The True Facts About Faith Based Education

Tory as 'whipping boy' unfair

By CHRISTINA BLIZZARD, SUN MEDIA

It is curious, in hindsight, to see the way John Tory's career as a provincial politician is being remembered.

A phrase in the Toronto Sun's editorial last Sunday made me sit up and take notes. It described the fall-out from Tory's pledge to fund faith-based schools in the 2007 election as "a disaster entirely of his own making."

How sad that Tory's political legacy is that he's remembered as the guy who grabbed from nowhere the idea to fund religious schools and, mowing down vigourous opposition within his party, plowed ahead with it anyway.

And it's just not true.

We in this province tolerate a massively discriminatory system of school funding. Instead of addressing that inequity, we have turned John Tory into the whipping boy for it, when he was trying to bring some balance into the system.

We are hypocritical in how we fund our schools. We allow a constitutional anachronism to perpetuate a system that allows only Catholic children to attend state-funded religious schools.

(Actually, it was the Scott Act of 1863 that set up separate school boards to give Catholics autonomy over their education.)

Six other Canadian provinces have some form of funding for religious schools. Quebec got a constitutional amendment in 1998 to organize its school by language rather than by creed, although religious schools are partially funded.

CULTURAL DIVERSITY

Today this province has the kind of cultural diversity our founding fathers never dreamed of. As this province has grown and diversified, we are left with a situation where Protestants, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and others cannot send their children to the faith schools of their choice and have it paid for by taxpayers.

Unless, of course, you are in the Niagara Peninsula. In St. Catharines, Eden Christian School, which is predominantly Mennonite, is publicly funded. Education Minister Kathleen Wynne says it is "grandfathered," for some bizarre reason.

Eden's popularity is so overwhelming that it threatens the existence of Niagara-on-the-Lake's only public high school -- Niagara District Secondary School. The school board has declared it will close next year unless enrolment picks up.

One reason why the Green Party pulled as many votes as it did in the 2007 election was by promising to do away with the Catholic system and have just one publicly funded system. Sounds easy. Trust me, it won't happen.

Here in jolly old Ontario, we like to kid ourselves we are just and fair and equal to all. We're not.

Clearly religious schools are doing a good job, because parents send their kids to them in droves. But which one is it?

DO WE OR DON'T WE?

Do we have faith-based funding, or don't we? We have it for Catholics and some Mennonites -- but not Jews, Hindus and Muslims?

Tory's plan did not come out of the blue.

Within PC ranks, there was a great deal of support for funding religious schools. Frank Klees, who came second in the recent race to replace Tory, is a long-time believer -- although he backed away from it in the leadership campaign.

When he was provincial finance minister, Jim Flaherty (now federal finance minister) introduced his tax credit for parents with children in all private schools. This was viewed as an elite measure and was easy for Premier Dalton McGuinty to target in the 2003 election campaign.

The Liberals cancelled that tax credit -- retroactively -- when they came to power. To avoid the elitism label, Tory tried to direct the money to the school and not to wealthy parents. In hindsight, Flaherty's plan may have been a better solution.

Now voters have rejected that and the inequity is enshrined forever. We are a place where different rules apply to different religions. And that's the way we like it.

That's what John Tory attempted to change. He was soundly whipped by voters. He wears it. The party walks way from it. What a pity.

Let's hope he runs for mayor of Toronto. He'd wipe the floor with David Miller.