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rfmcdonaldThe latest challenge to the Ontario publically-funded Roman Catholic school system has gotten a fair amount of coverage--see 610 CKTB, Metro Toronto, the Toronto Star, and Xtra!.
It seems likely that the case will be dismissed on the grounds that Reva Landau, the woman who launched the suit, doesn't have standing. Whatever the exact outcome of Landau's case, though, I expect that the ongoing struggles over the funding of denominational schools in Ontario will continue for some time: the status quo is unjust, but no one save the NDP seems interested in enacting the constitutional changes necessary to defund the system as it currently exists.
It seems likely that the case will be dismissed on the grounds that Reva Landau, the woman who launched the suit, doesn't have standing. Whatever the exact outcome of Landau's case, though, I expect that the ongoing struggles over the funding of denominational schools in Ontario will continue for some time: the status quo is unjust, but no one save the NDP seems interested in enacting the constitutional changes necessary to defund the system as it currently exists.
A Toronto woman is asking Ontario's Superior Court to order the government to stop funding Catholic schools because as a taxpayer who doesn't share the church's beliefs, she says it infringes her freedom of religion.
[. . .]
Judge David Corbett, questioning the government lawyers, noted that section of the constitution was put in place at the time of Confederation to protect the rights of the Catholic minority, when the Protestant majority had the benefit of a Protestant school system.
Today the school system is secular and yet Catholic schools remain publicly funded, turning a law that was once intended to protect minority rights into one that confers a privilege, Corbett said.
[. . .]
"Someone who's Buddhist or Muslim or Jewish or atheist who wants to send a child to a school that promotes their particular philosophy has to pay for it fully out of their own pocket," [Reva] Landau said outside court Wednesday.
"Only Roman Catholics get the chance to send their children to a school that promotes their philosophy without having to pay any extra out of their pocket. So if we live in a multicultural society does that seem fair? Does that seem just?"
[. . .]
Landau is asking the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to order that the government stop funding Catholic high schools and only fund Catholic elementary schools to the extent they were funded in 1867 at the time of Confederation.
That would amount to being funded with "only property taxes from Catholics who declare themselves to be separate school supporters and who live within three miles of a separate school, and property taxes from wholly Catholic owned businesses," Landau wrote in her challenge.
