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From: tony@hcr.UUCP (Tony Lill)
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: Ontario government funding for Catholic schools
Message-ID: <698@hcr.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 13-Jun-84 09:45:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: hcr.698
Posted: Wed Jun 13 09:45:22 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 14-Jun-84 01:47:31 EDT
References: <4538@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Organization: Human Computing Resources, Toronto
Lines: 69

There seem to be a few facts missing from all the flaming about
the funding for Catholic schools, which I will try to provide:

> I am annoyed. For years the Catholic "separate" school system has
> been funded by Catholic taxpayers' property taxes, while Jewish
> and other religious schools have had to be financed out of student
> tuition fees and religious community donations.

This "funding" has only been for the elementary level, as well an
an "equivalent to elementary" funding for grades 9 and 10, which
if I remember correctly, only covers 1/3 to 1/2 of the costs for
these grades.  For those of us going through higher grades, the costs
are born through tuition fees and donations (and those damn chocolate
bar campaigns).  In any case, this meant that only PART of our 
property taxes have gone to the separate school board, the rest have gone
to the public schools.  This is what annoyed me the most, that the public
system was getting a free ride at my expense.

>					          The Jewish community
> has sought in the past to have this inequity changed so that, at
> the least, we could direct our property taxes to our own children's
> schools. The justification for allowing Catholic parents to have
> this privilege was "it's always been this way" ... "historical reasons",
> etc. etc.

This is part of the BNA act, and was one of the concessions that allowed
Canada to be in the first place. (Actually, I seem to recall that as
being one of the reasons brought up NOT to give us full funding :-)
	Now that we have gotten a fair shake, it is much more likely
that Jewish and other religious schools will be able to get better 
treatment, since there is now a precedent for full funding of a separate
school system. (Besides, you wont be competing with our claims anymore)

> This afternoon Premier Davis announced in the legislature that
> Catholic schools will now receive funds from the general public purse.
> Well, what about Jewish schools? Or those of other religions?
> Those of us who send our children to certain schools for religious
> reasons should have the same right to public funds as the Catholics
> who send their children to certain schools for religious reasons.

I quite agree that you should, where numbers make this feasible.
(How silly, obviously if you already have schools, you have the numbers)
Now would be the right time to push for this, now that they have made 
concessions, an since an election is near (this is the second nice thing
Davis has done in the past couple of weeks, there must be an election coming)

The moral of the story: Don't begrudge us our victory, for it opens the 
way for your own.


 The opinions expressed herein are not those on my employer,
 and may not even be my own.
 Tony Lill
 Human Computing Resources Corp.
 10 St. Mary St., Toronto, Ont., Canada
 1-416-922-1937
 {allegra,decvax,linus,utzoo}!hcr!tony
SpellingLIst
campains
-- 


 The opinions expressed herein are not those on my employer,
 and may not even be my own.
 Tony Lill
 Human Computing Resources Corp.
 10 St. Mary St., Toronto, Ont., Canada
 1-416-922-1937
 {allegra,decvax,linus,utzoo}!hcr!tony