Debate over the funding of faith based schools is growing in Ontario. Noam Goodman, a Toronto lawyer writing in the National Post, calls the exclusive funding of Catholic schools "explicit religious discrimination." He reports that seven per cent of 750,000 Ontario students who attend faith-based schools (which include Protestant, Muslim and Jewish) do so in schools that are not publicly funded. The other 93 per cent are in the Roman Catholic system.
Catholic schools have been funded in Ontario since 1985. In parts of the rest of the country Catholic school funding has been available since 1867.
Goodman argues that this decree should be updated to reflect Canada's current faith diversity, noting that according to the Supreme Court of Canada, Ontario is within its rights to do so.
The former Conservative government's Equity In Education Tax Credit, which came into effect in 2002 but was quashed by Ontario's current government, allowed parents who sent their children to private religious schools to be partially reimbursed for tuition fees.
The scheme offered Ontario parents a refundable tax credit for 50 per cent of the first $7,000 of a child's independent school tuition. The only program that comes close to it today is Children First: School Choice Trust. The privately funded program pays up to 50 per cent of tuition costs from junior kindergarten to Grade 8, based on financial need.
The Post ran a counter-argument by Adam Radwanski who agreed with Goodman's synopsis of the lopsided situation, but argued that Ontario should follow Quebec and Newfoundland, who did away with the dual system in favour of one public system for all.
He mentions that dividing the school system into numerous private schools along faith-based lines would only segregate students, rather than enabling them to grow up in a pluralistic society – particularly important for new immigrants who already struggle with integrating into their adopted communities.
The Toronto Star, in a 2003 story, when the education tax credit was being introduced, lamented that help to fund private schools will only undermine the public system, shunting money away from it and leaving it with even fewer resources.
"Education is the great equalizer in society," wrote authors Rizwana Jafri and Tarek Fatah. "A society, through its publicly funded education system, ensures that everyone has an opportunity to achieve success." They argued that the tax credit was simply the beginning of creating a two-tiered education system. "Instead of assisting diversity, private religious education will simply create a narrow-minded, elitist and segregated population." – AM
