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John Tory didn’t stop at getting up on a stump, he put himself right up in the tree with his announcement that his party would support extending provincial funding to faith-based schools. A quick look at the comments on the topic at the Toronto Star and especially at the Globe and Mail, where you’ll find over 200 comments vehemently rejecting the plan will give you some idea of the trend in public opinion on the matter. It’s not even close. It’s a rout against Tory’s plan and even suggests that most of us would like to see the Catholic separate school boards done away with as well. Does he really want to open that can of worms? Hey, maybe that’s his whole plan. Good one.
I watched Tory speak with Steve Paikin on TVO’s The Agenda on Tuesday night. He outlined his argument. It goes pretty much like this:

1. It is not fair that we have Catholic school boards receiving funding from the province when people of other faiths have to fund their faith-based schools privately.
2. There are exactly two ways to deal with the disparity: either bring the other faiths “into the tent”, so to speak, by funding them provincially and making sure they use the approved Ontario school curriculum and accredited teachers, etc.; or, one board, one system – in effect, get rid of the Catholic School boards and fold them into the regular public boards.
3. Getting rid of the Catholic boards would be divisive.
4. Therefore, we must extend funding to faith-based schools of all faiths.

Who can disagree with point 1? It certainly does seem unfair that if I’m a Catholic and I want my children to go to a school that is accommodating to Catholics and reflects Catholic values and so on then I can do so for free, but if I’m a Muslim I can’t. In fact, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the policy of funding Catholic schools but not other faith-based schools is discriminatory, and in 1999 the United Nations Human Rights Committee condemned Ontario (and Canada) for violating its equality provisions.

Point #3 represents the only argument Tory gave for not going the other way completely and removing special funding from all religious schools, Catholics included. And it sure would be divisive. The Catholics have had the right to tax-funded separate schooling since before Confederation. I’m no lawyer, but if I read this Supreme Court ruling correctly, the right of catholic school supporters is entrenched in the constitution.

Somebody needs to call a constitutional lawyer and find out whether the Green Party plank on this issue is even a possibility.

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