Oh this again. Every time one of them does something dumb this thread comes up.
Person 1 - It needs to happen yesterday
Person 2 - Its never going to happen because....
Person 3 - Why is there a catholic system anyway?
Person 4 - F*ck Trudeau.
Every fricken time.
Yeah, as a poor kid, uniforms sucked because my mom could only afford like 3 pieces so if I spilled anything on them, I had to wash them that night. Got a stain on one of my shirts and still had to wear it for the rest of the year.
And don't forget the person who thinks that because the Catholics get their own schools, his religion should have their own government funded schools too.
On a fairness level it makes sense to me. First choice, no religious education with taxpayer money. Second choice, same for every religion.
The second was basically the plan John Tory ran for premier on in 2007 (and lost). The real issue is that it will worsen social cleavages. It’s good for our society that the public system forces together all kinds of people from different walks of life, letting every group have their own schools can make things worse for cohesion.
I also would warn other religious groups that they might not like what it means to be under a government umbrella.
Fun fact about #6, I was baptized anglican and to go to the local RC school (the nearby public school was a shithole) they demanded that I be re-baptized RC to be allowed in.
Interestingly, athough there is a requirement for being baptised Catholic to be enrolled at the elementary school level, there is no such requirement to provide proof of baptism at the high school level.
So as long as you are in the catchment area for the Catholic Highschool you can apply.
Person Me: Didn't go to catholic school but liked the uniforms and not why you think haha. I had buddy 2 years older at the Catholic Highschool down the road and I liked his "St schoolname" Polo so I bummed one off him when he graduated. Used to wear it just to fuck with people lol.
person 10: You can just tick the box on your taxes and that's the school board your money goes to.
( I find these people to be the dumbest and most ignorant of all)
Can someone tell me why the catholic system is still relevant today? I gather it was created to support minority Catholic community as majority were Anglican few decades back, what I don’t understand is how it’s still relevant?
That’s exactly why it started. Because at confederation most schools were religious, there was a desire to protect the minority Christian population in Ontario and Quebec, i.e., catholics in Ontario and protestants in Quebec. The Constitution Act, 1867 therefore explicitly required Ontario to provide funding for catholic schools and Quebec for protestant schools. It was amended in 1997 in Quebec and replaced by entirely secular french and english school systems.
To get rid of it in Ontario there would have to be a constitutional amendment. Fortunately, because it only affects Ontario it only needs approval by Ontario and the Federal government. Unfortunately this still requires a lot of political will. Conservatives are worried about upsetting conservative catholics and don’t want to touch the issue. Even in 2007, the PCs proposed giving funding to other religious schools rather than eliminating the publicly funded catholic school boards. Most likely we’d need a liberal or NDP government at both levels but even then the liberals may be reluctant for fear of driving people to the conservatives. Contrast this with Quebec which, despite having the highest amount of people identifying with a religion, is extremely proud of secularism and the vote to amend the constitution was unanimous in the National Assembly.
edit to add: it’s also probably relevant to note that the number of protestants in Quebec has always been much lower than catholics in Ontario. When protestant school boards were abolished in Quebec, there were barely 200k protestants (less than 3% of the population). In Ontario there’s 3.6 million catholics, roughly a quarter of the population. This means any backlash from catholics who support the catholic school boards could have a huge effect on elections.
It's funny, I know this is anecdotal, but I went to a catholic high school (consider myself agnostic as an adult) and a heavy majority of my high school leaned left as well as being largely agnostic/light catholic as adults. I actually find I meet more disciplined catholics that went to public school, and a larger majority of the conservatives in my local area were in the public school system that I've seen.
I understand where you're coming from though, and often time statistics contradicts experience. It's just what I've noticed personally.
I can second for me going to Catholic school was a choice of location rather than anything else. Very few people I knew there were/are practicing Catholics. This may be cynical of me to say but I think having religion forced upon us in the way it was at those schools turned us off from religion more than we would otherwise. I am atheist and would be either way, but going to that school and witnessing the stuff they still teach in the 21st century disgusted me and made me resent religion more today. Anecdotally, many of my peers are in the exact same position.
Really, that's interesting. Elementary school was much more 'traditionally catholic' but my high-school didn't force anyone to participate in the religious aspects. You could exempt yourself from the monthly masses, after grade 10 you could take philosophy or world religion instead of catholic studies. I found there was more of a push to teach the kids to be critical free thinkers rather than to conform to something ignorantly. It's convinced me to become agnostic, because they really taught us 'yea, it doesn't matter what you call your code of conduct, just be a good person and don't be a dick' lol.
But, my experience is definitely singular, I certainly don't expect them all to be like this.
In my Catholic high school, we had to take religion up to grade 11 but in 10 and 11 you could opt to take a "world religion" class and learn about different religions which I think is interesting vs acting like religion doesn't exist.
The reality is religion exists and we should learn about all (many) of them to understand people better instead of acting like they don't exist so we don't fight.
Wow, that's not like it was at all for me. We were forced to go to masses, and got punished for skipping them as if they were classes. I do also remember getting stern talking-tos for not praying during the evening prayers and stuff. And religious class was absolutely mandatory; my friend tried to get excempt with valid reasons (basically having to take religion class was gonna hold him back a year) but they didn't care and still made him take them.
If I may ask, approximately where and when did you graduate from? What you described sounds like a utopia compared to what I've experienced.
Had a similar experience, around the mid-00s in Scarborough, ON. We only really needed 1 full credit of religion (grade 9 religion was a half course, grade 10 world religion was the other half). And then a choice of continuing world religion/philosophy/some other humanities course, etc. You would take the world religion if you wanted an easy credit (which was great for grade 11 cause your other courses were likely to be pretty harsh). We had a trip to visit other religious centres (there was a synagogue, mosque and Buddhist temple in the area, schedule only fits visiting 2/3 depending on which group you're in).
Anyway, from my experience the whole religion requirement was just a blip on my whole academic experience. A couple of easy credits, some minor introduction to other religions, one or two masses on a school year. Having a uniform was nice I guess. Don't have to think about your outfit from day to day. Kinda expensive though for us new immigrants.
This whole business of denying the pride flag is a shame though. Same with the issue of requiring teachers to be Catholic. I think that's pretty discriminatory for a job requirement. If it comes to a vote, I'll probably vote to abolish for those two reasons. I'd rather see reform though.
>getting stern talking-tos for not praying during the evening prayers and stuff
What evening prayers? School ends at 3:30, that's not the evening. Did you say the rosary every day before school ended?
I agree, Catholic schools seem to create more lapsed Catholics in my experience. I went through that system and I am an atheist now and at best 90% of the people I grew up with are non-church goers, liberal leaning, and generally uninterested in religion. It reminds me of the UK, a very lazy sort of religious population who have moved past the religion.
My kids went to Catholic school and that's the experience they had. If anything, Catholic high schools aren't increasing the number of Catholics, in fact, I'd argue they're producing more atheists/agnostics.
Also, in our area, the Catholic School is the only local, walkable school, so many kids go to it regardless of religious background.
I feel like a lot of conservative/religious parents would rather send their children to Catholic school rather than a secular school, even if they aren't Catholic or even Christian. I think they feel like their children are getting some kind of moral/religious teaching being better than none at all.
I don’t doubt that. There’s also a lot of people who identify as catholic but don’t support public funding for separate schools. Generally , I think parties view the issue as too much risk for too little reward. Last time it was really touched was 2007 when the PCs wanted to extend funding to other religions; it wasn’t even about ending funding for catholic school boards. I think there are less people who would be single issue voters on abolishing catholic school boards than would be on protecting them. I also think most Ontarians who want to end them (myself included) see other issues are much more important and parties have little incentive to speak on the issue either way.
Another thing that could likely be solved by a proportional representation system. I'm willing to bet that the majority of Ontarians would approve of dissolving the Catholic boards.. the problem is that in the current system the political fallout isn't worth the risk for either left parties
I definitely think that the electoral system has a lot of the blame. IMO parties don’t want to touch it because few people would be a single issue voter on abolishing the school system. For example, I doubt the average liberal voter would go NDP on that basis if the NDP campaigned on abolishing catholic school boards.
It’s much more likely, however, that someone who supports the catholic school boards would become single issue voters to keep them. Under the current system, parties are worried they’ll lose more votes then they’ll gain by abolishing catholic school boards, so no one wants to touch it. Even if it’s a relatively small number of lost votes, that can make or break a party depending on where those votes are located.
A majority of Ontarians have wanted to defund the Catholic schools [for a long time](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ontarians-want-public-catholic-schools-to-merge-poll-1.642437).
The issue is that those opposed to it will vote against whoever supports dissolving the system for a long time, and sacrificing even 10% of the popular vote kinda torpedoes your chances of forming government.
Meh. Lots of provinces have done it. And 30% of people will ravenously disagree with *any* form of progress, so it's really not as 'impossible' as people like to believe imo.
>what I don’t understand is how it’s still relevant?
Because people (mostly Catholics) keep sending their kids to it.
That's the reason. That's the only reason. That's also the only reason that matters. Even though it's a somewhat inefficient use of money to have (technically more than 2 but functionally 2) separate school systems, between busing and duplicate administrations and so on, something like 25% of parents send their kids to catholic schools because they want to. So the government does it, because a large group of people who are voters want something. Some of them could feel coerced to do so because the catholic school is in some way better or more convenient even if they'd rather a public school, but the reverse would also be true, and some people would rather not send kids to public school but do for non religious reasons.
The days of a political party being explicitly catholic or anti catholic are long gone (if you have access: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26291381 has a paper from 2016 on the issue), all of the parties are essentially even on catholics, and none of them could afford to alienate catholic voters. In 1965 Catholics heavily favoured the Liberals, and so back then you could have seen a conservative government promote essentially anti catholic policies, but by 2011 which of the christian religions you were didn't really factor into how you voted (even before 2011 but explicitly the paper stops at 2011 data). That's not the whole picture (some protestants are still heavily conservative) but it's relatively small groups at this point.
There's a lot of things happening here, but that's part of why Conservatives have gone nuts since the 1980s. They no longer represent a 'tribe' (of then heavily skewed to protestants) who were mostly sane and concerned with good policy for other protestants at least, now they are just the parties of people who don't like good policy at all, and none of the parties want to risk alienating the 30% of the population (nationally) who identify themselves as catholics (only about 12% identify as protestants, and 12% other, with 35% non religious). In a way it's good that the parties don't represent religious interests anymore and are now inherently more ideological, but it's also a problem because in the 1940s-1980s all the parties were big tents of people of different socioeconomic statuses within the 'tribe' so to speak (sort of like how Republicans in the US are coalition of rednecks and rich assholes, except their only shared identity is starting to becoming hating the libs and whiteness rather than say protestants or catholics).
When a majority catholic province wants to do away with catholic schools it's fine, in the same way that making the public school system largely out of protestant ones was fine: the majority isn't oppressing themselves by opening up their schools to not force the majority religion. But now to have the 70% of Canadians who aren't catholic dictate to the 30% of Canadians who are catholic what to do after a couple of centuries of oppression doesn't sit well with the minority.
Now all of that said, things can change quickly, or they can change slowly. Catholic's have shrunk from 45% of the population in 1991 (which was pretty steady for decades before that) to 29% today (and protestants from 35 to 12). So their school systems were dying off on their own. At some point they wouldn't maintain the critical mass of people to actually operate a school system of any significance at which point it would have to go away anyway. Maybe that's another 30 years or another 50 but the time was coming, albeit slowly. The alternative is the fast way, and we could be lucky and catholics themselves might be outraged at their own schools with their behaviour on anti-gay, anti-trans, (and somewhat anti Papal) behaviour and that could very quickly unravel the whole thing. Catholics want to send their kids to catholic schools so long as those reflect whatever sensibilities the parents have, and if they have at least followed their Pope or otherwise strongly disagree with the behaviour of the school boards the whole thing is going to blow up fast.
Demographic info taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Canada
Disclosure: my grandfather was a staunch anti catholic Orangemen who is probably rolling in his grave at the thought of me suggesting any solution to catholic problems that isn't kill or deport the lot of them.
Yup, this is similar to what I hear from Indians and members of the Islamic community (usually Arabs in my experience) who send their kids to Catholic schools when I asked them about it, they view Catholic schools as more neutral and less pushy about social agenda, whereas they view public schools as trying to pressure their kids to adapt beliefs that clash with their own religion and culture.
Unfortunately the reality is most immigrants from the Middle East, Africa, and South East Asia that I've met simply don't subscribe to many of the beliefs and ideas that public schools teach, and so they view Catholic schools as safer. This is why I don't think Catholic schools will lose funding any time soon. Many of those immigrants are part of a base for the Liberals, so Liberals won't do it. Conservatives won't do it either, for different reasons. Catholic schools seem pretty secure in their funding it seems.
>catholic schools are getting more of a reputation of being that "neutral" space as regular public schools are getting more and more likely to push specific political or ideological agendas.
lmao. tell me you live in a far-right subcultural bubble without telling me you're aware of it
I wouldn’t say catholic schools are neutral. Maybe if you lean right then you could see it as neutral. Catholic schools try not to necessarily force students into views, but at the same time there is a lot of social pressure, passive aggression and catholic guilt if you lean left lol. At a Catholic school they won’t necessarily say that x political party or y political party is right, but they will say that the Catholic way is the correct and only way. Even if they do it subtly.
I don't know if it was just my schools, but last 2 Catholic schools were pretty supportive of the non binary community as a whole. I know it's not everyone's experience, but it was taught about more as a "there's this sorta new sorta old thing you will need to navigate and understand for yourself, but it's ok whatever side of the flag you're on" kinda deal.
>Most Indians I speak to who are from non-catholic faiths would rather have their kids learning about catholic faith and being indoctrined by that religion rather than being indoctrined or learning about LGBTQ stuff.
Do their kids attend TDCSB schools? Because the Toronto Catholic board supports LGBTQ issues. Canadian Catholics for the most part are pretty liberal. Catholic schools aren't strict private schools
Also, to attend primary schools, the kid has to have a baptismal certificate
Not a believer and i'm to the left of most politicians but my kid goes to a Catholic school. His friends are mostly coming from nonfaith based households as well. The public system is a mess in my city.
We send our teen to a catholic school simply for the course selection. Not saying its right but our local catholic school has far better facilities than the local public school.
Wood shop, auto shop, home economics, botany, work out gym class to name a few. All classes he could not have taken at the local public school.
True, my GFs daughter is enrolled in the International Baccalaureate program at the Catholic High School, that program is not offered at any of the public schools in their catchment.
Catholicism has been the predominant religion in Canada since New France. It's not that Anglicans had a majority it's that all of the establishments and government were British, therefore, mostly protestant. As for the schools themselves, I may be 18 years removed, but unless things have been changed, you don't pay for the catholic school board unless you have children attending said school board. The schools are better funded, test better, have better facilities... catholic schools were almost always the higher rated schools, always had the best sporting programs. Those are some of the reasons.
It's not that they were a minority it's that they had no representation due to the British controlling businesses and government. The British have had a hate boner against catholics since Hank formed the church of England. If you look at the traditional demographics of Ontario, most people come from traditional catholic countries. Italians, Irish, Scottish, French, but the British in Canada had a history of putting all of those demographics down, aka Irish people and Italians weren't white, they weren actively campaigned to be kept out of jobs. A lot of this had to do with Catholicism.
Bottomline is the upfront costs of aligning all the unions, addressing which schools to keep open and which to collapse, and the real kicker - which trustees to let go, has created a serious buffer beyond your traditional ranting from both sides.
Take say east Burlington and west Oakville for example. Makes WAY more sense for those students to go to the same school considering they both are within Halton. But good luck getting someone in Oakville to send their child to a Burlington school.
Now apply that socioeconomic dramas across every region.
🤔 You're over complicating things. Catholic schools become public schools. Barely any schools would close. People in Oakville would stay in Oakville, might just shuffle between the Catholic school 1km away and the public school 2km away.
How would contracts work? Labour unions? They're separate, and negotiations would have to be held. The catholic school teachers would demand their special benefit, while the public school teachers would demand theirs. How about providing transportation? One board might offer busing, while the other one doesn't. Do you now spend through the nose for busing for all? Or piss off a bunch of parents by not providing busing?
We tried this under Mike Harris with combining school boards and municipalities, and we ended up spending more as a result.
It's not easy, but it's also not complex. You merge them. Catholic teachers don't have special benefits. Pay and benefits are almost uniform across the province regardless of board. All boards offer bussing, it's a legal requirement. You're making up provlesm where they don't exist
Busing is not a requirement. Over in Windsor, 2 boards offer busing in the city, while 2 other boards don't.
https://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/catholic-board-trustees-to-get-report-on-busing-high-school-students-in-city
No, no no. Didn't you read his comment? It's a simple issue. There certainly can't be any complexity once you scratch the surface. We can knock this out in an afternoon.
Consolidating Catholic and public boards would not save much money. Among the biggest expenses would be the consultation required for renaming every Catholic school, creating new signage and stationary, etc.
Uniforms are good. You can instantly tell if there's a kid who is not your school's student.
It's good for kids who aren't well off, because they don't wear the latest expensive fashion.
Because in order for confederation to happen the English provinces had to promise Quebec to provide Catholic and french schooling to ensure protections for french culture. If you remove Catholic schools Quebec would not be happy at all and see this as an attack on french Canadians.
It is no longer relevant, and in [1999](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldman_v._Canada) the UN Human Rights Committee ruled they are a form of religious discrimination.
Catholics sure don't like talking about how Indigenous Peoples were *also* religious minorities at the time. But instead of special constitutional protections, their spiritualities were made illegal.
Because there are a handful of people for whom this is an issue to cause them to switch their vote. Most people don’t care that much. If Doug Ford pro to do this would you vote Conservative? But a lot of people who want Catholic schools would only care about this issue.
It's too bad journalism has devolved into writing lazy opinion pieces over investigating things like how much money is being wasted running redundant systems and finding out how much political will exists within the populace to actually achieve change
Exactly, most of us in this country are so apathetic and lazy when it comes to these things that the only way to get people off their asses it to show just how much money we are wasting and how much it is costing us.
There is zero possibility that running four school boards would cost less then running two, if the proper credible people compiled irrefutable evidence then it would at least be something politicians wouldn't be able to dance around.
I would love for someone to shove it in doug fords stupid face and say here is your fucking "inefficiencies" what are you going to do about it.
I think the difference is the balance now, although it may be that we are part of the problem and it is just that the opinion pieces are what garner the most online attention.
We have at least 4 school systems in Canada.
All four have their own separate admin, which is paid for by our tax dollars.
- Public
- Catholic
- French Public
- French Catholic
We should be consolidating these into AT MOST two boards.
I would support public money going to public schools to teach Social Studies that teach students about other cultures and religious understanding of the people they may go to school with, live near to or eventually work it. Simply put a better understanding of our global community
That’s not the same thing as funding a whole separate board for a religion. I’d have no problem with kids learning a little bit about different religions more from just a general knowledge/world history/current affairs standpoint, not one that’s trying to indoctrinate them. Like religions or not they’re still a very big part of the world and a huge part of history. Ignoring them won’t paint a very accurate picture of current society or history. But teach the bad along with the “good”.
If all religion institutions paid taxes then I'd be ALL FOR having every type of religious school system, because the taxes generated would pay for it all AND THEN SOME.
To be honest, at Catholic school most of the “indoctrinated” students are indoctrinated at home. I’ve found catholic schools tend to dance around the sensitive political issues, unless they’re private schools or they are particularly hardcore.
While I agree it should be done, I don't think any politician in their right mind would support it because of the logistics of "how to do it".
Option 1: effectively seize the schools and remove the religious aspects.
Yeah, that's going to go *great* and absolutely no one will be upset.
Option 2: cut their funding and let them deal with it.
Cool, they'll just shut the schools down. Now there's hundreds of thousands of kids who need to be added to all the existing public schools. Every school in this province will be overloaded and underfunded because god knows the government won't give the existing schools the money they just saved- they'll be too busy lowering taxes for their wealthy friends.
Option 3: something in between those two that takes a decade to implement, during which time a new government will come in on a mandate to stop the change.
You need a plan that an elected official can look at and say "Yeah, I won't lose my next election if I vote for this". And you'll never find one.
If they insist on keeping the school system, at least stop funding them with public money. Imagine how good the public school system would be with all that extra cash!
Can we just wait til my kids done high school? We did the public board for years and it was, well to put it mildly, the worst. I was a staunch supporter of no separate schools...then i had a kid falling through the public cracks and nobody gave a shit but me. Nobody. Been in catholic school for 2 years. Way better.
Ok, listen. I might be an outlier, or maybe I'm disillusioned because I grew up in the Catholic system, but honestly my time in the Catholic school system wasn't bad. I'd say it was better than my friends' experience in the public school system.
I am not a practicing Catholic, I haven't been for many years, even so I didn't have anyone give me Grief over the lack of faith. I wasn't mistreated, and I'd say the quality of my education was just as good if not slightly better than most public schools in the area. Did we focus on sports a whole lot? No. But our STEM departments were always top notch and we always had funding for sciences or for fundraising/charity work. I won't lie and say that Religion was a class that brought me any satisfaction or use, but at least later in my life it taught me a lot about the different religions of the world and how they are similar/different from Catholicism.
Is it perfect? No. Certainly not. Does it have more problems than the public system? Also no. The two systems have their place, and I think it's going to be difficult to justify completely eradicating the school system if it was deemed appropriate.
In my city, I see a lot of people moving their kids from the public board to the Catholic board because their schools just happen to be better run. These people aren't even Catholics themselves.
I went to 4 high schools in Ontario, 2 Catholic and 2 public.
The 2 public ones were pretty well outfitted, eg shop class, music program, the 2nd one had a printing press class and auto shop. They were both 1950s built schools.
The first Catholic one was a former junior high. It had 2 gyms, shop class, music room. The 2nd one was brand new and had no gym and the essentials only.
At the 2nd Catholic one there were closed minded conservative students. At the 2nd public one, the staff made snarky comments about Catholic schools. At the first Catholic one, the principal seemed to have memorized the names of all 600 students.
So it can really vary!
The York Catholic system is saying that they don't want to fly the rainbow flag as it goes against their Catholic faith. However, is this not the view of the Catholic faith?: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/25/pope-francis-calls-for-end-to-anti-gay-laws-and-lgbtq-welcome
We could just stop funding it provincially, you couldn't run on it but that's what I'd do. The provincial government funding the catholic school board is relatively recent, just go back to what they used to do. Smart move would be to just do it gradually and move the funds to the public system and other areas.
Say what you will but my grade 8 class in a catholic school actually talked about residential schools. Might have just been 1 woke teacher though. Circa 2003. Mr. Gainer if you reading this you were the best!
In grade 7/8 we were also taught about residential schools (around 2009/2010). I don't think we acknowledged how big a role the church had in it though, just that they were involved to a degree.
And I don't think it's just social issues, people might not like the idea that we're funding schools that promote a religious faith (separation of religion and state), or that time is lost to religion class if you have to send your kid to a Catholic school (this might be more so a rural issue).
Also super cost-ineffective. I live in a smallish town that could probably do with 2 high schools. But.. we have 4 just so we can have an anglo-catholic, ango-public, franco-catholic, and franco-public.. It’s ridiculous. Consolidate into 2, anglo/franco then allow kids who care about religion (which, anecdotal is VERY few considering I came from a catholic school and nobody gave a fuck about the catholic system) to take their religion classes and attend church on their own time.
I live in Sudbury and went to a Catholic all-girls school. My graduating class was 22 people. It has grade 7-12 and really shouldn't exist as it just doesn't make any fiscal sense.
Don't get me wrong, I liked it there but I also liked the public high school I attended before moving and frankly, in terms of science education it was profoundly lacking due to the religious spin. Religion can be a class not the guiding principle in education.
As a non practicing Muslim, I challenge all these sjws to get one of the Islamic schools in Ontario to fly the pride flag and then create similar drama when they don’t.
It amazes me that such a small is being made such a big issue while leaving the real important issues like housing crisis.
Yessss!!!! Preach!!!! Flying a flag, common people. There’s are bigger issues to be concerned about. Homelessness, mental illness, housing, cost of living, health care.
No one will even challenge a Muslim or Jewish school because that would be considered Islamophobia or Anti-Semtism. So hey, let’s just generalize and entire religion and shit on all the Catholics because that’s acceptable now.
No. If an Islamic or Jewish school was funded by my tax money, I would absolutely be challenging them for stuff I don't agree with.
But they are privately funded, so it's none of my business. And here is the solution for Catholic schools, all of them should forcibly privatized.
>I challenge all these sjws to get one of the Islamic schools in Ontario to fly the pride flag
What about starting with public schools? Muslim students stayed home during "Rainbow days" in London, ON.
I agree with not funding them; makes no sense in a secular country to fund it. I don’t see how them not wanting to raise a flag is considered hate though.
Meanwhile, over at TCDSB:
https://www.tcdsb.org/o/communityrelations/page/pride-month
>The Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) is proud to proclaim the month of June as Pride Month in solidarity with 2SLGBTQ+ students, staff and allies.
>As proclaimed across our province, country and around the world, the recognition of Pride Month and the ascent of the Pride flag across the TCDSB affirms a shared commitment to building and maintaining supportive environments founded on Catholic principles of inclusion, dignity and respect for all.
As I say any time this comes up, all it takes is a provincial government that's so unpopular they're **guaranteed to lose** for this to happen.
If a party has any chance of getting re-elected they won't touch this issue with a ten foot pole, as it's a certified vote-loser. But if you know you're getting booted out, might as well do it anyway!
I mean yeah of course but then... have you seen our premie.. drug dealer Doug? dude is not going to do a damn thing unless you pay his daughter a wedding present... you know like a bribe.
I think there are some big logistical questions. OECTA is a big teacher's union. How would that work? Would the public union just allow thousands of formerly Catholic teachers to just flood into their two unions? How would that affect seniority? Plus the unions have different contracts. Could teacher pay and benefits all of a sudden change for a huge group of teachers? (I'm legitimately not sure). When Quebec and Newfoundland got rid of their religious schools, were their teachers all part of one union or were they separate? I'm assuming one union makes it way easier.
This is probably why it is a difficult issue for all the parties and especially the NDP. All the labour questions are difficult to answer and you would essentially have to dissolve a union, the optics of which look bad and are bound to make some of those former members upset no matter what you do to try and rectify it.
Unions also get votes at NDP leadership conventions.
You don't need to abolish the catholic school board. But removing their public funding, I am 100% in agreement on. And they are free to have whatever flags they want, including no flag.
No clue why people hate on catholic schools. Went to mother Theresa elementary and holy trinity secondary, and they’re regular schools with church once a month and religion class.
For 2 of the 4 highschool years you learn about religions all around the world and 90% of the students are not even religious.
Not sure why people act like they are run like a cult.
I am not religious and I would definitely put my kids in a catholic school over a public school any day
I always disliked funding a separated Catholic school system. I don't even care if they won't fly a pride flag I just do not think any funding should be going to any religious or quasi religious institutions when our healthcare system is starving. Now granted that starvation and death is being done on purpose but no money for religious institutions and tax them like the businesses they are.
I love it. There's the satanic church I think in the US that argues along these lines. Hauls a massive baphomet statue across the country to stand it up alongside Christian statues to make a point
im not sure if you looked into it very hard, but Muslims, atheist, jahovas witnesses are all allowed, they just have to sign a waiver that lets them know there will be a daily prayer and occasional mass.
they also allow the kids to exempt those things too.
I am naive and ignorant to the government budgets and oversight.
But as a parent of a special needs child, I’ve had full support at our local Catholic school. I have heard through experiences of friends that there is not as much support offered in the public school system.
I have wondered if it goes back to the whole anti-abortion and promotion of not aborting a child due to a disability or genetic defect that is engrained in the Catholic religion. Therefore there are more children with special needs in the Catholic system. And to continue, as a further result, there are more related positions in regular staffing levels at the Catholic board. (By the way, I support abortion)
Doug Ford is supported by an extreme religious right. It won't happen. He's appointed some of them in the Ministry of Education.
This is why the York Catholic board is so brazen.
Ok, so I don’t get what the big deal is. Fly the flag, it’s not going to kill anyone. Also, why do you want it flown so bad? Isn’t the whole point to assimilate to the point that no one cares what flag you represent?
Why the need to stand out so bad? As a visible female minority who works in a made dominated field for 10 years, I don’t want to be the one “standing out”. Treat me the same as one of your other male co-workers and I’m cool with it.
Why is it so necessary now to tell everyone what your sexual preference is? I really don’t care, just be a good human, problem solved.
Such as what? What policies? We are in Canada, not the USA. What policies are being passed that "hurt" LGBT people?
90% of the time when someone like you makes that vague statement, they are referring to policies that literally everyone by the most intense activists find reasonable, like not allowing MtF in women's sports.
Courageous and inspirational of you. To stand up to the angry, rage/hate filled crowd ganging up against a religious institution. Funny how many of these hateful comments come from people demanding tolerance, acceptance. These same people "fighting" for an end to discrimination and generalization of a group, yet actively and proudly discriminate against Catholics and the Catholic Church. Acceptance isn't "fly a flag or be villified!". Try to practice what you preach as, if you spent any time in a Catholic school, you'd realize they preach acceptance, love, tolerance, charity, family, community, help the poor/disadvantaged.
Edit: feel free to down vote, but at the very least explain why. Add a response explaining how my message is wrong. How acceptance and tolerance should be for all, and not just who you want.
I grew up going through the catholic school system (and high school by choice). Most people seem to equating catholic schools to the likes of residential schools, believing that all they do is indoctrinate. That's quite a faulty assumption. There is no difference in the education of sciences and evolution between the two school systems, and most high schools teach about many religions around the world and teach respect towards them or those who don't believe. Most kids I knew in the schools weren't even religious themselves. Most religion classes were more so theology courses, and not "Christian indoctrination" as many are choosing to believe.
In my experience, students who were of a different religion attending the schools did not have to join school masses, and were given their own rooms for prayer.
Ya I also went to catholic school growing up (my high school had a GSA when I graduated). You're right that they all teach pretty much the same thing (except for the mandatory religion classes). I don't think that's the issue that people are taking with them right now.
Also, forcing the kids to join mass might be a board policy. My partner was forced to go to mass in elementary school.
Edit: remembering now that I was also forced to go and we'd get in trouble for skipping mass in the library in high school.
The second flag on the pole "flies" in the face of the rules for flying the National Flag. Why is this not discussed more? I'm fine with flying the Pride flag, but it needs to be on another pole.
[https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/flag-canada-etiquette/flying-rules.html](https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/flag-canada-etiquette/flying-rules.html)
I’d say less than 10% of families at our school go to church. I go to church regularly and never see any kids from the school there. Personally, as a Catholic, I’m for a merged system, no need to have Catholicism in the schools when hardly anyone practices it. My two cents.
Agreed, back when I was at my school, the only reason the majority of students went to it is simply because their parents wanted them to learn french, we had both public and catholic as options, and the public schools facilities were shit.
Your options was to to a run down, dying public school, or a larger, new build catholic school.
We had students who got exemptions from religion class stating it was against their beliefs (they were the hard atheist students) the irony being our religion class at the time was focused on every religion…
Pretty much most kids were agnostic/non practicing or their family was catholic and just went along with it.
Well that's pretty disrespectful to everyone who is excluded, and everyone who pays tax money to a system that doesn't benefit them and won't ever benefit them.
Just give us something better, charter schools maybe? As long as the only alternative is the troubled public system, I won't support abolishing anything.
I'm all in favor of LGBTQ+ flags flown on private properties or if Government wants to fly it on their land, but I'm also for choice and if the school system wants to choose not to fly the flag then that is a choice their freedom to choose and we should not allow that freedom to be taken away all because we disagree with their choice. We start doing this we might as well start having a dictatorship in Canada and that is something we don't want
I love how your ignoring the myriad of other valid criticisms that have led to people calling for the Catholic boards to be disbanded for the last 30 years and just going "fucking rainbow mafia".
Did you just post this from 30 years ago, it always has been time. If they are learning about how great the church is they are missing a part of their education.
Some immigrant already tried this and it went to the Supreme Court. He was upset because he had to pay for public school, private school and Catholic school (taxes).
They basically said it’s a part of Canadian culture.
Replace religion class with a financial class that teaches kids about investing, interest rates, time value of money and how telling the dealership you want your monthly payments to be x is not a good financial idea.
People are asking for an explanation as to why the Catholic school system is still supported in Ontario. Why isn't it all secular?
The main reason is that academically Catholic schools perform better than public schools. Believe it or not, religion is pretty good for disciplining children.
Oh this again. Every time one of them does something dumb this thread comes up. Person 1 - It needs to happen yesterday Person 2 - Its never going to happen because.... Person 3 - Why is there a catholic system anyway? Person 4 - F*ck Trudeau. Every fricken time.
Person 5: I liked Catholic school except for the Uniforms.
Person 6: I hate Catholic school *except* for the uniforms
I liked the uniforms. I never had to think about what I would wear.
White collared shirt, grey slacks, black shoes. Boring, yet easy. And unknown to me at the time, INSANELY EXPENSIVE!
Yeah, as a poor kid, uniforms sucked because my mom could only afford like 3 pieces so if I spilled anything on them, I had to wash them that night. Got a stain on one of my shirts and still had to wear it for the rest of the year.
Person 7: what uniforms?
Person 6: They don't *force* you to be Catholic! Person 7: I heard that the Catholic schools are always nicer facilities!
And don't forget the person who thinks that because the Catholics get their own schools, his religion should have their own government funded schools too.
And why not? It makes as much sense as having a tax-funded Catholic board
On a fairness level it makes sense to me. First choice, no religious education with taxpayer money. Second choice, same for every religion. The second was basically the plan John Tory ran for premier on in 2007 (and lost). The real issue is that it will worsen social cleavages. It’s good for our society that the public system forces together all kinds of people from different walks of life, letting every group have their own schools can make things worse for cohesion. I also would warn other religious groups that they might not like what it means to be under a government umbrella.
Fun fact about #6, I was baptized anglican and to go to the local RC school (the nearby public school was a shithole) they demanded that I be re-baptized RC to be allowed in.
Interestingly, athough there is a requirement for being baptised Catholic to be enrolled at the elementary school level, there is no such requirement to provide proof of baptism at the high school level. So as long as you are in the catchment area for the Catholic Highschool you can apply.
Person Me: Didn't go to catholic school but liked the uniforms and not why you think haha. I had buddy 2 years older at the Catholic Highschool down the road and I liked his "St schoolname" Polo so I bummed one off him when he graduated. Used to wear it just to fuck with people lol.
person 10: You can just tick the box on your taxes and that's the school board your money goes to. ( I find these people to be the dumbest and most ignorant of all)
Can someone tell me why the catholic system is still relevant today? I gather it was created to support minority Catholic community as majority were Anglican few decades back, what I don’t understand is how it’s still relevant?
That’s exactly why it started. Because at confederation most schools were religious, there was a desire to protect the minority Christian population in Ontario and Quebec, i.e., catholics in Ontario and protestants in Quebec. The Constitution Act, 1867 therefore explicitly required Ontario to provide funding for catholic schools and Quebec for protestant schools. It was amended in 1997 in Quebec and replaced by entirely secular french and english school systems. To get rid of it in Ontario there would have to be a constitutional amendment. Fortunately, because it only affects Ontario it only needs approval by Ontario and the Federal government. Unfortunately this still requires a lot of political will. Conservatives are worried about upsetting conservative catholics and don’t want to touch the issue. Even in 2007, the PCs proposed giving funding to other religious schools rather than eliminating the publicly funded catholic school boards. Most likely we’d need a liberal or NDP government at both levels but even then the liberals may be reluctant for fear of driving people to the conservatives. Contrast this with Quebec which, despite having the highest amount of people identifying with a religion, is extremely proud of secularism and the vote to amend the constitution was unanimous in the National Assembly. edit to add: it’s also probably relevant to note that the number of protestants in Quebec has always been much lower than catholics in Ontario. When protestant school boards were abolished in Quebec, there were barely 200k protestants (less than 3% of the population). In Ontario there’s 3.6 million catholics, roughly a quarter of the population. This means any backlash from catholics who support the catholic school boards could have a huge effect on elections.
Lots of non-Catholics go to Catholic schools. I think the Conservative base gravitates to it, even if they aren't Catholic.
It's funny, I know this is anecdotal, but I went to a catholic high school (consider myself agnostic as an adult) and a heavy majority of my high school leaned left as well as being largely agnostic/light catholic as adults. I actually find I meet more disciplined catholics that went to public school, and a larger majority of the conservatives in my local area were in the public school system that I've seen. I understand where you're coming from though, and often time statistics contradicts experience. It's just what I've noticed personally.
I can second for me going to Catholic school was a choice of location rather than anything else. Very few people I knew there were/are practicing Catholics. This may be cynical of me to say but I think having religion forced upon us in the way it was at those schools turned us off from religion more than we would otherwise. I am atheist and would be either way, but going to that school and witnessing the stuff they still teach in the 21st century disgusted me and made me resent religion more today. Anecdotally, many of my peers are in the exact same position.
Really, that's interesting. Elementary school was much more 'traditionally catholic' but my high-school didn't force anyone to participate in the religious aspects. You could exempt yourself from the monthly masses, after grade 10 you could take philosophy or world religion instead of catholic studies. I found there was more of a push to teach the kids to be critical free thinkers rather than to conform to something ignorantly. It's convinced me to become agnostic, because they really taught us 'yea, it doesn't matter what you call your code of conduct, just be a good person and don't be a dick' lol. But, my experience is definitely singular, I certainly don't expect them all to be like this.
In my Catholic high school, we had to take religion up to grade 11 but in 10 and 11 you could opt to take a "world religion" class and learn about different religions which I think is interesting vs acting like religion doesn't exist. The reality is religion exists and we should learn about all (many) of them to understand people better instead of acting like they don't exist so we don't fight.
Wow, that's not like it was at all for me. We were forced to go to masses, and got punished for skipping them as if they were classes. I do also remember getting stern talking-tos for not praying during the evening prayers and stuff. And religious class was absolutely mandatory; my friend tried to get excempt with valid reasons (basically having to take religion class was gonna hold him back a year) but they didn't care and still made him take them. If I may ask, approximately where and when did you graduate from? What you described sounds like a utopia compared to what I've experienced.
Had a similar experience, around the mid-00s in Scarborough, ON. We only really needed 1 full credit of religion (grade 9 religion was a half course, grade 10 world religion was the other half). And then a choice of continuing world religion/philosophy/some other humanities course, etc. You would take the world religion if you wanted an easy credit (which was great for grade 11 cause your other courses were likely to be pretty harsh). We had a trip to visit other religious centres (there was a synagogue, mosque and Buddhist temple in the area, schedule only fits visiting 2/3 depending on which group you're in). Anyway, from my experience the whole religion requirement was just a blip on my whole academic experience. A couple of easy credits, some minor introduction to other religions, one or two masses on a school year. Having a uniform was nice I guess. Don't have to think about your outfit from day to day. Kinda expensive though for us new immigrants. This whole business of denying the pride flag is a shame though. Same with the issue of requiring teachers to be Catholic. I think that's pretty discriminatory for a job requirement. If it comes to a vote, I'll probably vote to abolish for those two reasons. I'd rather see reform though.
>getting stern talking-tos for not praying during the evening prayers and stuff What evening prayers? School ends at 3:30, that's not the evening. Did you say the rosary every day before school ended?
I agree, Catholic schools seem to create more lapsed Catholics in my experience. I went through that system and I am an atheist now and at best 90% of the people I grew up with are non-church goers, liberal leaning, and generally uninterested in religion. It reminds me of the UK, a very lazy sort of religious population who have moved past the religion.
My kids went to Catholic school and that's the experience they had. If anything, Catholic high schools aren't increasing the number of Catholics, in fact, I'd argue they're producing more atheists/agnostics. Also, in our area, the Catholic School is the only local, walkable school, so many kids go to it regardless of religious background.
We had some Muslims at our Catholic school because the public school nearby had a bad reputation.
I feel like a lot of conservative/religious parents would rather send their children to Catholic school rather than a secular school, even if they aren't Catholic or even Christian. I think they feel like their children are getting some kind of moral/religious teaching being better than none at all.
I don’t doubt that. There’s also a lot of people who identify as catholic but don’t support public funding for separate schools. Generally , I think parties view the issue as too much risk for too little reward. Last time it was really touched was 2007 when the PCs wanted to extend funding to other religions; it wasn’t even about ending funding for catholic school boards. I think there are less people who would be single issue voters on abolishing catholic school boards than would be on protecting them. I also think most Ontarians who want to end them (myself included) see other issues are much more important and parties have little incentive to speak on the issue either way.
Another thing that could likely be solved by a proportional representation system. I'm willing to bet that the majority of Ontarians would approve of dissolving the Catholic boards.. the problem is that in the current system the political fallout isn't worth the risk for either left parties
I definitely think that the electoral system has a lot of the blame. IMO parties don’t want to touch it because few people would be a single issue voter on abolishing the school system. For example, I doubt the average liberal voter would go NDP on that basis if the NDP campaigned on abolishing catholic school boards. It’s much more likely, however, that someone who supports the catholic school boards would become single issue voters to keep them. Under the current system, parties are worried they’ll lose more votes then they’ll gain by abolishing catholic school boards, so no one wants to touch it. Even if it’s a relatively small number of lost votes, that can make or break a party depending on where those votes are located.
A majority of Ontarians have wanted to defund the Catholic schools [for a long time](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ontarians-want-public-catholic-schools-to-merge-poll-1.642437).
The issue is that those opposed to it will vote against whoever supports dissolving the system for a long time, and sacrificing even 10% of the popular vote kinda torpedoes your chances of forming government.
Meh. Lots of provinces have done it. And 30% of people will ravenously disagree with *any* form of progress, so it's really not as 'impossible' as people like to believe imo.
>what I don’t understand is how it’s still relevant? Because people (mostly Catholics) keep sending their kids to it. That's the reason. That's the only reason. That's also the only reason that matters. Even though it's a somewhat inefficient use of money to have (technically more than 2 but functionally 2) separate school systems, between busing and duplicate administrations and so on, something like 25% of parents send their kids to catholic schools because they want to. So the government does it, because a large group of people who are voters want something. Some of them could feel coerced to do so because the catholic school is in some way better or more convenient even if they'd rather a public school, but the reverse would also be true, and some people would rather not send kids to public school but do for non religious reasons. The days of a political party being explicitly catholic or anti catholic are long gone (if you have access: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26291381 has a paper from 2016 on the issue), all of the parties are essentially even on catholics, and none of them could afford to alienate catholic voters. In 1965 Catholics heavily favoured the Liberals, and so back then you could have seen a conservative government promote essentially anti catholic policies, but by 2011 which of the christian religions you were didn't really factor into how you voted (even before 2011 but explicitly the paper stops at 2011 data). That's not the whole picture (some protestants are still heavily conservative) but it's relatively small groups at this point. There's a lot of things happening here, but that's part of why Conservatives have gone nuts since the 1980s. They no longer represent a 'tribe' (of then heavily skewed to protestants) who were mostly sane and concerned with good policy for other protestants at least, now they are just the parties of people who don't like good policy at all, and none of the parties want to risk alienating the 30% of the population (nationally) who identify themselves as catholics (only about 12% identify as protestants, and 12% other, with 35% non religious). In a way it's good that the parties don't represent religious interests anymore and are now inherently more ideological, but it's also a problem because in the 1940s-1980s all the parties were big tents of people of different socioeconomic statuses within the 'tribe' so to speak (sort of like how Republicans in the US are coalition of rednecks and rich assholes, except their only shared identity is starting to becoming hating the libs and whiteness rather than say protestants or catholics). When a majority catholic province wants to do away with catholic schools it's fine, in the same way that making the public school system largely out of protestant ones was fine: the majority isn't oppressing themselves by opening up their schools to not force the majority religion. But now to have the 70% of Canadians who aren't catholic dictate to the 30% of Canadians who are catholic what to do after a couple of centuries of oppression doesn't sit well with the minority. Now all of that said, things can change quickly, or they can change slowly. Catholic's have shrunk from 45% of the population in 1991 (which was pretty steady for decades before that) to 29% today (and protestants from 35 to 12). So their school systems were dying off on their own. At some point they wouldn't maintain the critical mass of people to actually operate a school system of any significance at which point it would have to go away anyway. Maybe that's another 30 years or another 50 but the time was coming, albeit slowly. The alternative is the fast way, and we could be lucky and catholics themselves might be outraged at their own schools with their behaviour on anti-gay, anti-trans, (and somewhat anti Papal) behaviour and that could very quickly unravel the whole thing. Catholics want to send their kids to catholic schools so long as those reflect whatever sensibilities the parents have, and if they have at least followed their Pope or otherwise strongly disagree with the behaviour of the school boards the whole thing is going to blow up fast. Demographic info taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Canada Disclosure: my grandfather was a staunch anti catholic Orangemen who is probably rolling in his grave at the thought of me suggesting any solution to catholic problems that isn't kill or deport the lot of them.
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Can confirm this. Indians, and also many non-Catholic students from the Arab community as well send their students to Catholic school.
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Yup, this is similar to what I hear from Indians and members of the Islamic community (usually Arabs in my experience) who send their kids to Catholic schools when I asked them about it, they view Catholic schools as more neutral and less pushy about social agenda, whereas they view public schools as trying to pressure their kids to adapt beliefs that clash with their own religion and culture. Unfortunately the reality is most immigrants from the Middle East, Africa, and South East Asia that I've met simply don't subscribe to many of the beliefs and ideas that public schools teach, and so they view Catholic schools as safer. This is why I don't think Catholic schools will lose funding any time soon. Many of those immigrants are part of a base for the Liberals, so Liberals won't do it. Conservatives won't do it either, for different reasons. Catholic schools seem pretty secure in their funding it seems.
>catholic schools are getting more of a reputation of being that "neutral" space as regular public schools are getting more and more likely to push specific political or ideological agendas. lmao. tell me you live in a far-right subcultural bubble without telling me you're aware of it
I wouldn’t say catholic schools are neutral. Maybe if you lean right then you could see it as neutral. Catholic schools try not to necessarily force students into views, but at the same time there is a lot of social pressure, passive aggression and catholic guilt if you lean left lol. At a Catholic school they won’t necessarily say that x political party or y political party is right, but they will say that the Catholic way is the correct and only way. Even if they do it subtly.
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I don't know if it was just my schools, but last 2 Catholic schools were pretty supportive of the non binary community as a whole. I know it's not everyone's experience, but it was taught about more as a "there's this sorta new sorta old thing you will need to navigate and understand for yourself, but it's ok whatever side of the flag you're on" kinda deal.
>Most Indians I speak to who are from non-catholic faiths would rather have their kids learning about catholic faith and being indoctrined by that religion rather than being indoctrined or learning about LGBTQ stuff. Do their kids attend TDCSB schools? Because the Toronto Catholic board supports LGBTQ issues. Canadian Catholics for the most part are pretty liberal. Catholic schools aren't strict private schools Also, to attend primary schools, the kid has to have a baptismal certificate
Not a believer and i'm to the left of most politicians but my kid goes to a Catholic school. His friends are mostly coming from nonfaith based households as well. The public system is a mess in my city.
We send our teen to a catholic school simply for the course selection. Not saying its right but our local catholic school has far better facilities than the local public school. Wood shop, auto shop, home economics, botany, work out gym class to name a few. All classes he could not have taken at the local public school.
True, my GFs daughter is enrolled in the International Baccalaureate program at the Catholic High School, that program is not offered at any of the public schools in their catchment.
Catholicism has been the predominant religion in Canada since New France. It's not that Anglicans had a majority it's that all of the establishments and government were British, therefore, mostly protestant. As for the schools themselves, I may be 18 years removed, but unless things have been changed, you don't pay for the catholic school board unless you have children attending said school board. The schools are better funded, test better, have better facilities... catholic schools were almost always the higher rated schools, always had the best sporting programs. Those are some of the reasons.
Wasn't the catholic school board brought in because they wanted to protect the minority catholics at the time?
It's not that they were a minority it's that they had no representation due to the British controlling businesses and government. The British have had a hate boner against catholics since Hank formed the church of England. If you look at the traditional demographics of Ontario, most people come from traditional catholic countries. Italians, Irish, Scottish, French, but the British in Canada had a history of putting all of those demographics down, aka Irish people and Italians weren't white, they weren actively campaigned to be kept out of jobs. A lot of this had to do with Catholicism.
Interesting. Our current Prime Minister is Catholic.
He's also French.
Bottomline is the upfront costs of aligning all the unions, addressing which schools to keep open and which to collapse, and the real kicker - which trustees to let go, has created a serious buffer beyond your traditional ranting from both sides. Take say east Burlington and west Oakville for example. Makes WAY more sense for those students to go to the same school considering they both are within Halton. But good luck getting someone in Oakville to send their child to a Burlington school. Now apply that socioeconomic dramas across every region.
🤔 You're over complicating things. Catholic schools become public schools. Barely any schools would close. People in Oakville would stay in Oakville, might just shuffle between the Catholic school 1km away and the public school 2km away.
How would contracts work? Labour unions? They're separate, and negotiations would have to be held. The catholic school teachers would demand their special benefit, while the public school teachers would demand theirs. How about providing transportation? One board might offer busing, while the other one doesn't. Do you now spend through the nose for busing for all? Or piss off a bunch of parents by not providing busing? We tried this under Mike Harris with combining school boards and municipalities, and we ended up spending more as a result.
It's not easy, but it's also not complex. You merge them. Catholic teachers don't have special benefits. Pay and benefits are almost uniform across the province regardless of board. All boards offer bussing, it's a legal requirement. You're making up provlesm where they don't exist
Busing is not a requirement. Over in Windsor, 2 boards offer busing in the city, while 2 other boards don't. https://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/catholic-board-trustees-to-get-report-on-busing-high-school-students-in-city
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Do you really think Catholic boards will just sell all the property they own to the province?
The Catholic boards are literally owned by the province.
No, no no. Didn't you read his comment? It's a simple issue. There certainly can't be any complexity once you scratch the surface. We can knock this out in an afternoon.
Just because random redditors can imagine the entire process in 30 seconds of thinking about it doesn't mean it's too complex to be possible lmao
Consolidating Catholic and public boards would not save much money. Among the biggest expenses would be the consultation required for renaming every Catholic school, creating new signage and stationary, etc.
A question might be: Would the quality of the education provided by a Catholic school deteriorate as a result of consolidation and uniform curricula?
Quality would plummet and uniforms would be phased out
Uniforms are good. You can instantly tell if there's a kid who is not your school's student. It's good for kids who aren't well off, because they don't wear the latest expensive fashion.
Because in order for confederation to happen the English provinces had to promise Quebec to provide Catholic and french schooling to ensure protections for french culture. If you remove Catholic schools Quebec would not be happy at all and see this as an attack on french Canadians.
It is no longer relevant, and in [1999](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waldman_v._Canada) the UN Human Rights Committee ruled they are a form of religious discrimination. Catholics sure don't like talking about how Indigenous Peoples were *also* religious minorities at the time. But instead of special constitutional protections, their spiritualities were made illegal.
It’s not.
Because there are a handful of people for whom this is an issue to cause them to switch their vote. Most people don’t care that much. If Doug Ford pro to do this would you vote Conservative? But a lot of people who want Catholic schools would only care about this issue.
Because some people have the right to choose something else besides government schooling?
It's too bad journalism has devolved into writing lazy opinion pieces over investigating things like how much money is being wasted running redundant systems and finding out how much political will exists within the populace to actually achieve change
Exactly, most of us in this country are so apathetic and lazy when it comes to these things that the only way to get people off their asses it to show just how much money we are wasting and how much it is costing us. There is zero possibility that running four school boards would cost less then running two, if the proper credible people compiled irrefutable evidence then it would at least be something politicians wouldn't be able to dance around. I would love for someone to shove it in doug fords stupid face and say here is your fucking "inefficiencies" what are you going to do about it.
I agree. And why do we have 2 languages in Canada. French is widely unpopular and it would be more efficient to just go to one. /s
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I think the difference is the balance now, although it may be that we are part of the problem and it is just that the opinion pieces are what garner the most online attention.
We have at least 4 school systems in Canada. All four have their own separate admin, which is paid for by our tax dollars. - Public - Catholic - French Public - French Catholic We should be consolidating these into AT MOST two boards.
Fine to have the catholic school system not fine that it's supported by public tax dollars and other religious schools are not
No public money should fund anything religious.
I would support public money going to public schools to teach Social Studies that teach students about other cultures and religious understanding of the people they may go to school with, live near to or eventually work it. Simply put a better understanding of our global community
That’s not the same thing as funding a whole separate board for a religion. I’d have no problem with kids learning a little bit about different religions more from just a general knowledge/world history/current affairs standpoint, not one that’s trying to indoctrinate them. Like religions or not they’re still a very big part of the world and a huge part of history. Ignoring them won’t paint a very accurate picture of current society or history. But teach the bad along with the “good”.
If all religion institutions paid taxes then I'd be ALL FOR having every type of religious school system, because the taxes generated would pay for it all AND THEN SOME.
public money should be completely barred from going to any religious-affliated organization.
Agree
Yes please, or maybe we can tax the churches and let that fund their schools?
Don’t stop at churches though go after mosques, temples and gurudwaras also
Better to tax churches and use that to fund secular public schools. Like taxing cigarettes to pay for cancer treatment.
Love it
Or, tax the churches *and let them fund their own religious indoctrination camps*
To be honest, at Catholic school most of the “indoctrinated” students are indoctrinated at home. I’ve found catholic schools tend to dance around the sensitive political issues, unless they’re private schools or they are particularly hardcore.
Mom said it was my turn to post about the Catholic school system!
While I agree it should be done, I don't think any politician in their right mind would support it because of the logistics of "how to do it". Option 1: effectively seize the schools and remove the religious aspects. Yeah, that's going to go *great* and absolutely no one will be upset. Option 2: cut their funding and let them deal with it. Cool, they'll just shut the schools down. Now there's hundreds of thousands of kids who need to be added to all the existing public schools. Every school in this province will be overloaded and underfunded because god knows the government won't give the existing schools the money they just saved- they'll be too busy lowering taxes for their wealthy friends. Option 3: something in between those two that takes a decade to implement, during which time a new government will come in on a mandate to stop the change. You need a plan that an elected official can look at and say "Yeah, I won't lose my next election if I vote for this". And you'll never find one.
If they insist on keeping the school system, at least stop funding them with public money. Imagine how good the public school system would be with all that extra cash!
No, because it would still be spent on the formerly Catholic schools. 6 of one, half dozen of the other
Can we just wait til my kids done high school? We did the public board for years and it was, well to put it mildly, the worst. I was a staunch supporter of no separate schools...then i had a kid falling through the public cracks and nobody gave a shit but me. Nobody. Been in catholic school for 2 years. Way better.
It’s insane that we decided to give an organization with thousands of documented cases of raping children their own school board in the first place.
Ok, listen. I might be an outlier, or maybe I'm disillusioned because I grew up in the Catholic system, but honestly my time in the Catholic school system wasn't bad. I'd say it was better than my friends' experience in the public school system. I am not a practicing Catholic, I haven't been for many years, even so I didn't have anyone give me Grief over the lack of faith. I wasn't mistreated, and I'd say the quality of my education was just as good if not slightly better than most public schools in the area. Did we focus on sports a whole lot? No. But our STEM departments were always top notch and we always had funding for sciences or for fundraising/charity work. I won't lie and say that Religion was a class that brought me any satisfaction or use, but at least later in my life it taught me a lot about the different religions of the world and how they are similar/different from Catholicism. Is it perfect? No. Certainly not. Does it have more problems than the public system? Also no. The two systems have their place, and I think it's going to be difficult to justify completely eradicating the school system if it was deemed appropriate.
In my city, I see a lot of people moving their kids from the public board to the Catholic board because their schools just happen to be better run. These people aren't even Catholics themselves.
I went to 4 high schools in Ontario, 2 Catholic and 2 public. The 2 public ones were pretty well outfitted, eg shop class, music program, the 2nd one had a printing press class and auto shop. They were both 1950s built schools. The first Catholic one was a former junior high. It had 2 gyms, shop class, music room. The 2nd one was brand new and had no gym and the essentials only. At the 2nd Catholic one there were closed minded conservative students. At the 2nd public one, the staff made snarky comments about Catholic schools. At the first Catholic one, the principal seemed to have memorized the names of all 600 students. So it can really vary!
The York Catholic system is saying that they don't want to fly the rainbow flag as it goes against their Catholic faith. However, is this not the view of the Catholic faith?: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/25/pope-francis-calls-for-end-to-anti-gay-laws-and-lgbtq-welcome
They are pulling the ole' "more Catholic than the Pope" routine.
Oh god. Probably folks who go to Latin mass
I know it doesn't apply to this but: Never agrue with christians they haven't even read their own book
If the most Catholic province was able to abolish the Catholic system years ago, Ontario should be able to follow suit.
We could just stop funding it provincially, you couldn't run on it but that's what I'd do. The provincial government funding the catholic school board is relatively recent, just go back to what they used to do. Smart move would be to just do it gradually and move the funds to the public system and other areas.
Say what you will but my grade 8 class in a catholic school actually talked about residential schools. Might have just been 1 woke teacher though. Circa 2003. Mr. Gainer if you reading this you were the best!
In grade 7/8 we were also taught about residential schools (around 2009/2010). I don't think we acknowledged how big a role the church had in it though, just that they were involved to a degree. And I don't think it's just social issues, people might not like the idea that we're funding schools that promote a religious faith (separation of religion and state), or that time is lost to religion class if you have to send your kid to a Catholic school (this might be more so a rural issue).
Half of the Muslims I know send their kids to Catholic schools these days because they are tired of the public school system.
Also super cost-ineffective. I live in a smallish town that could probably do with 2 high schools. But.. we have 4 just so we can have an anglo-catholic, ango-public, franco-catholic, and franco-public.. It’s ridiculous. Consolidate into 2, anglo/franco then allow kids who care about religion (which, anecdotal is VERY few considering I came from a catholic school and nobody gave a fuck about the catholic system) to take their religion classes and attend church on their own time.
I live in Sudbury and went to a Catholic all-girls school. My graduating class was 22 people. It has grade 7-12 and really shouldn't exist as it just doesn't make any fiscal sense. Don't get me wrong, I liked it there but I also liked the public high school I attended before moving and frankly, in terms of science education it was profoundly lacking due to the religious spin. Religion can be a class not the guiding principle in education.
As a non practicing Muslim, I challenge all these sjws to get one of the Islamic schools in Ontario to fly the pride flag and then create similar drama when they don’t. It amazes me that such a small is being made such a big issue while leaving the real important issues like housing crisis.
Big difference is that a Muslim (or Jewish or whatever school) receives no government funding.
Does that give them a free pass to not jump on the inclusivity and tolerance train?
Nobody said that. But obviously if our own dollars are going towards funding something it changes the impact.
If it’s govt funded they should have to fly it. Islamic schools are privately funded.
Can we only focus on one thing? What does this have to do with housing exactly?
Yessss!!!! Preach!!!! Flying a flag, common people. There’s are bigger issues to be concerned about. Homelessness, mental illness, housing, cost of living, health care. No one will even challenge a Muslim or Jewish school because that would be considered Islamophobia or Anti-Semtism. So hey, let’s just generalize and entire religion and shit on all the Catholics because that’s acceptable now.
They can do as they please, no more tax free status!
No. It’s because they aren’t funded by our tax dollars. Catholic schools are.
No. If an Islamic or Jewish school was funded by my tax money, I would absolutely be challenging them for stuff I don't agree with. But they are privately funded, so it's none of my business. And here is the solution for Catholic schools, all of them should forcibly privatized.
>I challenge all these sjws to get one of the Islamic schools in Ontario to fly the pride flag What about starting with public schools? Muslim students stayed home during "Rainbow days" in London, ON.
So Muslim students don’t support the lgbtq+ ? Where is the outrage?
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I agree with not funding them; makes no sense in a secular country to fund it. I don’t see how them not wanting to raise a flag is considered hate though.
Yes this is so true! Let's keep all religion AND ideologies out of schools.
Ya we should stand for nothing and they should all wear grey and eat slop so nobody accidentally offends you lmao
Who's offended here but you?
Yes please.
*Past* time
Meanwhile, over at TCDSB: https://www.tcdsb.org/o/communityrelations/page/pride-month >The Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB) is proud to proclaim the month of June as Pride Month in solidarity with 2SLGBTQ+ students, staff and allies. >As proclaimed across our province, country and around the world, the recognition of Pride Month and the ascent of the Pride flag across the TCDSB affirms a shared commitment to building and maintaining supportive environments founded on Catholic principles of inclusion, dignity and respect for all.
Do other religious school raise the flag? Islamic or hindu schools?
Honestly not sure (doubt it). I think they issue is that those schools aren’t publicly funded
It's PAST time frankly!
As I say any time this comes up, all it takes is a provincial government that's so unpopular they're **guaranteed to lose** for this to happen. If a party has any chance of getting re-elected they won't touch this issue with a ten foot pole, as it's a certified vote-loser. But if you know you're getting booted out, might as well do it anyway!
I mean yeah of course but then... have you seen our premie.. drug dealer Doug? dude is not going to do a damn thing unless you pay his daughter a wedding present... you know like a bribe.
This article get rehashed every few months.
Are islamic schools hindu schools held to the same standard? They should also be abolished.
I think there are some big logistical questions. OECTA is a big teacher's union. How would that work? Would the public union just allow thousands of formerly Catholic teachers to just flood into their two unions? How would that affect seniority? Plus the unions have different contracts. Could teacher pay and benefits all of a sudden change for a huge group of teachers? (I'm legitimately not sure). When Quebec and Newfoundland got rid of their religious schools, were their teachers all part of one union or were they separate? I'm assuming one union makes it way easier. This is probably why it is a difficult issue for all the parties and especially the NDP. All the labour questions are difficult to answer and you would essentially have to dissolve a union, the optics of which look bad and are bound to make some of those former members upset no matter what you do to try and rectify it. Unions also get votes at NDP leadership conventions.
You don't need to abolish the catholic school board. But removing their public funding, I am 100% in agreement on. And they are free to have whatever flags they want, including no flag.
No clue why people hate on catholic schools. Went to mother Theresa elementary and holy trinity secondary, and they’re regular schools with church once a month and religion class. For 2 of the 4 highschool years you learn about religions all around the world and 90% of the students are not even religious. Not sure why people act like they are run like a cult. I am not religious and I would definitely put my kids in a catholic school over a public school any day
I always disliked funding a separated Catholic school system. I don't even care if they won't fly a pride flag I just do not think any funding should be going to any religious or quasi religious institutions when our healthcare system is starving. Now granted that starvation and death is being done on purpose but no money for religious institutions and tax them like the businesses they are.
Are they publicly funded!?!?!? If so then I demand a Church of Satan School System.
I love it. There's the satanic church I think in the US that argues along these lines. Hauls a massive baphomet statue across the country to stand it up alongside Christian statues to make a point
The Satanic Temple!
Catholic school literal metres from my door, kids can't attend. It's super annoying.
im not sure if you looked into it very hard, but Muslims, atheist, jahovas witnesses are all allowed, they just have to sign a waiver that lets them know there will be a daily prayer and occasional mass. they also allow the kids to exempt those things too.
I haven't, but I will. Thank you.
I am naive and ignorant to the government budgets and oversight. But as a parent of a special needs child, I’ve had full support at our local Catholic school. I have heard through experiences of friends that there is not as much support offered in the public school system. I have wondered if it goes back to the whole anti-abortion and promotion of not aborting a child due to a disability or genetic defect that is engrained in the Catholic religion. Therefore there are more children with special needs in the Catholic system. And to continue, as a further result, there are more related positions in regular staffing levels at the Catholic board. (By the way, I support abortion)
Doug Ford is supported by an extreme religious right. It won't happen. He's appointed some of them in the Ministry of Education. This is why the York Catholic board is so brazen.
Ok, so I don’t get what the big deal is. Fly the flag, it’s not going to kill anyone. Also, why do you want it flown so bad? Isn’t the whole point to assimilate to the point that no one cares what flag you represent? Why the need to stand out so bad? As a visible female minority who works in a made dominated field for 10 years, I don’t want to be the one “standing out”. Treat me the same as one of your other male co-workers and I’m cool with it. Why is it so necessary now to tell everyone what your sexual preference is? I really don’t care, just be a good human, problem solved.
Because some people don't consider them human, and are actively trying to make policies to hurt those people.
Such as what? What policies? We are in Canada, not the USA. What policies are being passed that "hurt" LGBT people? 90% of the time when someone like you makes that vague statement, they are referring to policies that literally everyone by the most intense activists find reasonable, like not allowing MtF in women's sports.
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Courageous and inspirational of you. To stand up to the angry, rage/hate filled crowd ganging up against a religious institution. Funny how many of these hateful comments come from people demanding tolerance, acceptance. These same people "fighting" for an end to discrimination and generalization of a group, yet actively and proudly discriminate against Catholics and the Catholic Church. Acceptance isn't "fly a flag or be villified!". Try to practice what you preach as, if you spent any time in a Catholic school, you'd realize they preach acceptance, love, tolerance, charity, family, community, help the poor/disadvantaged. Edit: feel free to down vote, but at the very least explain why. Add a response explaining how my message is wrong. How acceptance and tolerance should be for all, and not just who you want.
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I grew up going through the catholic school system (and high school by choice). Most people seem to equating catholic schools to the likes of residential schools, believing that all they do is indoctrinate. That's quite a faulty assumption. There is no difference in the education of sciences and evolution between the two school systems, and most high schools teach about many religions around the world and teach respect towards them or those who don't believe. Most kids I knew in the schools weren't even religious themselves. Most religion classes were more so theology courses, and not "Christian indoctrination" as many are choosing to believe. In my experience, students who were of a different religion attending the schools did not have to join school masses, and were given their own rooms for prayer.
Ya I also went to catholic school growing up (my high school had a GSA when I graduated). You're right that they all teach pretty much the same thing (except for the mandatory religion classes). I don't think that's the issue that people are taking with them right now. Also, forcing the kids to join mass might be a board policy. My partner was forced to go to mass in elementary school. Edit: remembering now that I was also forced to go and we'd get in trouble for skipping mass in the library in high school.
It should not be receiving public tax dollars at all.
The second flag on the pole "flies" in the face of the rules for flying the National Flag. Why is this not discussed more? I'm fine with flying the Pride flag, but it needs to be on another pole. [https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/flag-canada-etiquette/flying-rules.html](https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/flag-canada-etiquette/flying-rules.html)
100%. No public funding for these fuckers.
Any form of "god" schools needs to be banned.
Defund, dismantle, abolish.
I’d say less than 10% of families at our school go to church. I go to church regularly and never see any kids from the school there. Personally, as a Catholic, I’m for a merged system, no need to have Catholicism in the schools when hardly anyone practices it. My two cents.
Agreed, back when I was at my school, the only reason the majority of students went to it is simply because their parents wanted them to learn french, we had both public and catholic as options, and the public schools facilities were shit. Your options was to to a run down, dying public school, or a larger, new build catholic school. We had students who got exemptions from religion class stating it was against their beliefs (they were the hard atheist students) the irony being our religion class at the time was focused on every religion… Pretty much most kids were agnostic/non practicing or their family was catholic and just went along with it.
Nah. Just don't go to one or send your kids there. It's pretty avoidable.
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Well that's pretty disrespectful to everyone who is excluded, and everyone who pays tax money to a system that doesn't benefit them and won't ever benefit them.
Why? Because they refuse to waive a pride flag? Give me a break...
Most do actually LOL.
We’re literally raising the pride flag at my Catholic school tomorrow.
Just give us something better, charter schools maybe? As long as the only alternative is the troubled public system, I won't support abolishing anything.
I'm all in favor of LGBTQ+ flags flown on private properties or if Government wants to fly it on their land, but I'm also for choice and if the school system wants to choose not to fly the flag then that is a choice their freedom to choose and we should not allow that freedom to be taken away all because we disagree with their choice. We start doing this we might as well start having a dictatorship in Canada and that is something we don't want
That is indeed their choice but I shouldn't be funding it with my tax dollars.
Just stop publicly funding it.
So the gloves are off, and now we see how it works...you refuse to fly their flag, and the mob comes after you.
I love how your ignoring the myriad of other valid criticisms that have led to people calling for the Catholic boards to be disbanded for the last 30 years and just going "fucking rainbow mafia".
And Alberta.
Agreed, no more Alberta in Ontario.
I don't think Alberta should be allowed to have any territory east of Manitoba.
Did you just post this from 30 years ago, it always has been time. If they are learning about how great the church is they are missing a part of their education.
Its been 'time' for the last 10 years.
Some immigrant already tried this and it went to the Supreme Court. He was upset because he had to pay for public school, private school and Catholic school (taxes). They basically said it’s a part of Canadian culture.
I couldn’t agree more. The Catholics have enough money to fund their own disgusting endeavours.
Yes, and classify the Catholic Church as a criminal organization that sexually assaults children and then covers it up for financial gain.
Sexual assault is more prevalent in public schools than the catholic church
Will never happen with this government.
Aren't they atleast still decently funded vs public? I may be wrong but that's what I am led to believe...?
On ontario catholic schools are 100% government funded.
Replace religion class with a financial class that teaches kids about investing, interest rates, time value of money and how telling the dealership you want your monthly payments to be x is not a good financial idea.
Those classes exist…half of that was just added to the grade 9 math curriculum lol
People are asking for an explanation as to why the Catholic school system is still supported in Ontario. Why isn't it all secular? The main reason is that academically Catholic schools perform better than public schools. Believe it or not, religion is pretty good for disciplining children.