Canadian Civil Liberties Association brief on the public funding of religious schools, September 21, 2007 [Executive Summary]:

• Public funding of religious schools could weaken the public school system and undermine its contributions to the vitality of our democracy.

• Having opened its doors to everyone, regardless of wealth, status, race, religion, and ethnicity, the public school system has performed an integrative and unifying function for Ontario society.

• Within living memory, this country jailed thousands of innocent Japanese Canadians, denied many aboriginal people the right to vote, restricted immigration from developing countries, and turned back Jewish refugees from Hitler's Germany. There is no reason to believe such behaviour could never again be possible.

• Our community must work to shore up our integrative institutions. One of the most important of these is the public schools.

• If the funding proposal goes ahead, public schools could lose significant numbers of students to the religious schools. If this were to happen, the public schools would no longer be able to perform their integrative role. In time, our community could become a much less tolerant place.

• In the event of such public funding, there may well be no legitimate or effective way to control any hateful or discriminatory messages espoused by particular religious schools. Although our democracy may defend the right of any group to hold and attempt to spread such views, it is repugnant for the public purse to subsidize the exercise.

• The impetus to inspect, monitor, and control religious programs in schools would raise thorny questions about government intervention in religious affairs.

• The sheer costs of funding many religious schools would likely reduce the quality of the entire educational system.

• Contrary to the arguments of some, the current public funding of Catholic schools cannot justify the critical risks associated with the proposal to fund more religious schools.

• A constitutional amendment should be enacted to end the anomaly of public financing for Catholic schools.

Accordingly, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association recommends as follows:

(1) At a minimum, there should be no new public funding of any religious schools and

(2) A constitutional amendment should be enacted to terminate the public funding of Catholic schools.

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