McGuinty's indefensible stance on schools

Hypocrisy, in Catholic doctrine, would surely count as a venial, rather than a mortal sin. So if all that could be said of Dalton McGuinty's stated opposition to public funding of religious schools was that it was hypocritical -- if one were confined to pointing out that he himself attended Catholic school, that his children did likewise, and that his wife teaches in the Catholic school system -- that would be galling, but not sufficient in itself to condemn it. A thing can be hypocritical, and still be right. ...

He might even be arguing against his own self-interest, which far from hypocritical, would be admirably public-minded. Catholic schools in Ontario are, after all, publicly funded -- the only faith to be thus favoured. If the Premier were so convinced of the evils of public funding of religious schools -- if, as he was saying the other day, it amounted to encouraging "children of different faiths to leave the publicly funded system and become sequestered and segregated in their own private schools" -- if he were so dedicated to the principle of separation of church and state as to demand that public funds be withdrawn from Catholic schools, then we should only applaud the sincerity of his conviction, the consistency of his position, and the rigour of his analysis.

But Mr. McGuinty is not saying that. Rather, the position he is attempting to defend is that public funding should be available to schools professing the Catholic faith, and no other. The opposition Conservatives' position, that funding should be available equally to all religious schools, is consistent, at least as between faiths -- though why religious schools should be preferred to secular is a question the Tories might wish to answer. But the Liberal position is simply incoherent.

The current situation in the province's schools, obnoxious as it may be to generally accepted notions of equality, has at least the virtue of being the status quo. If that is the position the Liberals wish to maintain, they had only to do nothing. Moreover, the Catholic school system's entitlement to public funds is guaranteed in the Constitution, part of the Confederation bargain (a reciprocal obligation was imposed on Quebec with regard to Protestant schools). So Mr. McGuinty, asked to respond to the Tory proposal, might have simply shrugged and said: "Not my policy." Or, seized of the unfairness of funding one religion over others, he might have followed Quebec's lead, and amended the Constitution to remove any reference to religious schools.

But Mr. McGuinty did not do that. Instead, in a calculatedly inflammatory move, he chose to make religious schools the central issue of the campaign. "I'm hoping to grab Ontarians by the earlobes," Mr. McGuinty told reporters, "and say, 'It's not just another election, it's not just business as usual. It's about the kind of Ontario you want.'" Then that business about students being "segregated," followed by a sweet-faced appeal to "bring our kids together, so that they grow together and learn from one another."

So the Premier cannot disavow the passions he might thus have ignited: That was his intent -- to "grab Ontarians by the earlobes," to warn them of … what? What dark fears does he wish to arouse? Or to be specific, why does he believe other religions would "segregate" their kids, when that has not been the case with the Catholic schools?

I don't want to say this is an entirely illegitimate concern. There are zealots out there who would teach intolerance of other faiths given half a chance, and I won't pretend they are evenly distributed across the population. But is it so beyond human ingenuity to guard against this -- to insist, as the Tories propose, that public funding be conditional on teaching a common curriculum, using accredited teachers, and so forth? Or if it is, then why permit these schools to exist at all?

But wait a minute. Wasn't the Premier right, as I wrote at the time, to decide against allowing sharia courts to operate within Ontario's legal system? Isn't this just the same issue? No, and the differences in the two cases illustrate the point. First, Mr. McGuinty did not discriminate between religions in the sharia case, but applied the same principle to all religious tribunals -- much to the chagrin of the existing Jewish courts.

And second, the whole point of the law is that there should be one law for all. Remember that the issue with the sharia courts was not whether they should exist -- people are free to settle their private disputes in any way they wish -- but whether the decisions they hand down should be given the imprimatur of the state, including its powers of enforcement.

But whereas justice is one of the core functions of the state -- indeed its raison d'etre -- education is not so clear cut a matter. Ensuring access to education has rightly become a state responsibility, at least at the primary and secondary level. But we have traditionally allowed a great deal of latitude with regard to the actual business of teaching -- how students are taught, and even what they are taught, within limits.

Justice is necessarily a collective matter: It is our shared understanding of what is just that gives the law its power. But in matters of education, let a hundred flowers bloom.