Funding faith-based schools a non-starter

Cardus, a religious think tank, has taken issue with an application that was filed on Jan. 4, to the Superior Court of Ontario arguing that the current funding of Ontario’s separate schools violates s. 15(1) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Two plaintiffs, a public high school teacher and a parent of children in the French public school system, are founding members of OPEN (One Public Education NOW). OPEN is a coalition of groups and individuals dedicated to challenging the current discriminatory funding of only one religion. The issue of teachers being denied teaching positions because they are not practising Catholics is a fact across Ontario.

The charter challenge states the current public funding of one religion’s schools is against the Charter of Rights, s. 15, which states everyone is entitled to the equal benefit of the law, regardless of religion. The application argues only denominational school rights that existed in 1867 are protected from the charter challenge by s. 93 (1) of the Constitution. The public funding of non-Catholics in separate schools and the public funding of grades 11 and 12 in separate schools did not exist in 1867.

The claim made by Cardus that funding of independent religious-based schools is no more expensive than one system is absurd. Many of the costs are buried but there is no doubt it is much more expensive to support duplicate administrations. In Hamilton, the English public and English Catholic boards each have large offices with a director, many superintendents, assistant superintendents, co-ordinators and office staff.

OPEN has been comparing costs per student between separate school boards and public school boards for years. For example, a coterminous school board is one where the public and separate school boards have exactly the same boundaries and the same language; we are comparing apples and apples. Overall, in 20182019, the 16 separate school boards had operating costs of about $450 more per student than the 16 corresponding public boards. It costs more on average per student to run a separate school board than a public school board because separate school boards have fewer students to support administrative costs. There are the unnecessary transportation costs; separate school students who could walk or take a short bus ride to the closest publicly-funded public school are bused to a publicly-funded separate school, and vice-versa.

Less would be spent overall if all students went to their closest publicly-funded language-appropriate school.

All the capital costs of separate schools are paid for out of general provincial revenues and on average only seven per cent of the operating costs are paid for by the residential property taxes of separate school supporters. By contrast, about 14 per cent of the operating costs of public schools are paid for by residential property taxes of public school supporters. About 13 per cent to 15 per cent of operating costs for both systems come from business property taxes (businesses cannot choose where their taxes go), and about 75 per cent of the operating costs of separate schools 65 per cent for public schools comes from general provincial revenues. We all pay for separate schools, including teachers who cannot obtain employment in them

Cardus’ proposal to fund all faith-based schools would result in the balkanization of Ontario’s education system. Progressive Conservative leader John Tory in the 2007 provincial election proposed to extend public funding to Jewish, Muslim and Christian schools. Tory’s plan was soundly defeated by the Ontario electorate. Cardus’ proposal is a non-starter.