Public Funding for RC Schools – Debate Between Ontario NDP Leadership Hopefuls

The controversial topic of public funding for Catholic schools re-emerged Saturday at the first debate between candidates vying to become leader of Ontario’s New Democrats, along with warnings about focusing on issues that could divide the third-placed party as it attempts to rebuild itself.

Three of the four leadership contenders tried to distance themselves from the proposal that helped sink the Progressive Conservatives in the last provincial election, saying the party needs to focus on the issues that unite and strengthen it.

“The next election needs to be fought on the economy, on the environment and rebuilding equity and fairness to this province,” Peter Tabuns, former head of Greenpeace Canada, told a gathering of more than 200 supporters.

“We looked at what happened in the last election when (Progressive Conservative Leader) John Tory rolled his party over a cliff on the faith-based funding issue. The simple reality in this province is that when you take on those issues, it means everything else gets cleared off the table.”

Michael Prue, who got into hot water earlier this year by suggesting it’s time the NDP reviewed its policy of supporting public funding for Catholic schools, refused to back away from the issue, saying party members have the right to debate any topic they wish.

“(In) the last four conventions this issue has been on the convention floor and (in) the last four conventions the party brass has refused to allow it to come forward — that is not democracy,” said Mr. Prue, a former East York mayor.

“All I’m saying to this party is that if the members want to discuss this issue, then the members should have the right to put it on the convention floor and to vote on it.”

Mr. Tory spent much of the 2007 election campaign defending a proposal to give $400-million a year to religious schools which opt into the public system. But the fierce debate that ensued eroded Mr. Tory’s public support and left him without a seat in the legislature.

Mr. Prue has maintained he isn’t trying to re-open that debate and said that Mr. Tory took on the issue “on the wrong side” by seeking to extend funding.

“I haven’t heard anyone in the New Democratic party wanting to go down this route, but we have to determine if the current system is against the United Nations charter of which we are a signatory nation.”

But party veteran Gilles Bisson was one of three contenders who warned faith-based funding was an issue that would divide the party.

“It is really the third rail of politics; the Liberals would love nothing better,” Mr. Bisson said.

“We need to focus on those issues that bind us together and that are dealing with the issues of today, such as the environment and the economy.”

When it comes to the province’s finances, Mr. Bisson said, he believes it’s research and innovation that will create jobs, while Mr. Prue argued his track record balancing the books as mayor during a recession shows he can tackle the economy.

Mr. Tabuns said the way to help the struggling auto sector is by linking the environment and the economy, while Hamilton’s Andrea Horwath, who entered the race Friday, said she wants to remove barriers for unions to organize and improve jobs.

All four candidates agree, however, that rebuilding the party leading to the next provincial election in 2011 will be a key priority.

“If we are going to win the next provincial election, we’re only going to do it if we are organized,” said Ms. Horwath, who has a background as a grassroots organizer.

“I have experience there.”

The NDP hasn’t been the ruling party in Ontario since former premier Bob Rae took the reins in 1990. Mr. Rae presided over one of the most challenging periods of the province’s history, inheriting a $700-million deficit and at one point projecting a record deficit of $9.1-billion.

The Ontario NDP is sponsoring nine regional debates in advance of the leadership convention in March to replace outgoing Leader Howard Hampton, who will step down after 13 years at the helm.

The candidates will travel to Sudbury, Kingston, London, Ottawa, Timmins, Hamilton and Thunder Bay.
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…this post forwarded by Windsor Humanist, JimmyMack, after a November 8, 2008 article by Romina Maurino over The Canadian Press

Provincial Education Minister Kathleen Wynne Moves on Toronto Catholic District School Board

Saying she has lost faith that The Toronto Catholic District School Board can fix its financial mess, Education Minister Kathleen Wynne has taken a first step toward seizing the board’s purse strings by sending an investigator to review its finances.

If veteran school board official Pierre Filiatrault is not convinced within one week that Catholic trustees can both balance their books and change their spending habits, he will recommend Minister Wynne appoint a supervisor to run the board’s finances.

“By appointing an investigator, I am declaring publicly I have lost confidence in the board’s ability to manage its financial affairs,” said Minister Wynne yesterday. She said she is giving the investigator only one week because she already has such a detailed report on trustees’ spending abuses from adviser Norbert Hartmann.

“I don’t do this lightly; it’s a serious step, and I wouldn’t have ordered an investigator unless I was very concerned,” said Minister Wynne, noting the Education Act says the province may not take over a school board until its concerns have been verified by an outside investigator.

Minister Wynne said she is troubled not only by suggestions some trustees are still putting in for expenses they have been told should not be allowed, but also that the board has refused to stick to a multi-year plan to wipe out its deficit, approving a proposed $13 million shortfall and pledging not to lay off any staff.

“The deficit is growing rather than decreasing, and if trustees haven’t stopped (putting in unauthorized receipts) even after the Hartmann report, that’s a huge problem,” said Minister Wynne yesterday, just hours after calling board chair Catherine LeBlanc-Miller at home to give her the news.

While Ms. LeBlanc-Miller said “provincial takeover is not something anybody looks forward to, if that’s what it takes for the public to regain confidence in the board, then that’s what we should do.”

The move comes after weeks of allegations of trustee misspending on everything from meals with alcohol to hotel minibars and even a trip to the Dominican Republic, at taxpayers’ expense.

Trustees also had voted to give themselves health benefits, which is not permitted, and many kept office furniture and cellphones after they left office.

In a scathing report released May 7, Mr. Hartmann chronicled years of overspending by trustees that made them among the biggest spenders in the province – at about $100,000 each per year. By comparison, at The Dufferin-Peel Catholic board, which is roughly the same size, trustees spend $27,000 per year. Toronto public trustees spend about $67,000 per year.

Ms. LeBlanc-Miller said yesterday that “while the results of Hartmann’s findings were extremely disappointing and not something I am proud of, we have to deal with it in a manner that is transparent and restores public confidence.”

Former board chair Oliver Carroll said he thinks the board has a chance to persuade the investigator it can put its financial house in order by re-opening the budget at a special board meeting planned for tomorrow night and thinking of another way to reduce the deficit without sweeping layoffs or cutting cherished literacy and kindergarten programs.

But Ms. LeBlanc-Miller says given the board expects enrolment to fall by another 1,000 students this fall, “we simply need fewer teachers.” Yet because the board voted earlier this month against layoffs, it has now passed the deadline by which it must give teachers proper layoff notice, a situation Ms. LeBlanc-Miller calls “very restrictive.”

Minister Wynne called the board chair and education director to an emergency meeting Friday at her Queen’s Park office to discuss the situation in more detail, and said she would take the weekend to decide her next step and announce that today. However, trustee Maria Rizzo released an open letter to Minister Wynne on Saturday pleading with the province to take over the board “and save us from ourselves!” Minister Wynne said that had little to do with her decision to move a day early.

Mr. Filiatrault will work with a ministry auditor to conduct the week-long review. The investigator is expected to turn his recommendations in to Minister Wynne by June 4. Meanwhile, the accounting firm of Ernst and Young already is working with individual trustees on drafting plans to repay any unauthorized expenses.
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…this post forwarded by Windsor Humanist, Jimmy Mac, after a May 26, 2008 article by Louise Brown and Kristin Rushowy in The Toronto Star

Our Kids Need To Be Integrated, Not Separated

During the recent (Alberta) provincial election campaign, I asked candidates for their opinion on Alberta’s faith schools. Their replies were dominated by two buzz words, “choice” and “diversity” — and most were eager to change the subject.

The history of religious schools in Alberta is not one of open debate. These decisions have been made behind closed doors between government officials and religious leaders — no public participation welcome. The most recent example was a secret document uncovered by the media in December 2007, showing that the government planned to increase funding for private religious schools.

The religious schools in Alberta fall into three categories: separate (Catholic), private and alternative. The private schools are about 60 per cent funded by the taxpayers, have their own boards and are able to discriminate on religious grounds for both hiring staff and admitting students.

The alternative schools have signed agreements with public school boards in order to obtain 100-per-cent public funding. This loophole allows the religious schools to get their foot in the door, leading (they hope) for full funding as well as full autonomy.

In the words of the Airdrie Koinonia Christian School: “The recent ‘alternative’ agreements signed by the Heritage Christian Academy and the Olds Koinonia Christian School specifically allow for discrimination on the basis of religious faith. While this discrimination may not completely comport with the Alberta School Act, this discrimination is nonetheless spelled out in the agreements. Thus, the province’s contention that public schools do not discriminate is no longer valid.

“Thus, the historical objection of the province here has literally evaporated. There is no longer any justification for the province to deny full operational funding for private schools based on the province’s traditional argument concerning discriminatory practices.”

Indeed, the above quote suggests that the Christian schools used the alternative schools to cleverly set a trap, which the government fell into (or worse, maybe they knew exactly what they were doing). Either way it seems to be working; the Koinonia website claims support from various Tory MLAs.

To have this choice of placing their children into a faith school, parents must obtain a letter from a preacher praising their church devotion and sign a statement of faith. This quote, from the constitution and bylaws of Fort McMurray Christian School Society, is typical: “We believe the Genesis account of creation is to be understood literally; that man was created in God’s own image and after His own likeness; that man’s creation was not by evolution or change of species or development through interminable periods of time from lower to higher form.”

Parents who believe that the first cowboy saddled up a triceratops have more choice as their children can attend either a faith school or a public school. On the other hand, Christians who accept evolution, non-believers, and followers of other faiths can enrol their children only in a public school. Every teaching position in a Christian school means one more fundamentalist teacher, and another teacher is out of a job.

The Fort McMurray school also states: “that the individual should consciously honour and obey those in power so long as they do not violate the teaching of Scripture.” What do they teach when the democratic laws of the land do disagree with the Scripture?

What about Alberta’s “diversity” — isn’t it a good thing? Yes, but more importantly, should we mix the kids together or prevent them from contacting “others”?

Let’s help our children appreciate kids from diverse backgrounds by having them work together. For social harmony, we need to integrate, not segregate our next generation.

When the Catholic school started up in Canmore in 2001, they had to share Lawrence Grassi Middle School with the public school board. The Catholic board tried to build a wall in the school and a fence in the playground to stop their children from mixing with the public school kids. Only the diligence of public school officials stopped this.

How can anyone explain to young children that they aren’t allowed to play with their friends because their parents have different religious beliefs? A wall! Is this Canada or the West Bank?

Separation of church and state is one of the core principles of western democracy. Religion should be a private matter, not a government-funded policy. Many of our ancestors paid with their lives for us to enjoy these rights.

Choice? By all means let’s have choice — for Alberta citizens to participate in the debate. Are Alberta government officials prepared to offer Albertans this choice, or will they meekly surrender our rights to unelected church officials through secret deals?
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…this post forwarded by Windsor Humanist, J.McAllister, after a March 15, 2008 contribution by Scott Rowed in The Edmonton Journal

Our Catholic School Board Resists Pressure To Ban “The Golden Compass”

The local Catholic school board is resisting pressure to remove from its libraries a controversial children’s book that critics claim promotes atheism.

The local arm of a national Catholic group wants The Golden Compass — now a big-budget movie — banned. It has already been boycotted in the U.S. and banned by another Ontario school board.

“Under the guise of an exciting adventure story, the very clear message being given is that the Catholic church is an evil organization and God and Christianity are a fraud,” said Bob Baksi, president of the Windsor Essex County chapter of the Catholic Civil Rights League.

But the local Catholic board, which has had the book in school libraries for a decade, doesn’t plan to take it off the shelves.

The Golden Compass is part of a trilogy called His Dark Materials by British writer Philip Pullman. It’s set in a parallel world where young heroine Lyra heads to the far north to save her kidnapped friend. She also fights an evil organization called Magisterium, which is the word Catholics use to describe the teaching authority of the church.

The book came out in 1995, but widespread controversy has heated up only recently as the film’s Dec. 7 release date draws closer. The Catholic League, which claims to be America’s largest Catholic civil rights group, has launched a nationwide boycott campaign.

The Halton Catholic District School Board has pulled the book from its shelves.

Canada’s Catholic Civil Rights League issued a warning Monday on its website to members and supporters to not take their children to the movie because of the “strong anti-religious content” in the books.

Randy Sasso, supervisor of faith development with the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board, said the book is on library shelves in only six elementary schools and two high schools. He said it’s not popular with students.

The school board never thought about the book’s religious implications before, and still isn’t worried, he said.

“We never brought a theological perspective to it,” Mr. Sasso said.

“We treated it as fantasy. It seemed like another Alice in Wonderland, another Chronicles of Narnia. You really have to go through this with a fine tooth comb to catch any of the religious elements. It looks like a real publicity stunt. He’s not even a particularly good writer.”

Bob Baksi said his group has asked Bishop Ronald Fabbro’s office to approach school boards in the London Diocese area about removing the book.

“It shouldn’t be in (Catholic) schools in the first place,” he said.

Mr. Baksi hasn’t read the book or seen the yet-to-be released movie, but added that shouldn’t undermine his opposition.

“I don’t have to see Debbie Does Dallas to know whether it is appropriate or consistent with the faith and values I would like to have in my house for my children,” he said.

Mr. Baksi said he’s heard Hollywood has watered down the more overt religious elements, but worries the movie will encourage people to buy the book for their children.

“The movie is a dangling carrot,” he said. “And the books are more open about their anti-religious approach.”

The books depict “a rebellion against God,” the Catholic Civil Rights League states on its website.

“The 12-year-old protagonists — Lyra and Will — discover there is no immortal soul, no heaven or hell,” the website states. “All that awaits us is some gloomy Hades-type afterlife where the soul goes to wait until it completely dissolves. Thus the author uses anti-Catholicism as the gateway to promoting atheism.”

Danielle Price, visiting assistant professor who teaches children’s literature at University of Windsor, said calling the books atheistic is “absolutely unfair.”

“There is no doubt that it is anti-authoritarian religion, it is anti-institutional religion,” said Ms. Price, also a Catholic. “But it would be wrong to think of it as a book that is atheistic or anti-spiritual. It is definitely a book which emphasizes spirituality. It sets up a very strong idea of the human soul. It’s a very important part of the book. It sets up its own version of an afterlife. It values individuality. It values human relationships, it values sacrifice. I would say that it’s a very moral series.”

Even if it was promoting atheism, Ms. Price said, banning it isn’t the answer.

“Banning books does nothing to help your cause,” she said. “People should be encouraged to read books, to make up their own minds about books, to talk about books. This is only an occasion for people to talk about their own beliefs.”
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…this post forwarded by Windsor Humanist, Alexander Hodgins, after a November 28, 2007 article by Trevor Wilhelm in The Windsor Star

Halton Catholic School Board Pulls Fantasy Book – Author Refers To Self As An ‘Atheist’

The award-winning fantasy novel “The Golden Compass” was pulled from an Ontario Catholic school district’s library shelves over a complaint about the author referring to himself as an atheist.

The public Catholic school board in Ontario’s Halton region, which oversees 43 elementary and secondary schools, also pulled two other books in Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy as a precaution.

“We have a policy and procedure whereby individual parents, staff, students or community members can apply to have material reviewed. That’s what happened in this case,” Rick MacDonald, the Halton board’s superintendent of curriculum services, said Wednesday.

“The Golden Compass”, which has been made into an upcoming movie starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, was first published in 1995. Controversy is surfacing now because of the buzz surrounding the film, said Mr. MacDonald.

The complaint was issued after Mr. Pullman stated in several interviews with international media that he is an atheist. Officials declined to provide details on who filed the complaint.

Calls to the district for comment went unanswered Thursday.

The novel was voted the best children’s book in the past 70 years by readers across the globe in June, with the votes cast over the Internet based on a selection of 10 past winners of the Carnegie Medal for children’s literature.

But it has come under fire from conservative groups before.

In the U.S., the Catholic League, a conservative anti-defamation group, has accused the Dark Materials trilogy of bashing Christianity and promoting atheism. The organization urged parents to boycott the movie, which opens Dec. 7 in the U.S. and Canada. The League had also boycotted the movie adaptation of “The Da Vinci Code,” which went on to become one of 2006’s biggest movies.

The move does not mean that the books are banned.

Students who want to read them can ask librarians to bring them out, but the trilogy will not be featured on the shelves until a review by a school board committee is complete, said Scott Millard, the board’s manager of library services in the Halton region. The committee’s review is expected in two or three weeks.

Mr. MacDonald told a Canadian broadcaster that he cannot remember any similar action in the past five or six years, but that when a complaint is filed it must be looked into.

Catholic schools in other Ontario regions have the books on their shelves and have reported no complaints.

The public library in Burlington, in Halton region, lists “The Golden Compass” as suggested reading for grades 5 and 6.

Mr. Pullman has made controversial statements in the past, telling the Washington Post in 2001 he was “trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief.”

In 2003, he said that compared to the Harry Potter series, his books had been “flying under the radar, saying things that are far more subversive than anything poor old Harry has said. My books are about killing God.”

“The Golden Compass” follows the adventures of a young girl, Lyra, who travels to the far north to save her best friend in a universe full of shape-shifting creatures, witches and other-worldly characters.
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…this post forwarded by Windsor Humanist, J.MacAll, after a November 22, 2007 article off The Associated Press printed in The International Herald-Tribune

Generation of Ontario women risk cervical cancer as publicly-funded Catholic educational leaders debate vaccine

Catholic educational leaders across Ontario are debating whether to allow Grade 8 girls to get the new HPV vaccine in school, amid fears the controversial needle effectively condones the kind of premarital sex their religion condemns.

The Halton Catholic board voted last night to let public health officials enter board elementary schools to administer the vaccine against human papilloma virus, the cause of most cases of cervical cancer.

The Toronto city board is to consider the issue tomorrow, and a Northern Ontario Catholic board will do so next month, after the province’s bishops weighed in with a pastoral letter on the question last week.

It is up to parents to decide whether their daughters get the vaccine, but HPV can only be contracted through sex, and sex outside marriage carries “profound risks to a young person’s spiritual, emotional, moral and physical health,” the Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a statement.

Ontario and three other provinces — Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island — are the first to launch school-based programs for administering the shots.

Anthony Danko, the Halton trustee who has submitted a motion to bar the HPV program from his board’s schools, said the vaccine’s moral ramifications rank high among his several concerns.

“It’s presuming that they’re going to have sex. This may be the reality, but it’s not a very hopeful attitude,” Mr. Danko said.

“We’re teaching abstinence and on the other hand we’re saying, ‘Here’s protection, just in case.’ It’s kind of a contradiction.”

Reverend David Wilhelm, another trustee, addressed the board last night, before the motion was defeated four to three: “What the bishops are telling us is that parents have the right and the responsibility to make these decisions for their children. I don’t think any of us have the right to take that away. Sometimes there is a tendency for us to want to take responsibility for the decisions of other people but as trustees, that goes well beyond what we’re here for.”

Oliver Carroll, chairman of the Toronto board, dismisses arguments that offering HPV immunization is a tacit vote in favour of unmarried young people having sex. “I can’t imagine too many parents would be encouraging their 13-, 14-year-old children to engage in sexual activity. But we recognize the world around us,” Mr. Carroll said.

“From my perspective, and I think the majority of the board, this is a health issue, and it’s a means to protect females from genital warts and cervical cancer … At the end of the day you balance off two moral obligations.”

He said “one or two” members of his board have moral objections to the needle being given to young girls in their schools, but they are in the minority, and the board is likely to give the program a green light, with parents making the final decision in individual cases.

The HPV vaccine, also known by its brand name Gardasil, is considered by many experts to be a major public health advance, providing safe protection against cancer by preventing an infectious disease. Studies indicate that it stops four types of the virus, which account for about 70% of cases of cervical cancer. The illness kills close to 400 Canadian women each year, with 1,350 new cases annually.

The federal government allotted $300-million in the last budget for provincial HPV vaccine campaigns, after the National Advisory Committee on Immunization recommended females age nine to 26 should receive it. Controversy has arisen in recent months, however, partly because the funding was announced after extensive lobbying by Merck, which makes Gardasil, and because of the lack of long-term research on its efficacy and safety.

Dr. Bob Nosal, medical officer of health for Halton, said it is a safe and effective vaccine and giving it to young girls acknowledges the nature of adolescent behaviour. “If the teaching was going to dissuade all Catholic girls from having sex, then you probably wouldn’t need the vaccine,” he said. “But the reality is, and the stats show it, that a significant portion of high school and certainly university students are engaged in sexual activity, and the transmission is going to occur.”

In their letter, the bishops express “regret” that the program was introduced in Ontario schools without more study and public education. The note urges parents to keep in mind some important considerations when deciding whether to let their daughter have the shot, saying the vaccine could have “unintended and unwanted consequences.”

“Sexual activity is appropriate only within marriage,” they write. “Outside of marriage, abstinence is not only clearly the choice that leads to spiritual and moral well-being, but it is obviously the best protection against risks of disease.”

Mr. Danko said he is also concerned children could be vaccinated against the wishes of parents, noting that provincial law allows public health officials to override parents’ objections if a child opts for such a needle. However, Dr. Nosal said his nurses have no intention of vaccinating children against their parents’ wishes.

The Huron-Superior Catholic District School Board, based in Sault Ste. Marie, has asked for more information before it decides whether to allow the shots at its schools, feeling the program was implemented too quickly, with not enough notice.

“Our biggest concern is we don’t have very much information on this,” said Marchy Bruni, chair of the Huron-Superior board.
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…this post forwarded by Windsor Humanist, Alexander Hodgins, after a September 19, 2007 article by Tom Blackwell and Katie Rook  in The National Post

Newfoundland offers ‘religious school’ lessons

Province reversed centuries of education based on faith to adopt a new public system

The intense animosity between people of different faiths was bound to spill on to the ice. Parents, fans, they all encouraged it among the hockey players at school.

Such was the violence of Newfoundland winters. “The hockey matches between Protestants and Catholics in Grand Falls where I grew up were legendary,” remembers former premier Roger Grimes. “These were wars on ice, and designed to be so. One of the highlights of the winter was to see the bloodbath.”

It was a grim fact of life in that province under its historically sectarian education system in which the churches ran the schools with money from the public purse. Besides the rivalries, students and neighbours were divided along religious lines, often driven on half-empty buses across town to schools that were homogenous but under serviced.

By the 1990s, the tensions had eased, but the economic burden of too many groups operating too many schools remained. That is, until a dramatic and complex political move uncoupled schools from the churches, turning the education of Newfoundland youngsters on its head, from one that was entirely denominational, to one that entirely was not.

Ontario Progressive Conservative leader John Tory now wants to do precisely the opposite in this province, extending public funding to all religious schools – provided they follow the provincial curriculum – if he’s elected next month.

It’s “very difficult to look people in the eye who are Hindu, or Greek Orthodox or Muslim and say, `I know we made arrangements for that faith (Roman Catholic), but not for you,’” he said Friday explaining his policy choice.

Even those who disagree with his plan seem to understand his logic, except they’d prefer to end public funding for all religious schools.

Extracting Newfoundland’s schools from the church’s grasp was no easy task. The provincial Liberals of the day had to try twice, holding two referenda on the subject, and obtaining two constitutional amendments from the federal parliament, to get it done.

Most educators today say the sea change was for the better. But nearly a decade after the province changed course from sectarian to secular, the controversy and hard-feelings linger. So do the fears, especially among Catholics, that what happened in Newfoundland could play out in other places, such as Ontario, which funds Catholic but not other religious schools.

The Newfoundland experience, in fact, served as a wake-up call for Ontario Catholics, to do everything in their power to keep their school lights on.

Missionaries from the Church of England set up the first schools in Newfoundland in the 1720’s, beginning its long history of entrenched religious differences in schools. Church control was so profound that it became entrenched in the Terms of Union, which spelled out Newfoundland’s entry into Canada in 1949, making it a constitutional matter.

A first referendum in 1995, held by then-premier Clyde Wells, passed by a slim margin. A change to the Terms of Union required a constitutional amendment, and thenprime minister Jean Chrétien vowed to push ahead with it.

The Catholic and Pentecostal churches were especially vocal on the streets and from the pulpit. They launched high-profile ad campaigns and canvassed door to door.

Their Ontario counterparts also joined in the debate. Catholic school trustees as well as church officials lobbied the federal government, fearing that a Newfoundland precedent could lead to abolishing Catholic schools in Ontario too.

Gerald Emmett Cardinal Carter admonished Jean Chrétien in a letter to protect minority rights. “If your government rubber stamps (the Newfoundland amendment),” he wrote, “how can it in principle resist similar requests from voting majorities in Alberta, Quebec and Ontario?”

Roger Grimes, at the time education minister, says the plan unravelled since it still allowed for religious schools where numbers warranted, putting an effective public system at risk. So the government, now under the leadership of Brian Tobin, drew up a new referendum, this time removing churches from the education landscape.

The province pushed the need to save millions by ending overlap. “We couldn’t see a justification to fund four to five separate systems when there was no evidence in our view they were providing a higher quality education,” Roger Grimes says.

Other critics noted how unfair it was that a secular education simply wasn’t available.

Newfoundland was also experiencing its own kind of “Quiet Revolution” in which the churches were being met with increasing skepticism, says Bill McKim, a psychology professor at Memorial University, who edited a book about denominational education. “The memories of Mount Cashel were still fresh and many people were sympathetic to getting churches out of the school system,” Bill McKim says, referring to the sex abuse scandal at a Catholic orphanage.

Voters approved the measure in 1997, this time with 73 per cent of the vote. A court injunction failed, and by the next year, the province had a single, secular system.

There was tremendous upheaval. In some cases, thousands of students, teachers and staff had to move buildings. Dozens of schools were shuttered. In some cases, even the names of schools were changed to non-religious ones.

“One day we had Catholic schools, the next we did not. I don’t have good feelings about it,” says Bonaventure Fagan, who fiercely opposed the changes as a Catholic administrator, and is now president of the Canadian Catholic School Trustees Association.

“It took us through a period of a great deal of animosity,” he says. “It harnessed the old feelings of bigotry (against Catholics) that some used to foster their own aims.”

He blames the political loss on “misleading” referenda questions, and after years of squabbling, people were simply tired of the debate.

“The worst model we can have in education is the reductionist model,” Mr. Fagan says. “In other words, everybody goes to the same box, and comes out of the same box, with the same imprint. That’s not life. Not everybody wants the same thing for their kids.”

The controversy still simmers there. Mr. Fagan says many parents today still chafe at not having a choice.

Long-time Roman Catholic teacher and administrator Brian Shortall, who now leads the school boards’ association in Newfoundland, says it was only after the fact that many realized “the depth of feeling to the way things used to be. Some individuals took a long time to accept the fact that a fundamental social, cultural foundation was being changed.”

Nevertheless, Mr. Shortall, who was superintendent of the St. John’s Catholic board before and after it was switched into a public board, said the changes have been good for the province.

“At the end of the day, our overall academic performance and the expansion of programs within the buildings reflected positive gains as a result of the reorganization,” he says.

It was an intensely political fight. Mr. Fagan was so impassioned he wrote a book, which he called “Trial“.

Last year he gave a presentation to trustees from across the country, outlining how Newfoundland Catholics’ rights were dissolved and warning them to take action to prevent the same elsewhere.

The trustees heard that in many cases, people’s faith did not rally them to speak up, or that political or other affiliations trumped faith. Mr. Fagan recalls how “people in positions of influence, at the political level or the business level, didn’t have much to say.”

“Our point,” Mr. Fagan says, “was that Catholics simply cannot be indifferent to their system and think that they’re going to have it. You have to be committed to it and have an active faith.

“You’re only going to fight when you’re committed,” he says.

Ontario Catholics took notice. The Newfoundland transformation was viewed as a complete debacle. As one Catholic education official, who asked not to be named, puts it, “We saw how it could happen, and it put everyone in Ontario on alert.”

Ontario Catholics learned that “a good offence is the best defence.” The biggest lesson was the idea of erecting a strong and effective “infrastructure” that would be a formidable force against anyone trying to dismantle it.

Bernard Murray, who heads the Ontario Catholic School Trustees Association, says, “Catholic education in Ontario is supported by a strong infrastructure of organizations.”

That includes the Institute for Catholic Education, which promotes publicly- funded Catholic schools, the Ontario Conference of Catholic Bishops, parents groups, teachers’ unions, and the trustees association, which regularly lobbies provincial politicians.

Any assault on the system and “there would be a great backlash,” Mr. Murray says. He points out that Catholic education has the support of all three main parties in Ontario. But politics can be fickle. In Newfoundland, many pointed to the sanctity of the Constitution and its enshrined rights of religious education. Some make the same argument here. But as Newfoundland shows, even the Constitution can be changed.
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…this post forwarded by Windsor Humanist, Jim McAl, after a September 16, 2007 article by Andrew Chung in The Toronto Star

‘Affording’ religious schools: A response to Jack Mintz’ “Religious schools are affordable”

I have a great deal of respect for Jack Mintz as a person and as an economist, which is why I hesitated a lot before responding to his plea for funding religious schools. Still, he deserves a response because he writes on a very important topic using arguments that I find incorrect on both financial and moral grounds.

Let’s start from the claim that Ontario can “afford” to fund religious schools. Jack knows very well that there is no such a term as “affordable” in economics. Economics is about choice, and everything is affordable, provided you decide to sacrifice something else. The Ontario Conservatives have promised to spend $400-million to fund religious schools and to cut more than $2-billion in taxes by abolishing the health surtax. Clearly, something will have to go on the programme side, something that their leader has been eloquently silent about. What is it going to be? Starving the universities, or letting health care deteriorate even further? Alternatively, the Conservatives may let the provincial deficit escalate (or delay the debt payback), a tactic favoured by most right-wing politicians, from Ronald Reagan to Mike Harris to George W. Bush. In fact Mike Harris did both, starve the universities and increase the provincial deficit. But that’s a mere aside in the religious schools debate.

Jack knows very well that funding religious schools is also an economic Pandora’s box, let alone a social one. The current number of 52,000 students currently studying in such schools tells us nothing about how many students will study there if the province decides to pay their tuition. In Ontario there are now only Jewish, Muslim and some Christian schools, all of them in the more extreme spectrum of their respective religious groups. There will almost certainly be many others — Greek Orthodox, Armenian, Buddhist, Sikh, etc., etc. — if the cost disincentives are removed. Some of the cost of their studies will be shifted from the public-school system, but the fragmented system will almost certainly be much more expensive to run than what we have now. As for the decentralization efficiencies that Jack mentions and that I agree with, they can be achieved much more easily within the public-school system, starting with the restoration of the local control that the Harris Conservatives abolished more than 10 years ago.

Which brings us to the fairness argument for funding religious schools. I am trying desperately to understand why it is fair to pay public funds to religious groups to teach mathematics, geography, literature or physics, subjects that have absolutely nothing to do with religion. The answer that
because the Catholics do it, so too must the others, is not good enough. If the justification doesn’t stand on its own, then one should be campaigning to abolish funding for the Catholics as well, not extend it everywhere.

I asked this question of a Jewish friend of mine, who works overtime to send his kids to religious schools all the way through university. He answered: “Because I don’t want to have to explain to my young kid why it is wrong for him to eat a bacon sandwich, as his classmate is doing next to him.” That’s an honest answer, but it is also an excellent argument against the public funding of religious schools. What it says is that these schools are not about religion, they are about socialization, or rather the avoidance of it. Those who send their kids there do it because they don’t want them to mix with the children of people of other backgrounds and religions in multicultural Canada.

There is ample evidence that this is, indeed, what several extremist religious leaders are preaching, certainly among Muslims but also, sadly, among Jews. Radical imams have been reported as urging their followers not to socialize with Christians or Jews. This is the kind of hate preaching that leads to terror attacks. Among the Jews there is a notorious group that is going around comparing intermarriage to the Holocaust, the former being a product of socialization. Quite apart from the fact that such a comparison trivializes the greatest crime of modern times, it is also hate preaching that confuses an act of love like marriage with the supreme actof hate that is the Holocaust.

There is no way that we can guarantee that such opinions will not make their way inside religious schools, even if they operate under public supervision. Besides, in a democratic society people are allowed to hold opinions that are abhorrent to the vast majority of their fellow Canadians. We even allow them to run schools where they can spread such opinions and live according to them. It is, however, suicidal for our multicultural society to pick up the tab.
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…this post forwarded by Windsor Humanist, Jim McAl, after a September 15, 2007 article by Stylianos Perrakis in The Financial Post

Ontario’s Conservatives’ School Plan “..a step backward leading to Charter argument..”

A Conservative election pledge to fund faith-based schools is a legal minefield that, if implemented, could send the province back in time, a leading constitutional expert says.

Lorraine Weinrib, a law professor at the University of Toronto, is sounding the alarm on a Conservative funding promise that she believes is dangerously unformulated.

“It seems that the proposal really has not been thought out in any detail,” Ms. Weinrib said in an interview.

Conservative leader John Tory has promised a commission to iron out the details of the policy. But Ms. Weinrib said voters are owed the specifics before they decide on the issue.

“I mean, you’re being asked to commit to an incredibly important public policy without knowing what it is.”

However, supporters of Mr. Tory’s proposal say it’s a matter of fairness toward other religions, in a province where Catholics already receive full education funding.

A furore that erupted two weeks ago over creationism offers the first indication of just how problematic the proposal is, Ms. Weinrib said. Mr. Tory was forced to backtrack after saying creationism could be taught at the public, faith-based schools he plans on creating. He later said the religious creation theory, a direct rejection of scientific thought, would be taught only in religion class.

Ms. Weinrib, a former deputy director of constitutional law and policy in the Ontario government, wonders how it is possible to grant schools religious freedom while at the same time controlling which beliefs are taught, and where.

“Let’s say they do teach the regular curriculum in the mornings. What are they teaching in the afternoon? It might be completely inconsistent,” Ms. Weinrib said.

Under the provincial curriculum, students study the “big bang” theory of the origin of the universe in grade nine, and the theory of evolution in grades 11 and 12. Mr. Tory has said one of three conditions for funding is that faith- based schools teach the provincial curriculum.

The Ontario Ministry of Education currently has no policy on how to deal with a school whose teachings of religious dogma directly contradict parts of the provincial curriculum, said ministry spokeswoman Patricia MacNeil.

It’s not a problem in Ontario Catholic schools, which accept evolution and the “big bang,” with God as the force behind these events, said Noel Martin, director of Catholic education for the Ontario Catholic School Trustees Association.

Mohamed Sheikh Ahmed, principal of the Ottawa Islamic School, said he sees no problem in teaching evolution and the “big bang” as scientific theories, while also teaching creation according to Genesis as an article of religious faith

“This is a faith. This is what you believe in. Other people believe in some other things. So there is no problem, there is no confusion here, saying: this is what I believe as your teacher, and this is what the scientific findings are saying,” Mr. Ahmed said. “Darwinism is only a theory…. As a Muslim, I believe in Genesis, but I have no problem teaching evolution as a theory, which is something to discuss. And some people believe in it: scientists, evolutionists believe in it. So there is no problem teaching the curriculum as it is.”

Paul Triemstra, principal of the Ottawa Christian School, said his school treats the origin of life and the universe as open questions:

“God created the world. And how he decided to do that, whether he took six, 24-hour days some eight to 10,000 years ago; or whether he did that over billions of years through all kinds of different processes that scientists have looked at and theorized about, that’s a very good discussion.”

The cost of funding faithbased schools is also of concern, Ms. Weinrib said. Mr. Tory’s $400-million price tag assumes that 80 per cent of the roughly 53,000 students currently enrolled in private, faithbased schools will attend the new public schools. Ms. Weinrib believes that’s a vast underestimation.

“There are all sorts of people in every community who simply can’t afford this private religious education,” she said. (Tuition at the private religious schools can run as high as $35,000). “And if it turns out that it’s going to be available for free, they’re going to shift. I mean that’s so obvious.”

That was the case in Ontario Catholic high schools, which saw their numbers triple in their first 15 years of public funding. Originally, Catholic schools were guaranteed funding for the lower grades under the 1867 BNA Act. In 1985, the funding was extended to the end of high school, and enrolment grew to 200,813 in 2000, from 66,840 in 1985, according to government data.

Mr. Triemstra said public funding for other religious schools will allow for a potential growth in students among families with lower incomes, particularly immigrant families.

The $400-million Conservative promise is also only based on operational funding (at about $9,400 per student) to pay for things such as teachers, textbooks and janitors, according to officials. Faith-based schools would not be eligible for the same capital funding that other Ontario public schools receive, Conservatives say.

But Ms. Weinrib said that once brought into the public sphere, those faith groups would have every constitutional right to demand millions for new schools, which cost between $8 million and $35 million depending on their facilities. If they don’t get them, “you’re going to have a Charter argument that there’s discrimination on the basis of religion,” she says. “They’re going to want more. It’s inevitable.”

However, the most serious consequence of the policy is the potentially fragmenting impact it will have on Ontario society, Ms. Weinrib said. She worries it will undo years of progress Ontario has made in moving toward a more secular, inclusive society. Although Mr. Tory frames his policy as an issue of fairness, she said it is actually a powerful wedge issue designed to appeal to voters along religious lines.

“If we’re going to create an education system, I think the last thing we would to do is this. It really seems like a step backward,” she said.

Mr. Ahmed and Mr. Triemstra disagree.

“I don’t believe a bit of that,” Mr. Ahmed said. “Canada is a country of communities. Having our different communities and keeping our own different cultures never makes us any less Canadian…. The real goal behind the whole thing is giving parents a working alternative for how they want to raise up their kids.”
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…this post forwarded by Windsor Humanist, J.McAll, after a September 13, 2007 article by Lee Greenberg & Kate Jaimet in The Ottawa Citizen

Premier accused of hypocrisy over religious schools

Tory vow of tax dollars for faith-based schools will define October provincial election

Ontario’s upcoming election may have just gotten its ballot issue. Premier Dalton McGuinty signalled yesterday he intends to lay bare his Conservative rival’s pledge to extend full funding to Jewish, Muslim, fundamentalist Christian and other faith-based schools in the run-up to the Oct. 10 election.

Speaking to reporters before his government’s final pre-election cabinet meeting yesterday, Mr. McGuinty said he viewed the pledge by opposition leader John Tory as retrograde, a step backwards for Ontario’s successful multicultural makeup.

“I think it’s a really important and defining issue and I’ll continue to talk about that during the course of the campaign,” Mr. McGuinty said, responding to a reporter’s question. “And it’s one of those issues where I’m hoping to grab Ontarians by the earlobes and say, ‘It’s not just another election, it’s not just business as usual. It’s about the kind of Ontario you want.’

“If you want the kind of Ontario where we invite children of different faiths to leave the publicly-funded system and become sequestered and segregated in their own private schools, then they should vote for Mr. Tory. If they think it’s important that we continue to bring our kids together, so that they grow together and learn from one another, then you should vote for me.”

Some proponents of change, however, have a problem with the premier’s position.

Mr. McGuinty, his wife, Terri McGuinty, and the couple’s four children, all attended Roman Catholic schools.

In fact, Mrs. McGuinty continues to teach part-time in the Catholic system.

York University professor Eric Lawee, among others, said he sees “tremendous hypocrisy” in Mr. McGuinty’s opposition to extending funding to religious schools.

“As he tells the story, (faith-based schools are) segregationist, regressive and so on — and yet here’s someone whose wife goes off every day and provides this type of education,” Mr. Lawee, a member of a multi-faith coalition pushing for funding, said yesterday.

“I think it belies everything he says about faith-based schooling. The fact that we have a premier who’s a product of these types of schools shows that one can not only integrate, having had exposure to faith-based schooling, but can flourish and make major contributions to the welfare of all Ontarians regardless of their faith.”

Mr. Lawee’s children, who range in age from 13 weeks to 16 years, attend Jewish schools in the Toronto area.

“I bike to work every day and I bike by a Catholic school and I see all the things my kids don’t have because they’re members of the wrong religion, as it were, in Ontario in 2007,” he said.

Mr. Tory has framed the issue in terms of fairness. The province has had fully funded Catholic school boards since 1984. Extending the same rights to other religious minorities will fix a fundamental inequality, he believes.

In 1999, the United Nations Human Rights Committee ruled Ontario was in violation of the international covenant on civil and political rights by not funding faith-based schools.
Deputy Conservative leader Elizabeth Witmer noted yesterday that in order to qualify for funding, religious schools would have to teach the provincial curriculum, take part in standardized testing and hire qualified teachers. The plan would cost an estimated $400 million.

“If you bring them into the public school system they can interact with one another, they can participate in sports or science fairs or other activities together,” she said. “(Students) would develop an appreciation, certainly, for the values and understanding of our province, our country, our history.”

But Mr. McGuinty called the Tory plan “regressive.”

The Ottawa-born premier said that in recent trips overseas he has boasted about Ontario’s social cohesion, a big part of which is due to “a publicly funded education system where we invite children of all backgrounds and faiths, economic circumstances to come together, to grow together and to learn together.”

Tarek Fatah, a secular Muslim activist who opposes the Tory plan, believes the government erred by extending full funding to Catholic schools. Mr. Fatah says the Conservative plan will compound the current inequities and “ghettoize” various communities.

“There’s not a single Islamic school that has categorically come out in opposition of the doctrines of jihad or Shariah (which advocates different treatment of women and men),” he says. “We know that in all these schools women are sent to the back of the class. They are not even allowed to sit as equal students. Now we’ll have the Canadian taxpayer funding this segregation.”

About 53,000 students in Ontario go to private faith-based schools, roughly 2.5 per cent of the total student population.

Ontario New Democrats, like their Liberal rivals, believe in the status quo when it comes to religious school funding.

Ontario’s Green party, vying for their first ever seat in October’s election, has proposed scrapping all faith-based school funding, including money for Catholic schools. Party leader Frank de Jong says that as a young student in southwestern Ontario, he witnessed firsthand the failure of Catholic schools to promote integration.

“There was a sense that we were different from the public school kids and we didn’t play sports with them, we didn’t associate with them and it was basically implied that we shouldn’t,” said Mr. de Jong.

“This is so wrong. We need a system that’s not divisive.”
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…this post forwarded by Windsor Humanist, Alexander Hodgins, after an August 23, 2007 article by Lee Greenberg in The Ottawa Citizen