Re: Extend equal funding to all schools (Kingston Whig Standard, Feb. 25 and Jewish Tribune, March 23)
In addition to claiming that he has received no proposals to fix the current religious discrimination in school funding, Education Minister Gerard Kennedy spoke another mistruth.
Mr. Kennedy was responding to a question about how Ontario should comply with the 1999 UN Human Rights Committee ruling that Ontario is breaching international human rights law by maintaining explicit religious discrimination in the funding of faith-based schools. He indicated the Human Rights Committee held that making available after-hours optional religious instruction in public schools would be enough to fix the discrimination. This is simply false.
The committee said no such thing. As long as Catholic schools in Ontario, constituting 93 per cent of Ontario’s faith-based schools, are fully funded, the only way to eliminate the discrimination is to provide equivalent funding in some form for the other 7 per cent of faith-based schools that are currently excluded simply due to their religion. Why is Mr. Kennedy trying so hard to manufacture an excuse for Ontario’s continuing non-compliance with basic international human rights law?
Arieh Waldman
Plaintiff in UN Human Rights Case
Toronto, ON
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