SCS is joining with SOFREE, and other Ontario Secular Humanist groups to promote defunding of Ontario’s RC separate school system. Here is the fact sheet you should email to your MPP
I am a non-Catholic living in …(town/city …………………, Ontario.
I have recently learned the following facts regarding the public funding of the Catholic school system in Ontario.
- The separate school system is paid for by all Ontario taxpayers, but that system can discriminate against non-Catholics when hiring teachers and admitting students.
- The taxes of those who elect to support the Catholic school system in their municipal enumeration pay for less than 8% of the operating costs of that system. All Ontario taxpayers pay the balance of those costs.
- 74% of Ontarians are not Catholic.
- The religious schools of non-Catholics – be they Christian, Jewish, Muslim, etc. – charge tuition. That tuition is not tax-deductible and parents must still pay the education component of their municipal taxes.
- Quebec eliminated its separate school system in 1997. It now has one publicly-funded non-denominational system split only by language. This required merely a request to the federal government to exempt Quebec from section 93 of the Constitution Act. The constitution does not guarantee full funding of denominational schools. It merely gives the provinces the right to do so if they so choose.
- It has been calculated that Ontario would save over $1.5 billion per year if it merged the two systems.
As part of the 74%, I object to paying for a discriminatory system which would not hire me as a teacher and could refuse to admit my child as a student. I also object to the province continuing to fund such a system despite the savings that could be gained and applied to improving the educational system in Ontario, for example restoring courses of study eliminated because of cost, and repairing and air-conditioning schools.
I call on you to establish one public school system for all so that our children can learn what unites them, not what divides them, and can go to school with their neighbours, not spend hours on a bus.
I would appreciate a response from you.
Thank you.