Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
Seriously though, is it politically viable to put the elimination of Catholic schools forward in a meaningful and successful way in Ontario?
About 35-40% of the population is Catholic to some degree. Tons of people either have kids in these schools or work in them.
Many people who are "neither" of these two are nonetheless "sympathetic" to Catholic schools, like my parents and in-laws.
When they made the change in Quebec there was a pretty good consensus on the need for a change, although the circumstances here were quite different from those in present-day Ontario.
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Catholic schools have a relative share of about 30% of the students in Ontario and that share is declining over time. A growing proportion of Catholic school students are just there because it happens to be closer to their house or some other reason, rather than any real attachment to Catholic education. Which is why parent councils at Catholic schools pushed so hard to be allowed to exempt their kids from religion classes, which the government allowed. Which goes into another point.. the government is not afraid of offending Catholic school boards like they used to be. The government is doing things like forcing them to adopt modern sex-ed curricula, and forcing them to allow students to form gay pride clubs.. all without any hesitation. When Catholic school trustees starting making noise about being exempt from the updated sex ed cirriculum, Kathleen Wynne basically told them the politics-speak equivalent of "fuck off".
As time goes on, and all of these factors continue to deepen as our society continues to become more secular and multicultural, the separate school boards will look more and more out of place. And with the rising cost of health care for an aging population almost certain to put a massive burden on the public purse in the next two decades, the $1B+ annual savings are going to look more and more attractive.
I don't think it will happen next year or even in the next five years, but at some point in my lifetime I expect Catholic schools will be eliminated.