2007 Ontario Election: Will Tory lose Don Valley West?

[afransen]

I think it's a combination of "anti-right-wing religious freaks" as well as the knowledge that when a politician says $400 million it really means $40 Billion.

What the politicians fail to grasp is that people are not against being fair but they also are not stupid enough to think a system that is strapped as is couldn't use the money to more productive means than private religious schools.

Every dollar spent on any private education means a dollar you could have spent on public education.

Heck I went to a Catholic school growing up and while I did enjoy some of it, I acknowledge the fact that public schools are better for both inclusiveness and best dollar value.

Tory only saw the unfairness of it, not the more economical factor of it. I laugh at some of the Toronto Star articles from religious leaders saying that having segregated schools and having them visit each other fosters inclusiveness. That is bull. I remember the mosque that was built next to my school was regularly vandalized.

From a purely economical standpoint, having a single public school system (get rid of Catholic funding) provides the greatest bang for the buck and covers everyone.

Apparently some analysis has indicated that since the Catholic and Public school systems are both so large that any economies of scale arising from merging them are likely overwhelmed by the cost of the merging and restructuring (see Harris' merging of school boards).

 

[lordmandeep]

why not slowly every year eliminate religious themes from the catholic schools.

It is already happening really, they are becoming less religious.


However, the smart political move is to never talk about actually doing that...

 

[Admiral Beez]

IMHO, much of everyman's opposition to this religious school funding mess was never about fairness, but in a ill-placed concern about Islamic schools, i.e. madrassas teaching the next generation of terrorists. To many, IMO, we are at war with Islamic fascism, starting with the Canadians killed at 9/11, and our boys in Afghanistan are dying under their fire, while a small minority of Muslim students are arrested in Mississauga for planning terrorist attacks, and a Canadian citizen goes to Afghanistan to kill western soldiers. Madness thinking definitely, but I think it definitely has weight in people's thoughts.

 

[MajorComplainer]

IMO, the Ontario PCs have never been moral/religious conservatives. Even during the height of the Harris PC regime, there were never any religious/moral conservative agendas or policies. Now, this faith based school thing of Tory's could maybe be seen as a religious policy, but I think it was more out of sense of fairness than out of any sense of religious conservatism.

IIRC, religious conservatives in Ontario have complained for years that they have no one to represent them. In fact, they have McGuinty, who is probably the most religious of today's group.

Um... even Harper/Harris and other Conservative "have never been" moral/religious conservatives....on THEIR CAMPAIGN....that does not mean they are NOT. They were not stupid enough like John Tory to say it out loud to the public...

 

[Admiral Beez]

I don't know about Harper, but no one is going to claim that Harris was a moral or religious conservative. First of all, Harris has been married three times, and then ditched his last wife and children to shack up with that news flunky.

 

[lordmandeep]

IMHO, much of everyman's opposition to this religious school funding mess was never about fairness, but in a ill-placed concern about Islamic schools, i.e. madrassas teaching the next generation of terrorists. To many, IMO, we are at war with Islamic fascism, starting with the Canadians killed at 9/11, and our boys in Afghanistan are dying under their fire, while a small minority of Muslim students are arrested in Mississauga for planning terrorist attacks, and a Canadian citizen goes to Afghanistan to kill western soldiers. Madness thinking definitely, but I think it definitely has weight in people's thoughts.

that does not explain why so many minorities voted liberal and against faith based schools.


I think what you said happened outside of many ethnically diverse ridings. In the ethnically diverse ridings, the minorities are big supporters of public schools and they saw John Tory as a man you was threatening these schools.

 

[Admiral Beez]

that does not explain why so many minorities voted liberal and against faith based schools.

We must not assume that minorities are always somehow more religious, or more inclined to send their kids to religious schools.

BTW, when I think of religious schools outside of the Catholic system, I generally think of Jewish schools, and the vast majority of Jewish people I know (few of whom are immigrants, but have been here for generations) are hardly visible minorities and could pass for any other Caucasian people.

 

[JasonParis]

I don't know about Harper, but no one is going to claim that Harris was a moral or religious conservative. First of all, Harris has been married three times, and then ditched his last wife and children to shack up with that news flunky.

Agreed. Harris was definitely not a moral conservative. He was a lot of things, but not that. For example, his response to any same-sex issue in the court system was simply "it's for the courts to decide and we'll respect what they decide."

In fact, it could be argued that one of the reasons that Ontarians bought into something as right-wing as the Common Sense Revolution was because it didn't tread any morality/religious territory whatsoever.

 

[CDL.TO]

Mike Harris is the example of a neo-Liberal as opposed to a neo-Conservative like Bush or Flaherty.

------------------------

I think this article from today's Globe does a good job of summing up the failure of a religious schools policy and the results of the election in general. Link

Excerpt:

The fatal Tory education promise reflected a misunderstanding of the province's attitude toward diversity.

Multiculturalism is Ontario's creed; integration is Ontario's practice. Politics is supposed to assist that integration and, in fact, it does rather wonderfully. True, the province has not yet had a visible minority premier or party leader, but that day will come.

When political (or administrative or judicial) decisions are deemed to thwart integration, the public will react against them. In their private spheres of family and religion, or even in their own communities, people can practise their own creeds and exercise their own cultural preferences.

Bring these into the public domain and insist that it be changed, and the reaction will be overwhelmingly negative, in large part because there is so much diversity that no one would know when the changes would end.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

had tory's platform included secularizing the catholic schools, i wonder how different the outcome would have been? all i kept hearing from the liberals was together together together. there are alot of catholics who are not together with everyone else.

tory tried to correct a wrong with more wrongs and paid dearly for it.

 

[rbt]

had tory's platform included secularizing the catholic schools,...
tory tried to correct a wrong with more wrongs and paid dearly for it.

Wasn't Tory one of the people that brought in Catholic School funding in the first place? He was just continuing the same policies set forth during the Davis days.

Principal Secretary is a senior aide position that can get a premier to put through legislation based on their opinion.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Catholic schools were publicly funded since the 1800s. What Bill Davis did was extend the funding from Grade 10 to Grade 12. Tory was there, but not holding the reigns.

 

[Prometheus The Supremo]

i have a feeling that if they don't fix this issue, it will haunt every election from now on.

 

[Edward Skira]

What Bill Davis did was extend the funding from Grade 10 to Grade 12

Grade 13 actually. My grade 13 tuition was $1,000 a year. The first year at York University tuition was $1,400. I would have preferred they not touch the funding formula. My high school was a much better school when mostly private.

 

[MajorComplainer]

Agreed. Harris was definitely not a moral conservative. He was a lot of things, but not that. For example, his response to any same-sex issue in the court system was simply "it's for the courts to decide and we'll respect what they decide."

In fact, it could be argued that one of the reasons that Ontarians bought into something as right-wing as the Common Sense Revolution was because it didn't tread any morality/religious territory whatsoever.

Harris was both a moral and a MORON conservative. It's totally BS to think that he's ok with the same-sex marriage issue. He never even showed up for the parade! Sheesh.