By Arthur Weinreb
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Despite Premier Dalton McGuinty's protestations to the contrary, the issue of funding all faith-based schools in Ontario is shaping up to become the defining issue of the current election campaign. Although the issue was never seen as being particularly important by most Ontarians, short of administering lie detector tests to the party leaders, it is about the only way to distinguish Dalton McGuinty and the Liberals from John Tory and the Conservatives.
As a main part of his platform, Tory announced that a PC government would fund all faith-based schools. While the NDP's response to Tory's proposal is to to abolish the province's taxpayer funded Catholic schools, McGuinty and the Liberals want to keep the status quo. McGuinty, a Roman Catholic who was educated in the Catholic school system and who sent his children there sees nothing wrong with the province's taxpayers funding Roman Catholic schools while other Christian denominations, along with Jews, Muslims and Hindus, must pay out of their own pockets if they wish to educate their children in their faith.
In typical Liberal and liberal fashion, McGuinty's opposition to the extension to faith-based schools was to resort to name calling, labeling anyone who supports the extension of publicly funded schools to other religious denominations as a "segregationist". He then moaned and whined about how great his public school system is and how it will be weakened if other religions get the same rights and privileges that Catholics currently enjoy.
On the other hand, Paul McKeever, the leader of the Freedom Party of Ontario, has come up with a substantial argument against the implementation of taxpayer funded faith based schools. According to McKeever, a lawyer, once the school system is funded by the taxpayers, they become recognized as "state actors" and become subject to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This opens up the possibility that a student could challenge a school's religious policy on the grounds that it infringes his or her Charter rights. McKeever states in a press release,
The Court has already decided that, when a student claims his Charter right to equality is violated by a publicly-funded school's religiously-founded policies, the court will overrule the school's religiously-founded policy. In short: once a school accepts tax funding, its policies, curriculum and learning environment will be overruled if they discriminate on the basis of such things as religious belief or custom.
As proof, McKeever cites the case of Marc Hall, who in 2002 was a gay student at a Catholic high school. He was refused permission to bring a male date to his prom on the basis that to do so was contrary to Catholic teachings and the school's policy. Hall went to court and was successful in arguing that his equality rights under section 15 of the Charter were breached. The basis of the decision of the court was that since the Catholic school was funded by the public, it was subject to the Charter of Rights. The court followed the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Bob Jones University v. United States where the American court found that public funds cannot be used to discriminate even if that discrimination is based upon sincere religious beliefs.
McKeever's conclusion from all of this is that faith-based schools that are publicly funded will end up eventually becoming secularized as their religious rights and freedoms eventually give way to other Charter rights such as the right to equality.
Of course there will be nothing to prevent religious groups from having their own non-funded private schools although some Ontarians will undoubtedly complain about "two-tiered" Muslim or Jewish schools. But if funding further faith-based schools is simply going to lead to those schools becoming secularized, there seems to be little point in extending such funding.
If Paul McKeever has done nothing else, he has improved the quality and tone of the debate that is currently taking place in Ontario over faith-based school funding. He's miles ahead of Dalton who can only stammer and yell "segregationist" at those who are in favour of their own faith-based school system. It's a point worth debating.
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