Financement public des écoles confessionnelles

Les écoles privées catholiques



Au moment où l’électorat ontarien envoie un message clair contre le financement public des écoles religieuses et que les témoignages se succèdent à la Commission Bouchard-Taylor en faveur de la séparation entre l’Église et l’État, la campagne en faveur des écoles privées, en grande majorité à caractère confessionnel, bat son plein. En attendant le palmarès de l’Actualité, les partisans de l’école privée ne chôm...

Making the case for parental choice

Alberta taxpayers fund private and public schools, as well as home schooling, and the winners are the students and their families


Ontario Conservative leader John Tory's proposal to expand public funding of religious schools during the recent Ontario election raises some important educational issues that need to be wisely resolved in all provinces if we are to provide Canadian children with the best education in the world. Earlier this year, under the auspices of the Fraser Institute, former Ontario premier Mike Harris and I examined da...

Le non de l'Ontario aux écoles religieuses

Est-ce la fin de la mosaïque canadienne ?



Les juifs, les musulmans et les évangélistes à qui les conservateurs de l'Ontario promettaient de financer leurs écoles ont subi, eux aussi, un rude échec aux élections dans cette province. Sans cette promesse du chef John Tory, lui-même défait, les libéraux de Dalton McGuinty auraient eu plus de mal à rester au pouvoir. Ces minorités y verront peut-être simplement le résultat d'une faible participation au scrutin (52,...

Quelle égalité?

Voici un extrait de «L'école privée, pour ou contre?», un essai publié aux Éditions La Presse qu'on trouvera en librairie la semaine prochaine.


Le principe d'égalité est souvent servi comme argument pour s'opposer aux subventions faites au réseau privé, voire à l'existence même d'un système privé. L'argument prend ses racines dans les droits fondamentaux de la personne. Il a donc du poids, mais il ne doit pas être invoqué comme un mantra; il exige analyse, sens des nuances, contextualisation. Comme tous les droits fondamentaux d'ailleurs. L'égalité,...

Fear of Islamic schools based on false stereotypes



On Aug. 28, representatives from the Muslim, Jewish, Hindu and Sikh communities came together to express support for John Tory's proposal to fund faith-based schools. While such unity among different faith-based schools is refreshing, a large part of this debate lies in the fact that, under Tory's proposal, funding would also be extended to Islamic schools. And that is where many get squeamish. Assumptions ...

Newcomers' integration: under threat

Voters will face twin political snares that could fragment their ballots and schools


When Ontario voters go to the polls Oct. 10, progressive conservatives like myself, whatever their party affiliation, will find themselves caught in two political snares. Premier Dalton McGuinty's Liberal government has added a referendum to the electoral vote, asking if our traditional, first-past-the-post system for selecting representatives should be replaced with mixed-member proportional (MMP) repres...

ANALYSIS

McGuinty staking future on religious school stance



Premier Dalton McGuinty has clearly staked his government's future on a single issue – opposition to public funding for religious schools. In a series of speeches, press conferences and ads in the past 48 hours, McGuinty stated that public education is "threatened" by Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory's proposal to extend funding beyond just the Catholic system to all "faith-based" schools. "I beli...

John Tory's problem: too much rubber chicken



It was yesterday at 9 a.m. when I realized John Tory was in serious, serious trouble. I realized it while staring at a box that distributes copies of 24 Hours, a thin newssheet distributed free at Toronto's subway stations and bus stops. The cover of Monday's edition contained no news. Instead, it was a full page advertisement from Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, which went like this: "You know what I love abo...

L'école confessionnelle en question

Le spectre d'un « parti de Dieu » surgit en Ontario



À la veille de la campagne électorale en Ontario, la promesse de John Tory de financer des écoles juives, musulmanes ou hindoues, comme le sont déjà les écoles catholiques, ne semble pas valoir aux conservateurs les appuis qu'ils recherchent pour reprendre le pouvoir. Pour l'emporter le 10 octobre prochain, les libéraux du premier ministre Dalton McGuinty misent, eux, sur les améliorations qu'ils ont apportées au...

Québec

Ontario Election

Pro vs. Con: Funding faith-based schools



Now, at a time when we are finally on a pathway of focused and successful progress, it is critical that we put our faith in strong and effective public education informed by a vision that people of all faiths can be respected and accommodated in a single public system.

Le créationnisme dans le débat



Le chef du Parti conservateur de l'Ontario, John Tory, ne voit pas d'inconvénients à ce que le créationnisme soit enseigné aux côtés d'autres théories comme celle de l'évolution dans d'éventuelles écoles confessionnelles publiques de la province. Il a déjà promis de financer les écoles confessionnelles ontariennes si son parti est porté au pouvoir le 10 octobr...

Creationism raised as Ont. election issue



CAROLINE ALPHONSO AND TENILLE BONOGUORE - TORONTO — Publicly-funded religious schools would be allowed to teach creationism and other theories, says Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory. Speaking to reporters at the a Jewish day school in Thornhill, Ont., on Wednesday, Mr. Tory defended his plan to bring Jewish, Islamic and other religious schools into the public education system. “They teach...

John Tory backpedals after saying creationism can be taught in schools



CAROLINE ALPHONSO - THORNHILL, ONT. -- Christian private schools should be allowed to teach creationism if they receive public funding, Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory said yesterday. But six hours later, he went into damage-control mode, saying creationism should be explored only in religion class and not elsewhere in the curriculum, such as in science class. "The Christian-based school would have to ...

Tory's proposal a call to arms for secular humanism



"Canada's newest church is extreme liberal fundamentalism!" a rogue e-mail raged in my inbox yesterday afternoon - and before deleting it I suffered a twinge of self-recognition. Watching Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory dodge and weave relativistically while defending religious schools on television had already brought out my inner fundamentalist. When he later burbled into approval of teaching c...

An issue that belongs to a past century



I thought I'd been lost in the wilderness these past few weeks, not in outer space. Yet that's what it feels like dropping back onto a planet where the President of the United States is talking about ghosts popping out of White House walls, where the Premier of the province in which I reside, Ontario, is offering a day off in February as an election bribe - can I vote twice? - and where the leader of the ...

From bad to worse



Supporters of John Tory's pledge to expand funding for religious schools in Ontario contend that it's unfair for only Catholic schools to receive public dollars. They're right. The same people point out that it's hypocritical for Dalton McGuinty to rail against encouraging "children of different faiths to leave the publicly funded system and become sequestered and segregated in their own private schools," since the Pre...

École catholique: l'Ontario va-t-il connaître sa crise identitaire?



Pour l'heure, les catholiques de l'Ontario risquent de faire les frais du débat. Ils passent déjà pour des privilégiés qui touchent des fonds publics aux dépens d'autres contribuables qui n'ont pas droit à l'école de leur choix. Le financement des catholiques priverait le secteur public de fonds dont il a, dit-on, grandement besoin. Par contre, s'ils se solidarisent avec les autres communautés, on accusera les catholiques d'affaiblir davantage l'école publique.

Rappel

Juste le foulard



Josée Boileau Le Devoir lundi 20 juin 2005 - C'est ici que le [message de Pierre Marois->8759], le président de la Commission des droits de la personne, doit être lu dans son entier. Le Québec a traité jusqu'à maintenant de ces questions au cas par cas, au gré des réclamations d'individus. Mais que souhaitons-nous comme société ? Or, il existe des réponses politiques à de tels enjeux. Par exemple, si l...