Blue Like You

Archive for November 9th, 2007

Update: Star front page here (H/T Norman Spector).

More here: PM to Cities - Drop dead. Nice.

Really interesting story going on behind the scenes at National Newswatch.

This morning a story from the Toronto Star was posted on National Newswatch with the headline, “PM tells cities to drop dead.”

I couldn’t believe my eyes! When I clicked on the link the story came up with a different headline - Harper rejects financial aid for cities, as it is now.

I assumed that NNW had gone decidedly to the left.

A short time ago, National Newswatch posted an explanation at the top of the page:

Some people seem to think that NNW tourqued a headline to a Toronto Star story posted this morning. The headline, “PM tells cities to drop dead” was taken directly from the source and not invented by NNW. Please see the headline in Google’s cache for the exact headline as it appeared! Pease forward apologies to NNW - you know who you are!

Obviously some people were as shocked as I was, but National Newswatch insists that the original headline was indeed “PM tells cities to drop dead“, and proof is provided via a screenshot of the google news link.

So if anyone was upset with National Newswatch this morning, please direct your anger to the Star.

National Newswatch remains one of my favourite resources for current, unbiased news.

This is what you elected, Ontario (and Quebec) - Whiners. Not problem solvers. Not innovative thinkers.

As with every other problem, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty is showing ‘action’ on the devastating effects of the high dollar by complaining to Ottawa - Harper Urged to Slow Dollar (Post). He and his fellow all-talk-no-action Quebec counterpart want a First Ministers’ summit to try to convince Harper to lower the interest rates in an effort to tame our strong loonie.

And here’s the smack-down (Post):

“This notion that Canadian premiers, through a complaint, are going to change the course of the U.S. dollar is lunacy,” said Finn Poschmann, director of research at the C.D. Howe Institute, a Toronto-based economic think-tank.

Interest rates are not set by the prime minister, but by the Bank of Canada, which operates independently of the government. And experts question whether the Bank of Canada could yield any influence on forces pushing up the dollar.

“There’s nothing the Bank of Canada can do to stop a global trend, which is that the U.S. dollar is going to weaken,” said David Watt, senior currency strategist at Royal Bank of Canada.

I said that days ago, and I’m no economist - just your average Jo. (What do you say now, LKO?)

Post Reporter Paul Vieira notes at the end of the article:

Openly complaining about the central bank and the high dollar does allow the premiers to say they are fighting for their local economies –even if they know they yield little power to alter the actual course of exchange markets.

Or maybe they just don’t have a clue, Paul.

You blew it Lemmingland. Four more years of whining and inaction.

Four more years of passing the buck to Ottawa.

Get used to it.

During the Ontario election the faith-based finding issue was front and centre.

My Sept. 17 post (You’re being duped, Ontario) has drawn the attention of Leonard Baak, who is the president of Education Equality in Ontario, which advocates for a one school system.

Mr. Baak seems to feel that one of my anonymous readers has slandered him (at Tue Sep 18, 06:43:00 PM EDT), so it’s only fair to highlight his response here so that he can explain his position:

(Thu Nov 08, 08:37:00 PM EST)

Ya gotta love anonymous slander.

For the record, I am neither a disgruntled father nor did I ever want my kids in the Catholic system. Nor is my passion for one school system a reflection of personal anger. If Mr./Ms. anonymous has any evidence to support this, please do tell.

An extreme overcrowding situation in my local public school led me to try — unsuccessfully — to enrol my kids in our local Catholic elementary school. It was my second choice. I do not think sectarian religion has any place in publicly funded education — never have. The duplication also costs hundreds of millions of dollars a year that could be better spent in classrooms and on vital programs and educational supports (special ed, ESL, specialist teachers (gym, librarians), etc). The separate Catholic school system is a shameful and inexcusable waste of valuable education resources. The lost opportunities stemming from that waste result in real pain that is evidenced every year in endless rounds of school board cutbacks.

My local public school was too overcrowded to accommodate all of the students in its attendance zone and could not legally add any more portables. The school board’s solution was to bus junior kindergarten kids 90 minutes a day (45 minutes each way) to a less crowded school for a two and a half hour school day. I would not subject a four year old to that. For that reason, I applied to and was turned away by my local Catholic elementary school. I ended up enrolling the kids in a private school for two years at a cost of over $1700 per month to escape an overcrowding situation that my (non-Church-going) Catholic neighbours could escape for free by virtue of the “colour” of their faith.

I was shocked to discover, upon appeal to the Ministry of Education, that these publicly funded schools had an absolute and unfettered right to reject non-Catholic children until grade 9 and to reject non-Catholic teachers at all grade levels. This in a society that professes to value the fundamental equality of its citizens? I grew up in Nova Scotia, where such blatant discrimination has never been tolerated (it only continues to exist in Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Alberta — Ontario most blatantly).

As a practicing Christian, I was equally shocked that this discriminatory status quo is not opposed by and is even defended by other Christians — or people who profess to be of that faith. If they really loved their neighbours as themselves (remember the Great Commandment?), they would insist that all religious schools be funded equally or not at all. Everyone, including Catholics, should be equal before and under the law. Catholic and Christian teaching demands no less.

And don’t give me any garbage about Catholics supporting the right of other faiths to their own funding. Polls during the recent election showed that only 15% of Ontarians supported extended religious school funding. Even if they were all Catholics (which they were not), Catholics make up 34% of the Ontario population. That would suggest that most Catholics support one school system as well or are unabashed and unapologetic bigots who favour educational choice and religious school options only for their own kind. I’ll charitably assume the former.

Catholic school/Church vested interests in Ontario only offer quiet and ineffectual platitudes to other faiths with regard to extended religious school funding and only because if they didn’t, they’d look like bigots. They typically only do this when the heat (and scrutiny) is on their own system. During the election, many Catholic teachers openly supported the Liberals with their unconscionable, bigoted, Catholics-first-and-only status quo position on religious school funding. The Catholic trustees, teachers union, and principals’ council all applauded Liberal announcements in news releases and public comments while ignoring the fact that the Tories offered ever more money. While saying they support equal rights for other faiths, they were quietly working against those who proposed to make it a reality. They knew damned well that dividing a limited pie even further would be detrimental to all children in the existing publicly funded systems. You can see it already in current education funding.

English Catholic school boards generally receive hundreds of dollars more per pupil per year than their coterminous English public boards. French public boards similarly receive substantially more per pupil per year than their coterminous French Catholic boards, which are always the larger of the French boards. French boards universally receive thousands of dollars more per pupil per year than their coterminous English boards, whether public or Catholic. This is not favouritism of Catholic over public or of French over English, but a clear recognition in the education funding formula of the inefficiencies of smaller boards serving more dispersed student populations. The smaller boards receive higher funding to allow them to offer an educational experience of comparable quality to their larger counterparts.

My motivation is opposing the continuation of the separate Catholic system is that I agree with most Ontarians that it is wrong to segregate children by faith and it is a gross injustice to provide publicly funded school choice to the members of a single privileged faith alone. I am also interested in seeing better stewardship of the funding committed to public education and religious neutrality in government. I think a single public school system is the best way to accomplish that. Religious schools, if they are to be funded at all, should be funded at arm’s length through modest tax credits that are not significant enough to promote an exodus from truly inclusive and multicultural public schools.

Attempting to ascribe my actions to hateful motives is dishonest in the extreme.

Regards,
Leonard Baak.

Thank you, Mr. Baak. I have several readers who totally agree with your point of view.

I personally feel that the status quo is unacceptable because it discriminates according to religious faith. But what about Eden High Christian School in Niagara, and other such anomalies?

And already there is a Toronto school for gays and lesbians (Oasis).

How do we explain the Toronto District School Board talking about a school for blacks-only?

Just where does the Minister of Education stand on all this NOW?