While Canada has always had Catholic schools, they became publicly funded in the 19th-century when government-funded schools were created. Catholics feared public schools would convert their children to the dominant Protestant religion at the time so they created public Catholic schools.
Lots of changes have been made to both the school system and Canada since then. As a result, it’s time for Ontario to make a change to the school board system.
Ontario needs to get rid of publicly funded Catholic schools.
Being Catholic is fine. Canada is a wonderful country. Citizens have the right to practice any religion but public schools are funded through tax money to provide all students with an academic education.
Tax money shouldn’t go towards your child’s religious education, especially not one that doesn’t even uphold Canadian values.
In Canada, marriage, whether it’s to a female or male, is legal and accepted.
The Catholic Church still stands that a marriage is between a man and a woman. Being homosexual is fine, but having a relationship with another homosexual is sinful, says the Vatican.
Some people might praise Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church, for having a softer, more inclusive stance on core concerns of the church but he is still against Canadian values.
Pope Francis says he opposes gender theory: the idea that gender is separated from your biological sex. He opposes the idea of schools teaching students about the LGBTQ+ community because that would be promoting or endorsing such “tendencies” the Catholic church has deemed sinful.
Tendencies that Canada have found worth protecting in our Charter of Humans Rights. Section 15 in the charter protects Canadians from discrimination based off identities that the Church deems sinful.
Or, maybe we should touch on the fact of the pain and devastation the Catholic Church has caused our country and our citizens.
Out of the 130 residential schools run in Canada, three quarters were run by the Catholic Church. While the church has participated in the $1.9 billion compensation plan for the victims, they still haven’t formally apologized for their role.
The Anglican Church, the Presbyterian Church and the United Church all apologized in the 90’s for their role.
The Catholic Church holds on to the fact it was individual diocesan bishops’ decision to run the schools, so they don’t have anything to apologize for.
An estimated 150,000 First Nation, Inuit and Metis children were forced to attend these schools where they were neglected, abused, cut off from their families and murder in an attempt to wipe out their culture, and effectively, them.
And the Catholic Church is still allowed to have a publicly funded school board in Canada.
The Church did apologize for the hundreds of suspected victims of sexual abuse committed by their clergy in their churches and schools, but they never backed it with effective change, according to Barbara Blaine, the president of Survivors Network of those abused by Priests.
Instead, Pope Francis defends paedophiles.
Recently, he defended Juan Barros, a Bishop in Chile that was accused of sexual assault. A judge found the victims to be truthful in a case against Rev Fernando Karadima, where it was said that Barros was in the room during the abuse.
Pope Francis followed up with a statement saying we shouldn’t believe the victims, because their word isn’t good enough and accused them of slander.
A photo of Pope Francis, a man who allows the abuse of children and protects these predators, hangs in our public schools; a man who doesn’t believe in our right to decide our gender or who we have relationships with; a man who doesn’t think the systematic abuse of 150, 000 children is something to apologize for.
That is the person students in Canadian public schools are asked to look up to.
If the Catholic church is not going to uphold Canadian values, then they have no place in our public-school system.
It is time for Ontario to get rid of publicly funded Catholic schools.
