Parents want Faith-based school

Published by The Canadian Press, November 16, 2005

Parents want faith-based school funds

TORONTO (Canadian Press, November 16, 2005) -- Complaining that their children were being treated like second-class citizens, several religious groups demanded Wednesday that Ontario's Liberal government extend funding to all faith-based schools, not just those for Roman Catholics.

The Multi-Faith Coalition for Equal Funding of Religious Schools cited a United Nations' ruling as they called on the government to fund faith-based schools for Jews, Sikhs, Muslims, Protestants and Greek Orthodox kids.

"We want the discrimination to end," said Archbishop Sotirios, head of the Greek Orthodox Church in Canada.

"Why should, for example, my taxes go to educate the children of the premier and not come to educate my own children?"

Sotirios said funding Catholic schools but not those of other religions is an "injustice and inequity" that he said means 50,000 Ontario children and their families are treated unfairly.

A 1999 United Nations committee found Ontario was violating the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by funding Catholic schools while refusing to fund schools for other faiths.

But Education Minister Gerard Kennedy held out little hope Wednesday that the province would be willing to fund faith-based schools for non-Catholics.

"Our focus is on publicly-funded schools," Kennedy said. "There's a choice for every family to put their kids in publicly-funded education because it is of high quality, it is safe and it is going to deliver what their student needs."

The coalition complained that Catholics have a school system funded by Ontario taxpayers while other religious groups spend thousands of dollars to send their kids to faith-based schools.

The group complained the problem worsened when McGuinty scrapped the previous Conservative government's private-school tax credit after the Liberals were elected in 2003.

But Kennedy said "no one should be surprised" the Liberals scrapped the tax credit because they campaigned on a promise to do just that.

"The previous government put forward a really ill-considered school tax credit that was available to anyone who set up a school with as little as five kids," he said. "There were no standards, and it would have eventually cost over $500 million."

The Association of Jewish Day Schools said Ontario is the only jurisdiction in the free world that fully funds one religion's education but gives nothing to other faith-based schools, and said equal funding for all is the only fair way to respond.

"Non-Catholic religious minorities would no longer be treated as second-class citizens in their own country," said spokesman Ira Walfish. "It's a matter of basic fairness and compliance with the U.N. ruling."

He noted that Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec all fund faith-based schools, and said "if Ontario will not fix this discrimination, the government of Canada has an obligation to take steps to eliminate it."

There was a small protest on the front lawn of the Ontario legislature Wednesday to mark the sixth anniversary of the United Nations ruling, with a similar protest planned in Ottawa.

"The religious and cultural survival of the affected minorities is at stake here," said M.D. Khalid of the Islamic Society of North America. "All the talk about multiculturalism is empty when our parents have to pay for providing their children with a faith-based education that hundreds of thousands of Ontario parents take for granted, i.e. the Catholics."

The coalition said most of its parents are not rich people who want --and can afford -- to send their kids to private schools, but rather are mainly middle-class families who want a faith-based education for their children.

"Parents take second mortgages to afford school for their children," Walfish said. "For most parents, school tuition is the single highest expenditure in their family budget. This is unacceptable."

Ontario Roman Catholic school funding has been guaranteed under the Canadian Constitution since Confederation in 1867.



Volume 7 Number 46 - Wednesday, November 23, 2005	A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY