Welcome Back Lorrie......

....but I hope faith based education is not going to be the pivotal issue in the upcoming election. If I thought that McGinty had the smarts I might wonder if his responses aren't purposely made to create the controversy to deflect criticism of "broken promises." Anyone think Dullton is that smart........

But seriously, folks By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN Ontario is heading into an election, which means our politicians have gone barking mad. Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty, anxious to change the subject from his broken promises, says he wants to "grab Ontarians by the earlobes" to warn them a plan by the Conservatives to publicly fund private, faith-based schools, will segregate students along religious lines. Since McGuinty is only using the rhetoric of the schoolyard bully to make a point (he hasn't actually grabbed anyone by the head, as opposed to say, Jean Chretien) I will respond in kind. I want to "kick McGuinty in the groin" and take him on a tour of Toronto's public schools, where he will discover the biggest problem isn't the segregation of students by faith in private schools, but by race in public ones. McGuinty, who, ironically, was educated in the Catholic school system, which is publicly funded in Ontario, also opposes setting up special schools for black students in the public system. At least by doing it deliberately. As long as we do it the way we do now, apparently that's fine. The way we do it now is by jamming black and other visible minority students living in what are euphemistically called "vulnerable" (read "poor" and "high-crime") communities into local schools, where they are cut adrift, along with their teachers, by a school board more interested in being politically correct than effective. If McGuinty thinks there are no "black" public schools in Toronto, along with public schools in affluent areas where the kids are overwhelmingly "white," I have some oceanfront property in Winnipeg I'd like to sell him. In Toronto, we prefer our apartheid light. It's not official policy. It's the default system we use to keep poor black kids in their place, a corruption of the valid concept of the "local" school. And if that "local" school happens to sit in the middle of massive public housing projects where idiot social engineers jammed hundreds of thousands of poor people a few generations back, without any support, tough. Last May, Jordan Manners, an innocent 15-year-old black student, was shot dead inside a Toronto high school, in the "vulnerable" community of Jane-Finch. A task force appointed by the board has reported one of the problems at that school and others is that troubled and violent students are being transferred from one school to the next, instead of being given remedial help or, if necessary, expelled. Teachers trying to maintain discipline reported a lack of support from local administrators and the school board -- which two years ago effectively made a deal with Ontario's human rights commission to expel fewer troublemakers because it was allegedly having a disproportionate (read "racist") impact on some black students. That would be on the small minority of violent black students who now end up going from school to school terrorizing the vast majority of law-abiding black students. In Ontario, we call this "progress." What it is, is insane. McGuinty pretends such problems don't exist. The Conservatives would take $400 million of public money and give it to religious schools. What we need is one, properly funded, secular, public school system for everyone -- including the kids in Jane-Finch. Full disclosure: My wife is a public school teacher, but this isn't an isolated view. A recent poll showed most Ontarians support it. But Ontario politicians, save for the Greens, won't even talk about it. Kim Campbell was right. Serious issues aren't discussed in elections.