Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheese
Skirting the question again eh?
Any other religious school in Canada is NOT a publicly funded choice. There is no tickmark to allow you to send your tax dollars to the Muslim school of your choice...so why Catholic? Is it "tolerance"?
|
History. Christians, notably catholics, set up many of this Country's first schools, especially out west.
Later on, when the country was born of a mostly protestant leadership, the catholics insisted that they have a separate system. For a time, there wasn't public and catholic, it was protestant and catholic. Protestant became the mainstream, and catholic held to their beliefs (which have also liberalized a lot)... and now we have what you see today. Catholics are also the largest percentage of Canadians, practicing or otherwise (something in the 40-45% range). Since they recently have been admitting non-Catholics (people with distant catholic ancestry), their argument is that they represent a large enough group of people to warrant funding. Rightly or wrongly. Its pretty heavily engrained into the education system, and any attempts to sway this would meet with huge opposition for a few reasons.
First: The Catholic system is funded only by those taxpayers who choose it.
Second: Other cultural institutions with less broad community reward, and with a lower percentage of participants are funded by public monies. (1/3 of students go to Catholic schools)
Third: There are a large amount of catholics in Alberta, practicing or not who believe in this tradition.
Fourth: Many believe Catholic Schools provide a better education for free
Fifth: There is no logical reason to change.