THE Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario announced June 8 thaat, if it wins the October 10 provincial election, it will offer full funding to 'faith-based' elementary and secondary schools.

The party is proposing to "bring faith-based schools into the public system." The schools would have to agree to "fully incorporate the complete requirements of Ontario's common curriculum [and] participate in Ontario's standardized testing program" and have credentialed teachers. Party leader John Tory said the policy is "a question of fairness."

Opposition education critic Frank Klees told BCCN the current policy is "discriminatory" because it "funds the Catholic system to the exclusion of all other faiths." John H. Redekop, a former political science professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, told BCCN the 1867 Confederation agreement, in an effort to protect minority rights, guaranteed funding for a (largely English) nondenominational Protestant school system in Ontario and a (largely French) Roman Catholic school system.

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However, while Roman Catholic schools remain protected, the Protestant system "has become secularized" and the Protestant faith community "feels shortchanged."

Liberal deputy premier George Smitherman, however, told reporters the proposal would weaken public education and divide Ontario students along religious and ethnic lines, instead of bringing everyone together.

Klees stated, however, that bringing independent schools into the public system will make education less fragmented.

- Jim Coggins

July 2007