy.”
Faith Over Fear
Matt underscored that he was not motivated by money or career survival but by a higher calling.
“The board expected that holding a paycheck and a pension over our heads would force compliance,” he said. “But I’m not afraid of the school board’s judgment. I fear God’s judgment. And I refuse to celebrate what my conscience and faith cannot.”
He compared Canada’s culture of fear to whispers in grocery store aisles and office lunchrooms, where citizens speak in hushed tones to avoid punishment. “Parents are afraid,” he said. “But they shouldn’t be.”
Legal Fight Ahead
The Alexanders are not walking away quietly. With the support of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, they have filed human rights complaints against the school board. The outcome, he said, could set a precedent for freedom of conscience in Canada.
But Matt warned that only public courage can reverse the tide: “The only way these things will ever change is if people challenge them. You shouldn’t need to keep your voice low in aisle nine of the grocery store.”
A Call to Action
The Pembroke event highlighted how the Alexanders’ struggle is emblematic of a broader war over truth, freedom, and culture in Canada. What began with one student’s stand for women’s safety in bathrooms has exposed how deeply ideology now controls Catholic and public schools alike.
“Parents are afraid,” Matt concluded. “But Jesus said fear not. It’s time to speak, it’s time to act, and it’s time to reclaim our schools, our children, and our country.
