The CCLA, which describes itself as a civil liberties watchdog, reacted to what is becoming a heated debate in the 2007 provincial election. Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory has sparked intense debate over his stance to support funding of all religious schools in the province as opposed to funding just the Catholic school system as it does now.
To make it fair for all religious schools, Ontario should stop supporting Catholic schools too, the CCLA recommended in a report prepared for the provincial government.
"It's time to get religion out of all of the schools," said Noa Mendelsohn Aviv, director of the freedom of expression project for the CCLA.
"Indoctrination of children with particular religious values should not be happening at public expense in places where all kids are required to be, like the schools," she said in an interview with The Globe and Mail.
More than 600,000 students attend Catholic schools in Ontario as the province has funded the system since 1985.
http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20070924/religious_school_funding_070924/20070924?hub=TorontoHome
[Proofreader’s note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on September 24, 2007]
Note: http://toronto.ctv.ca/s...
No Funds For Any Religious School, Group Urges
Posted on Monday, September 24 at 09:13 by DiogenesContributed By
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I am please to see that my current MP agrees with me, or a least has listened to us the voters!<br />
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"The Bruce Grey Owen Sound Tory MPP will go against the party on one issue. Bill Murdoch, says he will vote against John Tory's plan to fund faith-based schools, as that plan stands now. <br />
Murdoch says he started his campaign defending the policy, but from campaigning door-to-door, and from phone calls and e-mails, he's discovered some 70 to 80 per cent of his constituents are against the plan. Murdoch says it's his job to represent that majority, and that's why he's taking this stand. <br />
Murdoch says he spoke with John Tory last week, and sent a follow-up letter, asking Tory to put the funding plan to a free vote in Queen's Park, or to a referendum." <br />
From <a href="http://www.radioowensound.com/news.php">http://www.radioowensound.com/news.php</a><br />
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<p>---<br>When you are up to your ass in alligators it is difficult to remember that the initial objective was to drain the swamp
The only real fair way of dealing with the situation, is to not fund any private school system through general taxation, but to be perfectly fair, neither should public schools receive general funding.
Exactly how best to fund a public school is a matter of debate and experimentation, but it should be based on the schools ability to serve the community it sits in. If you are to have a secular school system, then a lot of people won't be pleased with that, preferring instead to attend alternatives.
While you cannot teach tolerance and open mindedness by attending a segregated religious school system, on the flip-side, you definitely cannot teach tolerance and open mindedness by forcing people to attend a secular school system.
One possibility is to allow religious teachings within the public school system, but such a thing would be a community based initiative that is completely optional and funded through community based fund raising initiatives (including, but not limited to charging an attendance fee to attend the optional religious classes). That way, everyone can attend the secular public school system, yet optionally take additional courses in whatever religion or "idealogical philosophy" is available.