Blue Like You

Archive for October 9th, 2007

Yes indeed. I see the light!

Dalton warned that “Tory’s plan will destroy our social fabric, cause division and the “sequestration and segregation” of children by religion”.

But kids living here go to a public school and there’s clearly no segregation at all, right?

The Ahmadiyya say they don’t mean to isolate themselves, and they send their children to public school. Still, the nation’s “cultural mosaic” is fairly monochrome in this spot: Teston Road Public School, which opened last month next to the mosque, is about 80% Muslim, and the school provides its gym on Fridays at lunchtime so the kids can kick off their running shoes, bow low toward Mecca and pray.

There now. No worries, little Lemmings.

As you were.

One of my regular readers passed along her thoughts on tomorrow’s election:

Give the Liberals a Time-Out

A parent who loves a child has to step in when the child does something obviously wrong. If the parent doesn’t let the child know that he or she did something wrong, they are essentially condoning the behaviour.

It is the same with politicians. There are voters out there who like the Liberals and who like McGuinty for some reason. They are certainly entitled to that opinion. However, in this election, if they choose to vote the Liberals and McGuinty in again, they are giving them a pat on the back for the countless broken promises and lies. This will signal to them that Ontarians condone the behaviour of lying and going back on promises and they will therefore feel free to do so again.

To send a message that we notice when politicians break promises and we are not okay with it, it is necessary to give the Liberals a time-out. They need to spend a term sitting in the corner and contemplating what they did wrong to the population of Ontario. Then next election, if they have truly repented, they can be lovingly welcomed back into power by the liberal voters.

But right now they need some discipline, and it is the job of Ontario voters to dispense it.

She makes some good points.

The Faith-Based funding issue has been brilliantly used by the Liberal war-room strategists to deflect attention from Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty’s long list of broken promises.

So what if voters just decided to teach him a lesson? For his own good. Just this once.

It would be good for him; humbling even. It would make him a better man. More accountable.

So if you love Dalton, don’t vote for him this election.

If you’re anything like me, when you get campaign brochures from a candidate on the ‘other’ team, you throw it out after drawing on the mustache and horns.

However, reader Paul recently alerted me to the importance of examining this literature during an election campaign. In his own riding he found several half-truths and falsified information (dare I say lies?) on a Liberal pamphlet:

1.In four short years, we have reduced Ontario’s greenhouse gas emissions to below 1990 levels.

2. And hiring 8000 nurses so far for better patient care and 9000 more in the works.(A quick search of the Ontario Nurse’s Association website shows this as being untrue.They have hired but nowhere near 9,000.

Paul said he was going to take the brochure to his local PC candidate. I haven’t heard the outcome yet.

However, the incident made me decide to check out the brochure from our local Liberal incumbent, John Milloy. One item in the pamphlet really stuck out - “Smarter Ontario - Test scores are up”.

Now that is just not true, according to the Society for Quality Education. Test scores have flat-lined. Now if John really wanted to stretch the truth, perhaps he could say he was referring to a few years ago. But I feel this is a misleading statement.

There is another line in the pamphlet which says “No days lost to teacher strikes”. Now that is not completely true either because there was an Ontario College teachers strike during the McGuinty reign. Our family was personally affected. It caused a lot of stress and worry for students and families alike.

Those are just two examples. Check out the campaign literature sitting around at your house.

Perhaps being ‘Liberal’ means being liberal with the truth.

(Update at end of this post)

If recent polling results are accurate, John Tory’s Faith-Based funding proposal is still obviously bothering a lot of Ontario voters, (in spite of the fact that he apparently took my advice about the ‘free vote’.)

As I mentioned before the elephant in the room may very well be Islamophobia.

So here is my proposal: Let’s just add a few more select faiths which meet the prescribed criteria - Perhaps Jewish day schools and some more Christian schools.

What’s that you say? You can’t discriminate?

Oh, but we already are.

And according to this letter in the Star by Gila Gladstone-Martow, there are lots more than just the Catholic system that Dalton McGuinty attended:

Your editorial touting one homogeneous school system for everyone fails to mention the myriad of school choices already available ranging from arts-based and sports-based to French immersion programs. In fact, Premier Dalton McGuinty recently announced doubling the number of these “specialty” schools from 100 to 200.

You readily accept full guaranteed funding for Roman Catholic schools while denying my tax dollars to be directed to my choice of “specialty” school – Jewish day school education.

If Roman Catholics are the only religious groups guaranteed funding for their schools, how then do you explain the five Ukrainian Eastern Rite schools, Burkevale Protestant School in Penetanguishene, Eden High Christian School in Niagara, a Christian school co-operative in Rainy River, and a new native school in Toronto, to name a few? How is it these religious “specialty” schools receive funding while Associated Hebrew Schools, which turns 100 this year, does not?

McGuinty and Education Minister Kathleen Wynne are both on record supporting funding for what many in the Jewish community consider to be a lifeline for survival – our school systems. Yet another broken promise.

Sandy has written extensively about Eden.

So Ontario. What do you say? Could you handle the Jewish day schools being added to the mix? How about a few more Christian schools?

The point is, Dalton McGuinty has already allowed some faith-based funding to occur in Ontario. Therefore, he already discriminates.