14 things newer than Ontario’s sex-ed curriculum

We’re just a day shy of Doug Ford’s two week anniversary as Premier of Ontario and he has already discovered time travel. He could have used this impressive feat to check out Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, or Woodstock, or even the invention of ice cream, but instead his government decided to roll back the Ontario sex-education curriculum to the 1998 version—which cuts out “radical” information like same-sex relationships, gender identity and cyberbullying. Come September, kids across the province will be taught a curriculum older than a lot of things in Canada. In fact, you may be surprised to learn how many things are newer than the “new” sex-ed curriculum: 

1. Camera phones:  The first camera phone—a silver flip phone basically as thick as a stick of butter—was sold in 2000 in Japan

2. The City of Ottawa: The amalgamation of Ottawa happened in 2001, merging the old city with 11 surrounding municipalities and the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton to form a new city

3. Same-sex marriage: Canada became the first country outside Europe to legalize same-sex marriage in July of 2005

4. Steve Irwin’s death: The world’s favourite crocodile connoisseur and wild man passed away in 2006 after a tragic run-in with a stingray

5. Thumb Drives: These little dudes started surfacing in Future Shop in 2000

6. The Lord of the Rings movies: The first Lord of the Rings movie came out in theatres in 2001

7. Lance Armstrong’s first Tour de France win: The cycling celebrity won his first 3,870 km race in 1999 and proceeded to win every year up until 2005. He was stripped of all these titles in 2012

8. World of Warcraft: The popular online fantasy game was first released in 2004

9. Nunavut: Nunavut separated from the Northwest Territories to become its own territory on April 1, 1999

10. Wi-Fi: Our lives may be wireless now, but it’s only been this way since 2003

11. Britney Spears: Now a drunken karaoke staple, the pop singer released her debut studio album …Baby One More Time in January of 1999

12. The Euro: The euro became an official currency in 1999 and banknotes were introduced three years later in 2002. (Today, it’s in use in 19 of the 28 member states of the European Union.)

13. Furbies: The creepy electronic robot pet was gifted to children across North America in 1998 following its launch around Christmas time

14. Google: The all-seeing, all-knowing company that now runs our lives was founded in September 1998. (And is likely what the future generation of Ontarians will be using for all of their unanswered questions about sex)