06.03.2011 08:20 AM

Hudak’s Faithbook

Spotted by the always-vigilant Paul.  You need to read all of this.  And, yes, we noticed.  Hudak has not explicitly renounced the funding of private religious schools, even though Ontarians have.  I rather suspect this is going to come again today, because more and more people are noticing, too.  Over to Paul:

Tim Hudak’s Progressive Conservative party suffered a crushing defeat in the Ontario provincial election of 2007 due primarily to a promise to extend taxpayer funding to privately owned and operated religious schools. Yet, for the October 6, 2011 election, the PCs have again put faith – a firm belief in something for which there is no evidence – at the foundation of their entire election platform, titled ChangeBook. Though down-played in the express wording of ChangeBook, faith-based budgeting, faith-based climate-fighting, and – though neither the Liberals nor the mainstream media have yet noticed it – eventaxpayer funding for faith-based schools form the substantive core of Tim Hudak’s platform, which – especially given ChangeBook’s obvious reference to FaceBook – would more appropriately be titled FaithBook.

9 Comments

  1. This atheist is always disgusted by things like this. If you’re going to hold these sorts of beliefs, fine, but government should and must be secular.

    • Pedro says:

      You are quite right Carlos. The McGuinty government should stand up against any funding for other than public schools and as such, should announce their intention to remove all separate school funding. Or, possibly, encourage meaningful debate on funding all types of schools, religion-based and other, minus the dinosaur costumes. But don’t worry, if full funding ever happens, most religion-based schools would refuse the funding due to all the strings attached.

  2. Pedro says:

    Aha, Gord, who sets the standards for province-wide testing?
    Vouchify with no strings by which the government mandates who teaches and what rules by which the schools are administered?
    I’m all for it if we can make it work.
    I await the response from the Musings echo chamber.

  3. Bob says:

    Today, parents are way too involved in day to day school life – even attending classes with their kids.

    School should be Kids World where they develop and learn math, languages, science and literature…. and how to get along with each other – without parents trying to correct their own life’s mistakes by raising ‘perfect’ children. Parents can spend time with their kids after school and weekends. If they want their kids to receive religious instructions, they can even TAKE their kids to church.

    (although personally, I like the line from ‘Semi-Tough’ when the hero says: kids who play sports and know how to gamble never come to any real harm.

  4. Dave Wells says:

    Standardized testing will be extremely useful when they start making standardized children.

  5. Rick says:

    I simply could not agree more than the Province of Ontario shouldn’t be supporting religious schools. I anxiouosly await the abolition of state-supported schooling for a particular Italy-based “religion” that opposes the equality of women.

  6. I think what Hudak would do if he became premier would be to make Religious Schools Authorities. While there are school boards that cover both public and Catholic separate schools, there are plenty of school authorities in Ontario which cover institutions such as young offenders and the medically infirm. Hudak would just extend these to religions to create their own separate school authorities.

  7. Doug says:

    While I oppose full funding for Ontario Catholic schools, it’s a view I am reluctant to support too loudly because of the degree of anti-Catholic bigotry that seems to be associated with it. Unfortunately, the way many people who would defund Catholic education in Ontario speak about the Church is an echo of the reasons full funding was necessary in the first place.

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