Ontario Conservative leader John Tory has introduced a classic, indeed hoary, issue into the upcoming provincial election campaign: whether we ought to publicly fund faith based schools.
Tory has pledged that if his Conservatives win office, they will extend full public funding to faith based schools in addition to the funding which already exists for the Ontario Catholic Separate School System. According to his estimate this would cost taxpayers about $400 million annually. His argument is simple, not to say simple-minded: if it is fair for Catholic schools to receive public funding then it is fair for funding to be extended to schools of other faiths, including Jewish and Muslim schools.
History and equity don’t always result in neat solutions, as anyone familiar with the history of Canada and of Ontario, in particular, ought to know.
The case for a separate school system in Ontario was a part of a broader political compact that made Confederation possible. Without that compact, there would be no Canada. In the colonies that made up the future Canadian federation in the 1860s, there was a fundamental demographic divide. Looking back on that era from our day, we are inclined to see the divide as linguistic, English and French. At least as important in that day, however, was the divide between Protestants and Roman Catholics.
The Canadian Constitution, originally the BNA Act of 1867 (Constitution Act of 1867), lays bare the political compact of the 1860s. Under the constitution, Roman Catholic minorities outside Quebec, and Catholics and Protestants in Quebec, were given the authority to maintain the school systems they had established by the time of the union. Section 93 of the BNA Act stipulated that:
“In and for each Province the Legislature may exclusively make Laws in relation to Education, subject and according to the following Provisions:
1. Nothing in any such Law shall prejudicially affect any Right or Privilege with respect to Denominational Schools which any Class of Persons have by Law at the Union:
2. All the Powers, Privileges and Duties at the Union by Law conferred and imposed in Upper Canada on the Separate Schools and School Trustees of the Queen’s Roman Catholic Subjects shall be and the same are hereby extended to the Dissentient Schools of the Queen’s Protestant and Roman Catholic Subjects in Quebec:
3. Where in any Province a System of Separate or Dissentient Schools exists by Law at the Union or is thereafter established by the Legislature of the Province, an Appeal shall lie to the Governor General in Council from any Act or Decision of any Provincial Authority affecting any Right or Privilege of the Protestant or Roman Catholic Minority of the Queen’s Subjects in relation to education:
4. In case any such Provincial Law as from Time to Time seems to the Governor General in Council requisite for the Executive of the Provisions of this Section is not made, or in case any Decision of the Governor General in Council on any Appeal under this Section is not duly executed by the proper Provincial Authority in that Behalf, then and in every such Case, and as far as the Circumstances of each Case require, the Parliament of Canada may make remedial Laws for the due Execution of the Provisions of this Section and of any Decision of the Governor General in Council under this Section.”
Because there was not much public funding of education in 1867, the level of funding for these systems was left open for provincial governments to determine. This meant that the Catholic minority in Ontario had a constitutional right to its school system, but that the level of funding of the system was a matter for politicians at Queen’s Park to debate.
Over the past several decades there has been significant evolution of the constitution on this set of issues in a number of provinces, resulting in several types of systems. For instance, in 1997, section 93 of the Constitution Act of 1867 was amended to remove the application of paragraphs 1 through 4 (cited above) to Quebec. Instead of the previous arrangement which arose out of the compact of 1867, the amendment allowed for the reorganization of school boards in Quebec along linguistic lines. Instead of Catholic and Protestant school systems, there were to be French and English language systems. The amendment of 1997 was the culmination of a debate in Quebec on the issue that began in the early 1960s.
Ontario evolved in a different way. The province had no intention of becoming officially bilingual as New Brunswick had and showed no desire to reconstruct its schools systems in the way Quebec had. It’s not hard to see why this was the case. In Ontario, the Roman Catholic population is not predominantly French speaking. In the 2001 Census, 34 per cent of Ontarians declared themselves to be Roman Catholic, while only 4.4 per cent of the population is made up of people whose first language is French. There are 3.86 million Catholics in Ontario, compared with 3.9 million Protestants. Sixteen per cent of Ontarians described themselves as having no religion. Eighty-five per cent of Ontarians have designated themselves as Protestant, Catholic or as having no religion. Other religious groups in the province include members of various Christian Orthodox faiths, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs.
As a consequence of historical evolution, Ontario now has two very large publicly funded school systems, the Public School System and the Catholic Separate School System. In the mid 1980s, at a time when all three major political parties in the province supported the idea, full funding was extended to the Catholic Separate School System.
About 95 per cent of Ontario’s children attend one of these two systems. The systems operate in all parts of the provinces and ratepayers devote a portion of their property taxes to whichever of the systems they support. In municipal elections, voters choose trustees for the system they support (they can also support the French public system, which is much smaller).
No abstract thinker starting from scratch would establish a system such as the one we now have in Ontario. But our system was not created from scratch. It evolved over a span of more than a century and a half. For much of that time, the province was deeply divided between a dominant Protestant community, in which the Orange Order held great power, and a minority Catholic community. The public school system, as recently as my own days in it five decades ago, was really a Protestant system, with Protestant prayers and religious observances. Today, the public system is a genuinely secular system, to which people of all faiths or non-faiths can send their children. Alongside it is an enormous Catholic system that delivers a high quality of education to the children who attend it. The latter system is replete with teachers with a very wide range of views on all subjects. It is a system---I have had the pleasure of speaking to students in separate schools on a number of occasions---that opens the minds of students to the world around them.
No one in his or her right mind would seriously suggest that the separate school system ought to be shut down or merged with the public system. Such a drastic and unwarranted course would do a grave disservice to the young people of the province and would visit religious divisions and strife on us that we have successfully put behind us.
It is natural that some men and women of other faiths now make the case that public funds ought to be used to pay for the education of their children in their own faith based schools. It is, however, not in the best interest of Ontario for us to accede to that demand. Our society has an immense and overriding interest in keeping public education strong. This is a time when there are growing pressures among the wealthy and the privileged to strengthen private schools, to have us take the path of inequality that has been taken with lamentable results in Britain and the United States. Adding to the pressures from private schools, the public funding of a potentially long list of faith based schools, would condemn our public system to an uncertain future.
Estimates have been made that about fifty thousand students would have their faith based educations funded by John Tory’s proposition. It might start there, but it certainly wouldn’t end there. Over time, full funding would encourage tens of thousands of parents now sending their children to public schools to enroll them in parochial schools of one variety or another. That pressure on the public system would likely motivate still more wealthy parents to abandon public education.
To be fit to serve as premier of Ontario, a complex society with its own unique history, a leader ought to demonstrate a large measure of judgment, understanding and wisdom. In floating this campaign promise, John Tory has come up short.
Tory has pledged that if his Conservatives win office, they will extend full public funding to faith based schools in addition to the funding which already exists for the Ontario Catholic Separate School System. According to his estimate this would cost taxpayers about $400 million annually. His argument is simple, not to say simple-minded: if it is fair for Catholic schools to receive public funding then it is fair for funding to be extended to schools of other faiths, including Jewish and Muslim schools.
History and equity don’t always result in neat solutions, as anyone familiar with the history of Canada and of Ontario, in particular, ought to know.
The case for a separate school system in Ontario was a part of a broader political compact that made Confederation possible. Without that compact, there would be no Canada. In the colonies that made up the future Canadian federation in the 1860s, there was a fundamental demographic divide. Looking back on that era from our day, we are inclined to see the divide as linguistic, English and French. At least as important in that day, however, was the divide between Protestants and Roman Catholics.
The Canadian Constitution, originally the BNA Act of 1867 (Constitution Act of 1867), lays bare the political compact of the 1860s. Under the constitution, Roman Catholic minorities outside Quebec, and Catholics and Protestants in Quebec, were given the authority to maintain the school systems they had established by the time of the union. Section 93 of the BNA Act stipulated that:
“In and for each Province the Legislature may exclusively make Laws in relation to Education, subject and according to the following Provisions:
1. Nothing in any such Law shall prejudicially affect any Right or Privilege with respect to Denominational Schools which any Class of Persons have by Law at the Union:
2. All the Powers, Privileges and Duties at the Union by Law conferred and imposed in Upper Canada on the Separate Schools and School Trustees of the Queen’s Roman Catholic Subjects shall be and the same are hereby extended to the Dissentient Schools of the Queen’s Protestant and Roman Catholic Subjects in Quebec:
3. Where in any Province a System of Separate or Dissentient Schools exists by Law at the Union or is thereafter established by the Legislature of the Province, an Appeal shall lie to the Governor General in Council from any Act or Decision of any Provincial Authority affecting any Right or Privilege of the Protestant or Roman Catholic Minority of the Queen’s Subjects in relation to education:
4. In case any such Provincial Law as from Time to Time seems to the Governor General in Council requisite for the Executive of the Provisions of this Section is not made, or in case any Decision of the Governor General in Council on any Appeal under this Section is not duly executed by the proper Provincial Authority in that Behalf, then and in every such Case, and as far as the Circumstances of each Case require, the Parliament of Canada may make remedial Laws for the due Execution of the Provisions of this Section and of any Decision of the Governor General in Council under this Section.”
Because there was not much public funding of education in 1867, the level of funding for these systems was left open for provincial governments to determine. This meant that the Catholic minority in Ontario had a constitutional right to its school system, but that the level of funding of the system was a matter for politicians at Queen’s Park to debate.
Over the past several decades there has been significant evolution of the constitution on this set of issues in a number of provinces, resulting in several types of systems. For instance, in 1997, section 93 of the Constitution Act of 1867 was amended to remove the application of paragraphs 1 through 4 (cited above) to Quebec. Instead of the previous arrangement which arose out of the compact of 1867, the amendment allowed for the reorganization of school boards in Quebec along linguistic lines. Instead of Catholic and Protestant school systems, there were to be French and English language systems. The amendment of 1997 was the culmination of a debate in Quebec on the issue that began in the early 1960s.
Ontario evolved in a different way. The province had no intention of becoming officially bilingual as New Brunswick had and showed no desire to reconstruct its schools systems in the way Quebec had. It’s not hard to see why this was the case. In Ontario, the Roman Catholic population is not predominantly French speaking. In the 2001 Census, 34 per cent of Ontarians declared themselves to be Roman Catholic, while only 4.4 per cent of the population is made up of people whose first language is French. There are 3.86 million Catholics in Ontario, compared with 3.9 million Protestants. Sixteen per cent of Ontarians described themselves as having no religion. Eighty-five per cent of Ontarians have designated themselves as Protestant, Catholic or as having no religion. Other religious groups in the province include members of various Christian Orthodox faiths, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs.
As a consequence of historical evolution, Ontario now has two very large publicly funded school systems, the Public School System and the Catholic Separate School System. In the mid 1980s, at a time when all three major political parties in the province supported the idea, full funding was extended to the Catholic Separate School System.
About 95 per cent of Ontario’s children attend one of these two systems. The systems operate in all parts of the provinces and ratepayers devote a portion of their property taxes to whichever of the systems they support. In municipal elections, voters choose trustees for the system they support (they can also support the French public system, which is much smaller).
No abstract thinker starting from scratch would establish a system such as the one we now have in Ontario. But our system was not created from scratch. It evolved over a span of more than a century and a half. For much of that time, the province was deeply divided between a dominant Protestant community, in which the Orange Order held great power, and a minority Catholic community. The public school system, as recently as my own days in it five decades ago, was really a Protestant system, with Protestant prayers and religious observances. Today, the public system is a genuinely secular system, to which people of all faiths or non-faiths can send their children. Alongside it is an enormous Catholic system that delivers a high quality of education to the children who attend it. The latter system is replete with teachers with a very wide range of views on all subjects. It is a system---I have had the pleasure of speaking to students in separate schools on a number of occasions---that opens the minds of students to the world around them.
No one in his or her right mind would seriously suggest that the separate school system ought to be shut down or merged with the public system. Such a drastic and unwarranted course would do a grave disservice to the young people of the province and would visit religious divisions and strife on us that we have successfully put behind us.
It is natural that some men and women of other faiths now make the case that public funds ought to be used to pay for the education of their children in their own faith based schools. It is, however, not in the best interest of Ontario for us to accede to that demand. Our society has an immense and overriding interest in keeping public education strong. This is a time when there are growing pressures among the wealthy and the privileged to strengthen private schools, to have us take the path of inequality that has been taken with lamentable results in Britain and the United States. Adding to the pressures from private schools, the public funding of a potentially long list of faith based schools, would condemn our public system to an uncertain future.
Estimates have been made that about fifty thousand students would have their faith based educations funded by John Tory’s proposition. It might start there, but it certainly wouldn’t end there. Over time, full funding would encourage tens of thousands of parents now sending their children to public schools to enroll them in parochial schools of one variety or another. That pressure on the public system would likely motivate still more wealthy parents to abandon public education.
To be fit to serve as premier of Ontario, a complex society with its own unique history, a leader ought to demonstrate a large measure of judgment, understanding and wisdom. In floating this campaign promise, John Tory has come up short.
18 comments:
It was really wrong to extend the Catholic funding in the 1980s. By doing so we hurt the public system further and expanded the Catholic system.
Thus the solution is then to slowly reverse the process and start to reduce the funding such that over time Catholic students move back to the public system as they did prior to 1985 and then begin the process of dismantling it.
To think we should simply maintain an unfair status quo just "because" is wrong.
In the end Tory has allowed debate on something that could not be debated in 1985 when all three parties made a bad decision to extend funding.
Why should Quebec be able to alter the BNA Act and adjust to the relaties of the 20th (and 21st) century but not Ontario? To unify all boards Catholic and public would not be any more disruptive than amalgamation of boards was back in the mid 1990s.
"The systems operate in all parts of the provinces and ratepayers devote a portion of their property taxes to whichever of the systems they support."
Well kind of. All this money gathered from municipal taxes is sent to Queen's Park, and through a faulty funding formula, is distributed to 4 school systems. We prop up English and French speaking public school boards, and English and French speaking separate school boards.
In other words, all the money is thrown in one big pot and divided up according to this equitable across boards formula - from the Harris era of 1997.
Funny about that, but as you noted there is lot less catholic school supporters compared to Catholic school supporters, and yet - student to student - the Catholic system gets alot more per student.
"According to funding information from the Ontario Ministry of Education, the French public Conseil Scolaire du Nord-Est de l’Ontario will receive about $19,576 per student for the 2007-08 school year, almost $9,000 more than Near North schools, which will receive $10,885 per student.
Two other boards serving parts of the same area also receive more money per student than the Near North board. The French catholic Franco-Nord board will receive $14,694 per student, while the Nipissing-Parry Sound Catholic District School Board will receive $11,955.
The disparity has at least one Near North School Board member fuming" (North Star, News, Wednesday, April 18, 2007
by Jack Tynan).
What I remember in 2003, is that McGuinty ranted and raved how unfair this formula was and he vowed to fix it. Now in 2007, he promises to fix it by 2010. He hopes nobody noticed that he didn't keep that BIG promise. Oops.
Anyway, James I do take exception to your historical evolution of two publicly funded systems of education in Ontario and how the constitution made me do it philosophy or because of this historical evolution from the 19th century, it just would create way too much chaos, so let's leave it all the same.
1) The Supreme Court of Canada found in 1987 that Ontario was within its authority to voluntarily extend full funding to Catholic high schools through Bill 30. It was not obliged to do so, otherwise the Catholic community would have been successful years earlier in winning public funding to the end of high school.
What we have seen in the years since, however, is that provinces where certain faith groups were favoured with denominational school rights were easily able to rescind those rights. Quebec and Newfoundland eliminated "constitutionally enshrined" denominational school systems in the 1990s. The Constitution Act, 1982, provides a mechanism through which these rights can be rescinded through an agreement between Ottawa and the affected province.
2)That their is discrimination in our system towards other faith-based groups who want the same "privelege" to funding as the separate school system. This is not equitable or fair. Thus we should all or fund none.
3)Even if the province fixed the funding formula, it would not address declining enrolment affecting almost all boards across the province, including TDSB. As a pubic school trustee, I see a waste of education dollars going to prop up redundancy and waste with duplication of administration, services, and infrastructure. We have half-filled schools. Consolidation would free up a ton of money and resources, to put it where it counts - in the classroom where the students are!
4) As a Canadian woman living in Ontario in the 21 century, I am dismayed that you would evoke historical evolution of our system to justify your support of the status quo that is rooted in 1876 thinking. Thank goodness there were strong progressively minded women in the 20th century who ignored the historical constitutional times of the 19th century and fought for my right to vote. We evolved!
It's time that you joined the 21st century. P.S. Nova Scotia provides non-secretarian based education.
Our kids live together and play together in their communities, let’s have them learn together too!
Ontario is a democracy and the people will decide what is right and not right re funding of faith based schools. However there are certain realities which we cannot ignore. The family size of secular Ontarians, the 16% mentioned in the article, is very low. Meanwhile the family size of faith based communities is much larger and growing more and more due to immigration.
Political power will always rest with the people and as the demographics change in Ontario, so will the balance of power. In time secularists, who are the heart and soul of the public system, will become a very small minority assuming children of faith based communities are removed from the system. And many parents of faith based communities wish to do just that because some of their values are at odds with the values taught or conveyed in secular schools.
The challenge for secular schools is to appreciate the different value systems represented in faith based communities and to delete values which are hostile to the beliefs of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists,Christians,Jews etc.
Only by so doing, will parents of faith based communities have faith in the secular school system. And if the secularists fail to do this, they will experience democracy from a very different perspective. This is the reality of pluralistic Ontario.
Ellen
For God's sake let us keep religion out of the schools. Let's keep it in the homes and in the churches. It has no place in Public Education.
A non-sectarian school system is just that. All children from every faith community are welcome in the public school system now, no matter their religious or non-religious, class, sex, ability, and racial/ethnic backgrounds. In this regard, secular does not mean no "faith" but absence of any particular teachings from any particular faith community or religion.
It does not mean that people who work within the pubic school system do not belong to faith communities; it is just that education sticks to the 3 R's, so to speak. Providing an optional religious historical class, where all children could learn about all world religions and exchange their ideas and beliefs would certainly be welcomed, and in some high schools it is now offered as an accredited course. All schools could offer that.
Ellen, it is almost like you are saying that once certain religious groupings hit critical mass, they will dominant in Ontario, and separate along religious lines, and watch out. You can see the effects of widespread religious school funding by looking to England. There, parliamentarians recently considered forcing religious schools to open 25% of their spaces to children from outside of their faith in an attempt to mitigate the negative effects of increasing cultural isolation. It is statements like yours that makes the wider pubic be less inclined and very leery of funding all faith-based schools, beyond the ability of the taxpaying public to financially afford to do this.
If we spread our education dollars even more widely, we will compound the duplication penalty already borne by the taxpayer in funding four school systems serving overlapping jurisdictions. The per pupil cost of education rises as the density of the population served decreases. Any faith-based schools added to the public system will inevitably have higher per pupil costs than any of our existing schools. Alberta has a system like the one Tory is proposing here, and it is the most expensive in the country on both a per taxpayer and a per pupil basis.
In Newfoundland, for example, they went to a one school secular system because the province was literally going broke trying to fund over 350 separate religious-based schools. The province held a referendum and overwhelming supported going to a one school system, and eliminating separate funding to religious schools. The public voted with their pocket books!
Considering how much smaller in population this province is in comparison to Ontario, it boggles my mind what would happen in Ontario. And then, there would still be disenfranchised individuals who would not have their religious leanings met within our system. It would never end.
We are already hearing rumblings from the private school system, beyond the religious base, with “what about us too?” From the “fairness test” this is understandable.
Personally, and I am not alone here, I think that the Tories wider agenda is the total privatization of education. Non-religious schools will have a compelling "fairness" argument of their own if faith based schools get funding, and the courts could very well order support extended to them as well. Having voluntarily extended funding to non-Catholic religious schools, the government will not have a constitutional argument to justify discrimination, as they did when non-Catholic religious schools were denied funding by the Supreme Court.
Thus, my personal and public position – fund only one public school system – is principled, consistent and defensible, and the most economically viable one.
Public School Trustee
Thanks Jan for the excellent response to my post. And I'm honored to be interacting with a trustee. But the reality is that demograhics are changing and this change is the core of my argument. Please consider this fact from the Ontario government: Falling fertility rates.
* The total fertility rate fell below the replacement level of 2.1 in 1972. By 1985, it stood at 1.6 and had reached an all-time low of 1.48 in 2002 (latest complete data available).
The trend isn't good,if a group intends to maintain political power. Did you know that no society has ever recovered from a birth rate as low as 1.3 family members? Food for thought.
Ellen
It boggles my mind that a progressive person like James Laxer would say that he knows public schools are the best solution but that the change from our dual system to a one non-sectarian school system is too disruptive.
So let's ask ourselves how suddenly stopping the teaching of religion in a school will be disruptive? Let's ask ourselves how merging lists of student's names and reassigning to the nearest school will cause Ontario to go into reverse? Let's ask ourselves how parents who handle getting their children to school now, often by bus, will not be able to do the same when and if their son or daughter goes to a new school?
Give us a break. It's all about desire and a willingness to co-operate. Throwing up a little dust does not make a dust storm.
I also cannot understand why James Laxer is supporting the status quo. I think any religion should be kept in peoples' own homes and not brought out. I agree with another commenter here that Catholic School Board should be dismantled gradually over time, It would be a big mistake to extend it to other religions. I think what Liberals did with the request from Muslims to have Sharia law (because Jews have their own civil laws) is the best way: scrap it all and just keep the secular one for EVERYBODY!
BTW, I've born a Muslim!
Mr. Laxer isn't playing with a full deck on this issue and he knows it. The extension of full funding applied to funding two or three more years of high school-he makes it out to be something as large as a circus elephant. In addition, if full funding was removed, the province would have to repeal Bill 160 and allow the tax paying public to direct a much larger property tax to the school board of their choice-Ontario has just under four million citizens who claim to be Catholic. Than their would be the never ending constitutional challenges as well as the reality that secularists are in demographic decline. I think this translates into a huge can of worms.
Ellen
Thanks anon for your kind words. I am well aware of the declining demographics. That decline in national population is a phenomenon that is happening across all "Westernized" countries.
That said, and I am not sure what you may be inferring, but I believe that you are suggesting people who immigrate to Canada and settle in Ontario, for instance, will want their religious schools funded, and as they become more populous, their desires will dominant at the ballot box, so to speak.
First, this assumption is based on the notion that most immigrants want faith-based education, and I am not sure that this assumption is true. Considering that recent polls for funding one school system have hit almost 70%, this may be an incorrect assumption to make. It seems that many citizens, and this includes new comers, who do not want any religion taught in schools. For those who do want faith-base schools funded, their default position, is fund none.
Where I get this anecdotal notion is from my random conversational I have, and continue to have with people who do send their children to private faith based schools, and/or people who would like to but cannot afford to do so, or that these schools are just not available in their area. So it seems that this minority position, at this point, would be to fund none.
Second, and moving to the folks whose children attend Catholic schools, there is an underlying assumption that these students attend because they are religiously based. In fact, we know there are many reasons why students attend a particular school, and often the reasons have absolutely nothing to do with religious teachings: closeness, only one in a community, program choice, newer building and so on. For example, in my area that I am a school trustee, public school supporters were sending their children to the local separate school because it offered French immersion and the pubic elementary schools did not. In contrast, separate school students upon graduation overwhelming attend the local public secondary school because they do not want to bus to another community – that takes 45 minutes each way.
I really do think if we asked parents and students some of these hard questions, they would overwhelmingly opt for a one-school system:
1. Do you want to continue paying fees associated with many programs (such as art, music, sports, daily planners, local school trips) that will increase with funding all religious schools, or the elimination of these fees because we now have more money in the system that is now all one, what do you think the answer would be?
2. Do you want not do fundraising for playground equipment, computers and so on that most parent school groups now or fund and expand religious schools and increase this activity? Remember there is only funding pie no matter how one slices it!
With a one-school system, we would have more money to put back into the classroom, into buildings, into programs, and into additional resources that make the educational experience better, and add quality to it.
Finally, I must address Jim’s suggestion that change would be too disruptive going from dual to a non-sectarian school system. In fact, we can look to the Newfoundland experience – there was little disruption and instability noted. To me that is fear mongering at its worse. Considering that there are already different parts of this 4 school systems who do already share buildings, and consortiums that share bus transportation, purchasing, and joint programs (like I do at my board with our co-terminus separate board, this belies that fear mongering). But make no mistake, all these lovely partnerships do not address declining enrolment that affects almost all school boards across the province, with exception of the GTA schools, and even there, there is declining enrolment in the core. How disruptive would it be for a child who use to be bussed to another school now could walk to school with her/his friends that play together and grow up together in the same neighbourhood? I say – if you asked the kids – they would think that this adult talk is the disruption – they wouldn’t give two hoots! But alas, they don’t vote!
Anon, there seems to be some misunderstanding about how education is now paid for and funded in this province. For your information, school support designation no longer has any bearing on the total funding received by any Ontario school board. That funding is now determined solely by the provincial funding formula based on enrolment and other funding needs. School support designation on your tax bill today serves entirely political ends (eg. Voter lists for municipal elections of trustees). The amount of school taxes on your property taxes are based on “class” designation and not “faith” designation. Thus if you switched your support from one to another or vice-versa nothing would change in how much a school board received.
These changes happen in 1997 in order to bring equity in the system between public and separate schools. Since public boards had a much larger designate base, they were able to provide a lot more services, programs and schools. Parents in public boards – in those days - did not do the sheer magnitude of fundraising activities they do now. Considering that about 70% of taxpayers identify themselves as public school supporters, and 30% separate, along with the supposed 53,000 students who attend private faith-based schools outside of this system, than if we returned to this past system, make no mistake, the public boards would be big winners here!
I also don’t know if secularists are in decline, whatever that means. There are many folks obviously by the recent spat of polls that want a one-school system – almost 70% as I previously mentioned. This does not mean they are “secularists”, it just means they want a non-sectarian education system for a variety of reasons.
I don't think a bulkanized Ontario is in anyone's best interest. But how do we prevent it from happening? If you visit Toronto, my place of dwelling, you will see more and more religious individuals dawning traditional religious costumes. This is reality. And you will also see many previous religious types who have become secularized. This too is a reality. And you will see a growing number of mosques, temples and shrines. Again another reality. All of this supports the demographic theory that we secularists are running out of steam and the new tenants are poised to become the new land owners. This doesn't threaten me or bother me. It's the way it is.
I do not pay close attention to educational issues as Jan does. But I do pay close attention to our changing work force and changing public policy as it relates to a changing Ontario population. A case in point is Mayor Miller ordering the removal of Support the Troops decals from fire trucks-who do you think he's catering to, the girl guides?
let's look into the future. France will become a semi-Islamic state within ten years and within fifty years almost totally Islamic. Do you think France is any different from Britain or Ontario in this regard? This is the way it is. And if we believe that secular values are so important to the human condition, that the world can't function without them then we need to figure out a way to pass them on to the new landowners-perhaps in the form of a time capsule or virtual reality device, which is what our fertility rates suggest will be necessary for this lofty goal.
The growing Islamic population in Ontario is positioned to assert greater influence in what shape the Ontario political policy will take. If they wish to abandon their religion and take up the gauntlet of scularism than so be it. On the other hand if their religions commitment mechanisms (language, uniform, social control, belief system etc.) are strong, than this is unlikely to happen. In the final analysis it boils down to numbers and what those numbers wish to do.
I believe all of our politicians are working the ethnic vote. Mr. McGuinty is with his slush fund. Mr. Dion is courting the ethnic Lebanese vote in Montreal, which explains his behavior and of course Mr.Tory is in tune with Ontario's changing demographics-I'm certain he's run a few surveys. Perhaps Mr. Hampton and Mr. Layton are the only one's who are running on principle. But I don't know.
Jan is right in recognizing that the challenge is to bring all Ontarians together. The question is not how, but how many ways can we do this. It might be a thought to plan for a rainy day of sorts.
Ellen
Thanks Ellen for your thoughtful post. You said,
"The growing Islamic population in Ontario is positioned to assert greater influence in what shape the Ontario political policy will take. If they wish to abandon their religion and take up the gauntlet of scularism than so be it."
Students and their families do not have to become secular in order to attend any public school in this province. In fact, in schools with students who are Muslim and require daily prayer accommodation, there is space designated in the school for those students. Accommodation is already happening.
Ellen, I am quite familar with Toronto as I had just 3 years at University of Toronto working on my doctorate.
In fact, in schools with students who are Muslim and require daily prayer accommodation, there is space designated in the school for those students. Accommodation is already happening.......This is excellent news and it supports your position that secular values and religious values can coexist within the same building. And it's the kind of altruistic behavior which is 100% Canadian. I would encourage you to continue with this excellent initiative-actually it's the first I've heard of it.
What is happening in Ontario is happening throughout the world, and there's nothing wrong with it. What is wrong is the kind of racism that can develop when a few "blow-hards" stir the pot.
I love Toronto with it's ethnic diversity. If I wish to eat at a Greek restaurant, I know of many on Danforth Avenue. If I wish authentic Indian cuisine,or West Indian cuisine, restaurants are a plenty.
Toronto works because we want it to work and we are therefore prepared to make accommodations.In this regard Mayor Miller has a point in asking the public works department to show their support for our soldiers in a way which cannot be misconstrued as anti-Afghanistan.
Whatever happens to our demographics we must always fight the good fight, and that fight is this- there's a place for everyone. And as a trustee I hope you will continue to build bridges rather than walls.
Ellen
To fund one religion over all others is wrong and unfair.
McGuinty is trying to trick the public with his ads.
At least he could be honest and say that as a catholic he only supports funding the "public" catholic board.
I don't think that anything can do much harm to the government education system. It already sucks.
It is, however, very unfortunate that the only choice that the Tory proposal would offer to people would be one based on their religious persuasion. Why shouldn't it be possible to choose a school or school system for one's child based on the perceived quality of the education that it would provide?
The amounts of money spent per child by the government system that I saw mentioned here astounded me. I notice that some good private schools by comparison, which must provide uniforms, dormitories and meals, cost only a small multiple of what it costs for the government schools. Give parents the money that would be squandered on the palatial education centres that dot the Province, and the absurd salaries for multiple levels of management even within the schools themselves, and let parents select for themselves.
Although I do not completely fathom the idea of supporting Catholic school funding, there is much to benefit from those that are graduates of those institutions in terms of nation-building as compared to non-sectarian institutions.
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