National Affairs
Funding not fair then, not fair now
Claire Hoy
For those who take comfort in the Biblically-based notion that all things happen in threes, they will be gratified to know that we are now witnessing the third time in modern history that the issue of funding faith-based schools has become a major election campaign theme.

And it doesn't always bring out the best in either the politicians or the public.

It was, of course, a major issue leading up to 1867 Confederation - when Quebec's Roman Catholic politicians demanded public support for Catholic schools by the dominant Protestant regime in Ontario as a condition of Confederation - but that was in the context of backroom wheeling and dealing.

In 1971, the issue of full funding to Catholic schools - then only funded to Grade 10, after which parents paid the bills directly - was the biggest issue in the campaign.

The Liberals under leader Bob Nixon demanded full funding. The ruling Tories under newly-minted premier Bill Davis said no.

As a result, Davis won one of the largest majorities in Ontario history. As minister of education in the 1960s, Davis had fashioned legislation extending Catholic funding from elementary school to Grade 10, but that's as far as he - and the public - was prepared to go.

For the next dozen years or so, the issue percolated, particularly when Davis held his annual private meeting with the late Emmett Cardinal Carter, a friend of his from the time when Carter was defacto education minister in Quebec because the Roman Catholic Church, not the government, presided over their educational system.

And then power politics reared its ugly head by way of a secret deal first revealed by me in my 1985 biography on Davis, a deal denied by both Davis and Carter - not surprising since it did neither one of them any credit - which led to the demise of the 43-year-old Tory regime in 1985. The late Frank Miller, who became premier when Davis resigned, has taken the hit for losing the 1985 election to David Peterson's Liberals. In fairness, the loss belongs to Davis and Carter.

Here's why. In May,1984, at a high-level strategy meeting with his inner circle, Davis dropped a bombshell: forget what he said in 1971, he was extending fullfunding for Catholic schools. An insider who was at that meeting told me - and I verified it with several ministers and others before publishing it - that the about-face came about only after Carter pointedly reminded Davis that the premier had promised him privately that he would extend funding before he retired. And since Davis was about to retire, Carter pressed the point, threatening to go public with Davis' promise and also threatening to use every Catholic Church in the province to campaign against the Tories in the next election if Davis reneged.

And so, a few weeks after that strategy meeting - with practically no cabinet debate (caucus wasn't told until moments before) - Davis did the deed.

Months later, Davis resigned, Miller won the leadership, and the election was on. This time the Liberals, with virtually the same number of votes which gave them an electoral thrashing in 1981, actually beat Miller by a seat. When the Liberals and NDP formed a coalition Peterson became premier. Not because voters had embraced Peterson. But because Tory voters, outraged at Davis' secretive and undemocratic actions, simply stayed home, allowing Liberals to win seats with the same number of votes which had them finishing well behind the Tories four year earlier.

And now, the issue is back for the third time, since Conservative Leader John Tory wants to extend public funding to all faith-based schools - as long as they first sign on to the Ontario curriculum - and Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty - a product of Catholic schools himself, along with his wife and children - not only saying no, but accusing Tory of promoting "intolerance" and, if you can believe it, "segregation."

McGuinty argues that funding all faith-based schools will undermine the public system. Nonsense. Funding Catholic schools, which had at least 10 times as many students, didn't do that. Why would funding the much smaller Christian, Jewish and Muslim schools make such a big difference?

Tory says it is unfair to fund one religious group and not the others. While many would prefer to fund no religious schools, that simply isn't on.

We now take you back to 1971 when our friend Bill Davis, saying "no" to Catholic funding, argued that it would not only "fragment the present system beyond recognition and repair" - which turned out not to be true - but added that public funding "could not be, in reason or justice, limited to some faiths and denied to others."

But that's exactly what Davis did in 1985, and what McGuinty wants to maintain. It wasn't fair then.

It's not fair now.