GPO's AGM Policy Suggestion: Faith-Based Education

Green Party of Ontario
Annual General Meeting -- Policy Suggestion
From Brandon Kidd (Guelph, ON)

Faith-Based Education

I agree whole-heartedly with about 85% of the GPO’s current education policies, but I think there is some much-needed fine-tuning to be done with respect to our stance on faith-based education. I have had these concerns for quite a few years, but this is the first time I have voiced them as a policy resolution. I am not Catholic, but I have experienced a publicly-funded Catholic education at the secondary level here in Ontario, and I have seen the value in maintaining a certain amount of religious instruction in our schools. I also speak as someone who has just seen an otherwise very successful Green Party of Ontario candidate (Ben Polley) try to sell the GPO’s current education policy in two Catholic secondary schools in our riding (Guelph) which has a significant Catholic population.

With respect to funding faith-based schools, I agree that it is unnecessary and unfitting for a region such as Ontario. However, this policy is somewhat hard to sell in areas with strong Catholic populations such as Guelph. Furthermore, I think that the government has some responsibility to encourage and foster religious diversity within the public education system; religious diversity is something that Ontarians should foster in practice not just in policy.

I agree that there should be one (secular) public school board regardless of religion or language of instruction for each region, and I agree that the money spent on having four different school board administrations would be much better spent in the classrooms and on the students themselves. I also agree that a mandatory World Religions class would be a vital addition to the secondary curriculum.

However, I also believe that a compromise can be made at the primary level which would at once put an end to “faith-based” schools and also satisfy constituencies with strong religious populations. At the primary school level, each local school board could have the option to assess whether or not there is sufficient demand from the community for a specific religious curriculum component in a specific school.

For example, in a primary school with a religious curriculum component, the “Religion” curriculum would be limited to a certain number of classes (say, one class every other year in grades 2, 4, 6, and 8). If there is sufficient demand, the school board would be allowed to discriminately hire a principal (and only a principal) of a particular faith, and in turn when hiring the school’s Religion teacher (and only the Religion teacher) the school’s principal would be allowed to discriminately hire a practitioner of that particular faith.

The schools should not be allowed to discriminate along religious lines when accepting any students or hiring any teachers (with the exception of the Religion teacher). However, secular parents who choose to enrol their children in the school would know that their children would be expected to complete Religion classes along with the other students. The school would be allowed to set up a “Chapel” or equivalent and the principal would be allowed to make special arrangements for periodic religious holidays and functions.

In terms of the actual theological instruction that Catholic students currently receive throughout their entire education, this would not amount to a significant reduction. Functionally, this would also not mean a dramatic change in the environment that Catholic students currently enjoy for the first 8 years of their education. And, without adding any significant costs or bureaucracies, it would extend public funding to parents who want a faith component to their children’s education where sufficient demand exists.

Essentially, instruction in a particular religion would look much like what instruction in a particular language (i.e. French) looks like now. And obviously, what qualifies as “sufficient demand” would have to be negotiated.

Furthermore, it must be understood that any publicly-funded schools with a faith component to their curriculum must, first and foremost, respect the principles of individual human rights as outlined in the Ontario Bill of Rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and seek to demonstrate that respect in their everyday operations. And, given the mandatory World Religions class at the secondary level, this proposal would allow the high school to become the place where religions come together in a secular, publicly-funded environment of learning.

Finally, this compromise would bring Ontario’s schools out of violation in the eyes of the UN Human Rights Committee and, I think, help to mitigate much of the reluctance toward the GPO from Catholic and various other religious communities and make our education policies more broadly appealing.