reading note on Gidney, R.D. (1999). The completion of the separate school system, 1960-1987.

    Although being required to read one chapter of Gidney’s book From Hope to Harris: The Reshaping of Ontario Schools, having a brief idea of the whole book might contribute to the better understanding of this chapter, after all, it is a journey clarifying some common issues surrounding changes within an education system. I see it a chance for a foreigner to read through and understand different issues happening within Ontario’s education system. 

   In June, 1984, William Davis claimed that it was time ‘to permit Roman Catholic school boards to establish a full range of elementary and secondary education and as part of the public system, to be funded accordingly.’For Catholics it was a moment to cherish while the president of the Ontario Public School Trustees’ Association said she was horrified. 

     The book, as well as each chapter, involves a chronological story of the events, aiming to understand the processes of policy making and set it as a guide to practice and thereby provide implications for the present decision makers. At mid-twentieth century, the separate school system suffered substantial disadvantages compared to its public counterpart. Two of the most important remedial measures demanded were changes in the law to give them access to corporate property taxes, and public funds for grade 11 to 13. Therefore, Catholic leaders launched a vigorous new initiative to persuade all three of Ontario’s political parties to support full funding to Catholic high schools. All of these brings back to June 1984.Not only the enrolment in Catholic elementary school increased, but also the high schools. Catholics now represented something like a third of the Ontario electorate. The terms Davis proposed in his June speech represented an attempt to keep both public and separate school supporters happy and afterwards he announced to establish three related commissions. The final one was to study and report on the issue which was the extension of funding to Catholic high schools raised the question of the rights of other minorities to funding for their schools.  In the week after the announcement, public hearings by the implementation commission were now under way. Catholic organizations argues that all of this was exaggeration, and that ‘completion’ of their system was as necessary as it was wise. But what the hearings also revealed was that things were on the boil at the local level. Meanwhile, a new guard Frank Miller was eager to win his own mandate from the voters. Miller declared that the separate school issue was the main reason for the loss of Tory seats and implied that, given the new situation, he might well consider reversing Davis’s decision. But it raised question of calling an early election. Finally, the government was defeated on 18 June 1985. Afterwards, in Peterson’s new cabinet, Sean Conway was handed the job of minister of education. The premier himself introduced the separate school legislation, known as the famous Bill 30. Thus, Catholic boards would be given access to government grants and local property taxes. And during the 1960s and 1970s, the number of private schools in Ontario had grown significantly. There were different arguments in support of public finding for private education, for sure. Catholics did not rest their case on narrowly legal rounds alone but spoke of the essential unity of religious values, and the prior rights of parents in determining how their children were to be educated. Bill 30 passed into law in late June 1986. The supreme court case was a replay of the Ontario court’s hearings of the previous year, but on a much grander scale. 

     In the four or five years following the passage of Bill 30, there would be bitter struggles in some local communities. Yet the overall effects of Bill 30 were relatively modest. 

   The basic framework for Canada's use of public monies for separate and denominational schools and, more generally, for the relationship between the state and schooling was established in the 19th century. Thus the education and religion were inseparable and the state had a responsibility to foster, wherever possible, a harmonious relationship between them. Religion in education was important, even essential, to both Protestants and Catholics. 

    As for me, what I concern about these separate but harmonious education systems are what the initial purpose of establishing two separate systems as now that parents do not always have a free choice to decide which school, public or Catholic, their children may attend, nor for which they shall be taxed. In Ontario, a Catholic parent may elect the school system to which his or her taxes go; the children will then attend the system to which such taxes are paid. Although a Catholic may choose to be a public-school supporter, however, a non-Catholic may not elect to support a Catholic separate school. Students learn in separate environments and sometimes learn quite different things, but they might not fully have right to choose which school system they are favour of.