Tory religious schools funding policy discriminates

By Kuthula Matshazi
Written for Da Reach newsletter, Toronto.

Ontario Conservative Party leader John Tory's proposal to fragment the Ontario education system through funding of faith based schools is nothing more than creating discrimination. He announced this policy as part of his lead to the provincial parliamentary elections taking place on 10 October.
On the surface of this policy, Tory comes across as the nice guy who is trying to correct a wrong which was entrenched in the constitution as a means to protect the English Catholic minority some 140 years ago. Then, the State was responding to unique challenges faced by the country whereby the minority English Catholics needed protection. I shall not debate the merits and the demerits of this policy during that time. Accordingly, Canada has evolved since then and now faces new challenges.
The Catholics are now not in a perilous situation, but the integration of the Canadian society into a unit is. We are faced with a challenge of building a society that is united and tolerant in diversity. To achieve this state, calls for understanding of each other’s religion and culture. And it takes interaction of the sort acquired from schools to internalize it. This, by no means suggests that it is only the school that provides this interaction. However, the education institutions provide children who are still growing and learning many skills with the appropriate forum for interacting and internalizing some of these critical social functions such as learning and understanding some of these cultures and religions. The importance of understanding and tolerating each other’s culture and religion has never been more compelling than now taking into cognizant deadly conflicts that have been caused in recent years over these matters.
The interaction of children at school creates an effective way of building a tolerant and culturally aware population, which is usually socially progressive. On the other hand establishing religious schools reduces and in many instances eliminates the opportunity for children to come across their peers from different backgrounds on a regular basis.
Tory’s plan locks respective religions into compartments where only the likeminded are permitted and accepted in and understood because of shared norms, values and beliefs. One probable reason Tory’s plan could succeed, although it is discriminatory, is because it has the flavor to appeal to people. Generally, people are predisposed to come together into groups sharing the same ethnicity, values, beliefs and norms such as having Little this community and Little that community. Having such grouping of communities is also a barrier to integration. Now if Tory’s plan could succeed, then it would add another front – promoted by public policy – which is a barrier to integration.
The message we would be sending to the young minds is that it is good to grow up separated from other religions and retain that separation in the critical social areas of education and culture. Not only does Tory’s plan promote discrimination, but it also takes away funding from the public school system of about $400 million. The public school system is already reeling under inadequate funding. Beyond this, should the policy be implemented, we stand to deal with potentially disastrous or dangerous unforeseen problems such as teaching hate or fostering cultural superiority. Tory’s plan of inspecting schools to see whether they comply with Ontario education standards and curriculum does not guarantee that none of this could happen, unless of course we live in a perfect world!
Also, Tory’s plan can never satisfy or cover all groups causing those who do not benefit feel marginalized. This scenario demonstrates that Tory’s plan is not as inclusive as he claims but exclusionary and fragments the population.
It is hypocritical for Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty to suggest that funding of Catholic schools should remain in place for stability sake. But the system is already not stable because of this very unfair funding system that exists whereby only Catholic schools receive government funding. It only seems stable because apparently, those who have serious concerns about the current system are not heeded.
The Green Party of Ontario seems to be the only political party that understands that the current funding formula and that suggested by Tory are fundamentally flawed. The party rejects the funding of religious schools. Let’s hope Tory will realize the fatal flaw in his policy and do what is right: call for a non religious sufficiently funded public education system.