Please sign this petition to support One Secular Public School in Ontario.

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Homa Arjomand

416-737-9500

Support One (1 English 1 French) Public Funded School System for Ontario

Background (Preamble):

It is time that the ONDP modernizes its Education Policy to reflect the realities of present day Ontario by revoking its support of public funding for Catholic schools and replace it with a policy that supports the establishment of a single publicly funded school system made up of English and French language public school boards.

It should be noted that there are four publicly funded school systems in Ontario and that they exist in all areas of the province. They are: English Public School Boards; English Roman Catholic Separate School Boards; Public French Language School Boards; and Roman Catholic French Language School Boards.

Four educational systems serving overlapping jurisdictions have created too many inefficiencies, too much red ink and huge waste of public money and resources. Buttressing a crumbling infrastructure and duplicating administrative costs is a misuse of tax dollars. By merging the public and separate school systems into a single public system would result in huge savings that could be directed into sustainable student programs, services and school classrooms.

Petition:

Whereas Canada/Ontario was found in violation of its international human rights obligations by the United nations Human Rights Committee in 1999 and again in 2005 by virtue of discrimination in the funding of Roman Catholic schools in Ontario;

Whereas the termination of public funding for religion-based schools by the governments of Quebec and Newfoundland has negated the constitutional rationale for public funding of Roman Catholic schools;

Whereas the Ontario Legislature has the power to eliminate public funding to the Roman Catholic school system by passing legislation to that effect, as was done by the legislature of Manitoba;

Whereas the religious segregation of Ontario children undermines the role of public schools in fostering tolerance and respect between Ontarians of different backgrounds; and

Whereas the ONDP has always advocated and supported equality and equity for all Ontarians in the delivery of public services;

Therefore Be It Resolved that the ONDP supports one secular publicly funded and accountable school system, and permit where appropriate, religious instruction in any faith in publicly funded schools outside regular instructional hours.

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The Support One (1 English 1 French) Public Funded School System for Ontario petition to New Democratic Party of Ontario Education Funding Task Force was written by Robert Barlow and is hosted free of charge at GoPetition. Contact author here.