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Lloyd McDougall
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Aug 16, 2007 - 11:13 PM
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Equal funding

Dear Editor:
I wish to comment on your editorial of July 25, and Teenaz Javat's letter (July 28) regarding it.
Especially, I wish to point out Teenaz states the desire that, "the legacy of the public school system should remain untouched." I suggest Teenaz is ignorant of the history of public schools in Ontario. The original Education Act of 1847 was passed to eliminate the acendancy or dominance in the field of education by one religion over others, namely Anglicanism over other Protestant Religions.
What Teenaz fails to grasp is ghe Education Act of 1847 did not establish a non-religious system of education in Ontario.
The so-called public school system, from 1847 on, was a religious-based system that was of a non-denominational Protestant character; it did not favour one religious denomination over another.
The downfall of that system came in 1967, when the Hall Dennis Report began to be incorporated, and God was forced out of the public schools.
So, in retrospect, for 120 years, 1847 to 1967, we had a public school system that respected peoples’ common beliefs in God.
Then, between 1967 and 2007, it progressivesly forced all talk of God out of the classroom.
A political system that shows favouritism in its funding policy towards Roman Catholics is no different than the early Colonial system of Anglican dominance.
Only with equal government funding for all faith-based schools can the legacy of the public school system of 1847 be restored.
Anything else, status quo included, is a triumph for inequality and for discrimination on the basis of faith, be it neither Roman Catholic nor Secular Humanist, atheist nor agnostic.

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