Good coverage

   “On Nov. 7, the Brantford Expositor printed my profile in their special section for all candidates. Even though they had to edit my submission for length, they summarized my position quite well.

   “I put up no signs, made no public appearances, and was fairly low profile. Asking Catholics to vote for me, considering what my election platform was, made me think that my vote total would be about 1 vote...mine.”

The result

   “Much to my surprise, I got 1147 votes....12.75% of votes cast. Seeing as voters selected 2 candidates on the ballot, my name was chosen by about 25% of voters. There are lots of sensible Catholics out there who agree with us.

   “If the Catholic School System still exists when the next municipal election comes along, I'll be doing this again. Only next time, I'll be putting up signs, attending ‘meet the candidates’ events, in general being much higher profile.

    “This strategy may even be a good one for CRIPE and EEO to look at. A few hundred non-Catholic members running for Catholic School Boards across the province, would be a good way to get the word out and ‘stir the pot’.

Peter confessed

   “To anyone ‘in the know’ it was obvious that I was not Catholic and therefore, an illegal candidate. I don't think that most members of the general public are aware that they can be discriminated against on the basis of religion when running for this "public" office. I'd like to change that. With this in mind, I've confessed my evil ways and turned myself in to the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs, admitting that I was knowingly an illegal candidate, and violated section 219 of the education act. I'm confident that they don't wish to make this public, and will probably ignore me. If not, I’m ready with my ‘Charter of Rights’ and ‘freedom of religion’ arguments. I also hope to have a few letters to the editor printed, which would tell this happy tale of fraud and deceit. 

   “Just lighting a fire.”

Let’s end discrimination in publicly-funded schools.

The time for kindergarten registration will soon be upon us. This year, like every year, thousands of Ontario's four- and five-year-old children will be denied admission to publicly funded Catholic elementary schools because their parents are not Catholic.

   The vast majority of these parents, in their stereotypical Canadian way, will simply accept this morally indefensible religious discrimination. A few parents will challenge this policy. Most of them will become discouraged by the brush-offs, evasions and lies they receive from the Ministry of Education or the provincial government.

   A very few, will research this issue themselves and discover that there is no constitutional obligation to fund Catholic schools, which is contrary to what the government says. They will learn that more than $1 million a day is being wasted by running parallel school systems serving overlapping jurisdictions. They will find out that through a simple bilateral agreement with Ottawa, a single secular school system which is more fiscally responsible and free from religious discrimination and segregation can be created,

   Some non-Catholic children may be accepted if they are lucky enough to apply to an under-enrolled school. Catholic elementary schools would rather not have them at all, but if they need to top up their numbers to be more cost effective, they will take any children for the blessed enrolment grants that come with them. These outlanders, however, will not be fully included in the school community. This is a shameful, self-serving and hypocritical policy.

   I was once a proud Canadian until I discovered that this blatant religious discrimination is being allowed to continue. The religiously neutral provincial and federal governments not only support and encourage the continued existence of publicly funded Catholic schools in Ontario, but they also thumb their noses at the international community and UN which has twice censured Canada by virtue of the discriminatory nature of this system. Shame on them. Don't just sit back and take it this year. Speak out.

Peter W. Jones,  Brantford

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