Schools in limbo.

Newfoundland battle renewed

On July 8, Mr Justice Leo Barry granted an injuntion to the Catholic Church and the Pentecostal Assemblies of Newfoundland to end the closing or redesignation of their schools. A typical reaction of those who intend to crush religious-oriented schools came from Steve Wolinetz, a Memorial University professor who is vice-president of the Newfoundland Home and School Federation: "I'm appalled by the outcome. Those who are worried about their rights and power win. Kids lose." As pointed out in our July/August issue (p. 19), the reverse is true: "rights" count for little and "power" counts for everything with those seeking to close Catholic and Pentecostal schools.

The government had already been proceeding with changes, including the closing of schools and the letting go of teachers, and now these closures will have to be reversed. Justice Barry was undoubtedly aware of such complications, and of the fact that the proposed changes would likely save some money, but he contended that a government cannot take away rights as a matter of cost and efficiency.

The amended Term 17 of the Constitution permitted the province to regulate, but not abolish, the right to have separate denominational schools. When the government conducted a registration last March, to decide where denominational schools should be allowed to continue, it counted no-returns as votes for a public school system. As one Catholic parent put it, in a democratic system you count the votes that are actually in the ballot box, "and nobody receives a vote by default."

Mr. Justice Barry mentioned other procedures followed by the Tobin government which he interpreted as "improper attempts to take away the rights of Term 17." Uni-denominational schools were not treated with "relevant equality."

The July 8 ruling forced Liberal Premier Brian Tobin, a Catholic who accepts legalized abortion, to take off the mask and reveal himself for what he is -- straightforwardly anti-Catholic. On July 31 he announced a new referendum on schools for September 2. In his address he made it clear he wants denominational schools abolished because they supposedly stand in the way of progress.

The four Newfoundland bishops responded with a vigorous pastoral letter, read at all Masses on Sunday, August 10, calling for a "No" vote.

New Brunswick backtracks, a wee bit

The McKenna government's attack on parental control through the centralization of all educational administration and curriculum under a domineering bureaucracy in Fredericton had a slight but embarrassing setback recently. It began in February 1996 with the abolition of school board; it proceeded with the Education Ministry closing a number of schools in small towns this past spring (CI, July/August, 1997).

Three tiny Acadian communities, where parents and villagers had protested vehemently against the taking away of their schools--a protest quelled by RCMP riot squads using tear gas--will get to keep them. After months of protest and court action, the bureaucrats backed down. Said one parent, Therese Albert of Saint-Sauveur: "I feel anger because I can't understand why we have to fight so hard for our basic rights. Those are rights our ancestors fought for, why do we still have to keep fighting for them?" (Globe, July 25, 1997).

Like Newfoundland's Brian Tobin, Frank McKenna, too, is a Catholic who accepts abortion. Contempt for other people's rights and for the principle of subsidiarity seems to be common among them.

Quebec schools

In mid-June the PQ government reached an agreement with the Liberal opposition over the ending of confessional schools and their replacement with schools by language. A compromise was reached on extending the tax and voters' list for English schools to include immigrants in Quebec who do not have children of school age. They will be allowed to join the "English" tax-roll and vote for trustees of the English section, if they so wish. This "concession" took care of the main arguments brought against Bill 109 by the public and Catholic English boards. But it infuriated some sovereigntists who resigned from the PQ.

The other argument of the English Catholic board, namely to scrap the request for a constitutional amendment and/or adopt Section 23(1)(a) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to give Quebec's anglophone minority the "same educational rights that are now enjoyed by francophone minorities in every other province," was rejected on the grounds that "the linguistic minority is not defined in the same way as in other provinces."

Bishops confident

As reported earlier, the Catholic Bishops of Quebec think that federal guarantees -- whether of the 1982 Constitution or the accompanying Charter of Rights which Quebec does not recognize -- are of no particular interest to Quebeckers. They accept the PQ government's promise of allowing Catholic French schools (where justified) as sufficient.

The bishops remain confident that religious education will be maintained even when the schools are administered by linguistic boards. In an interview with Catholic News Service in mid-June, the president of the Quebec bishops' conference, Archbishop Andre Gaumond of Sherbrooke, said the bishops regard the changeover from confessional boards (Catholic and Protestant) to linguistic ones (French and English) as purely administrative. What counts is preserving religious education classes, he said.

Beginning in September 1998, parents will choose whether to enroll their primary school children in a Catholic-based religion course or in secular moral studies. Secondary students will be allowed to make this choice on their own.

The traditional argument has always been, and still is elsewhere in Canada, that offering "just a class in religion" does not suffice as Catholic education. A quarter of a million French-speaking Quebec Catholics do not agree with their bishops.

Private schools

Another aspect not much known outside Quebec is that the PQ government is also making war on the 450 private schools in the province. Education Minister Pauline Marois has announced that within two years the provincial subsidy for these schools will be cut to 30 per cent. Since 1981 it has gone down from 71 per cent to 49 per cent. A petition carrying 263,000 names objecting to this continued attack on the long Quebec tradition of supporting private schools has, like the French Catholic petition of almost the same number of signatures, gone unrecognized by the government. The PQ's socialist ideology does not approve of non-conforming "elites" (L'Informateur Catholique, June '97).

Ontario: tax or funding

On July 30, lawyer Robert Charney defended the Ontario government's new Fewer School Boards Act before Judge Archie Campbell against claims of unconstitutionality brought by the Association of Public Boards and the Federation of Secondary School teachers.

Charney pointed out that public boards do not, per se, have constitutional guarantees. (They are not mentioned in the BNA Act.) He also contended that Ontario Catholic schools' right to taxation could be removed as long as the government puts in its place a funding system that's equal or better. In other words, what the Constitution Act of 1867 guarantees, according to Mr. Charney, is funding of Catholic schools, not necessarily the power of Catholic boards to tax.