fundlessfaithdiscriminates

Fundless Faith Discriminates

Crosspoint #5 October 1, 2007

Fundless Faith Discriminates

By Lee Harding

Ontario’s political battle over faith and education reflect disturbing views sometimes heard in other parts of Canada. Recently, many Catholic schools refused the Human Papilloma Virus vaccine that the province wants to administer to all high school students. Meanwhile, Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory offered to extend public funding to faith-based non-Catholic schools as part of his election platform.

It’s not these ideas I find disturbing—it’s the backlash. Some insist if Catholic schools refuse the HPV vaccine, designed to prevent an STD that leads to cervical cancer, they shouldn’t get any public funding. The idea is if a school won’t participate in a government-sponsored health initiative, they should forfeit government money.

There’s a lot wrong with this idea. For one, Catholic schools are already forfeiting any government money they “deserve” to—the public dollars that went into the vaccine they’re refusing! Secondly, these vaccinations will also be offered in public clinics for anyone who wants them, ensuring they are available to all. Thirdly, there’s good reason for caution. The HPV vaccine has been connected to five deaths and 1,637 adverse reactions in the United States after just a single year of its use. One twelve-year-old died of a blood clot three hours after receiving the vaccine.

Really, this is not about the vaccine. It is about people who would like to undermine the influence of church in society, leaving a de facto society of secular humanism. Cutting off educational funding for faith-based education would leave it financially crippled, funded only by parents and philanthropists whose funds would be limited because of taxes only paid towards public schools.

At one time all Canadian public schools were Protestant, and the Catholic schools were in the separate system. Now public schools are secular, and the secularists want all faith-based schools to either assimilate or lose funding.

These anti-faith proponents have become so vocal, politicians are doing the same flip-flops they did on traditional marriage. After the 1999 Ontario election, Kathleen Wynne urged Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty to adopt a policy to fund religious schools. Fast-forward to today and Wynne has been McGuinty’s education minister for the past year. She now opposes Tory’s idea as a divisive one that would destroy the social cohesion of Ontario.

By now, John Tory is softening his stance just as Harper did on same-sex marriage. Tory now says if he becomes premier he will put the idea of funding faith-based schools to a free vote instead of expecting his fellow conservatives to vote with him.

Ontario’s politicians should act because the status quo discriminates. Catholic schools are already funded in Ontario (for now). Why shouldn’t other faith-based schools qualify for funding, as they do in BC, Alberta, Quebec, Saskatchewan, and the Northwest Territories? If this funding is refused, only one fair alternative remains: to cut public funding from all schools. I have no doubt that those who oppose religious funding would hate a privatized system even more.