Funding for faith-based schools is inevitable

In a perfect world, there would be no real need for the province to provide funding for schools which are exclusive for children of a particular religion or faith.

In that perfect world, we would see one publicly funded system, in which children of all faiths are welcome. The religious indoctrination would be left to the parents to arrange, through the church and home.

But history has painted a different picture for us to deal with. When this country was founded, provisions had to be made to accommodate the Catholic population in Ontario. Thus, their right to educate their children in schools dedicated to that faith because a constitutional guarantee.

Over the years, we have grown used to two publicly funded school systems in Ontario. And as our society has perhaps become more secular and tolerant; with people less inclined to judge one another according to the way they chose to worship, the differences between Catholics and non-Catholics have stopped mattering as much as they may have once.

But as our population becomes more diverse, with more faiths representing a greater percentage of the population, another question is being aired; namely why are Catholics being treated different from people of other faiths?

For that reason, we have to accept that Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory did the right thing last week when he announced that faithbased schools would be included in the public system, complete with funding, should he be elected to lead the next government.

We believe it was only a matter of time before some court or other judicial body ordered this type of inclusion.

We are pleased to see Tory's announcement includes certain provisions.

For one thing, schools receiving this funding will be required to conform to provincial standards when it comes to factors like curriculum, testing standards, teacher certification, etc.

We expect there are going to be people out there who are not going to like what Tory is proposing. We can see several arguments being made to the contrary.

But at the end of the day, we have to believe this move does reflect reality.