Found at: http://www.peoplesvoice.ca/articleprint04/10__Tory_positions_reminiscent_of_Scopes_Trial.html

Tory positions reminiscent of Scopes Trial

  (The following article is from the September 16-30, 2007 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St. Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

By Elizabeth Rowley, leader, Communist Party of Canada (Ontario)
http://www.votecommunist.ca

In an election that looks increasingly like a horse race, the Tories under aptly named leader John Tory, are plugging wedge issues that they think will catapult them ahead of the Liberals and into a minority government, in the mode of the Harper Tories federally.

     As a result, their key issues are crime, taxes, and funding religious schools across the province, which John Tory says is "a principle" for Conservatives. Playing on wide-spread feelings of bitterness and discrimination at the 1985 decision of another Tory Premier, Bill Davis, to fully fund the Roman Catholic separate school system, John Tory is claiming the support of the United Nations.

     Following a complaint lodged in the 1990s, the United Nations found Ontario was discriminating by funding the Catholic school system. However only one of the remedies proposed was to fund all religious schools. The other was to separate religion from the state funded school system, and to fund a single secular public system open to all.

     This remedy, to separate church and schools, is the policy long advanced by the Communist Party and many others in Ontario. The sticky wicket is the withdrawal of funding from the Catholic system that the adoption of this position would entail, and the enmity of Catholic Bishops across the board. But many Catholics support the notion of a single public school system, which is well funded and can deliver quality education to every student.

     The gradual withdrawal of funding from the Catholic system would see the transitioning of schools (including staff and students) into the public system and the withdrawal of the church from the education system.

     A debate that has been loaded since Premier Bill Davis tried to buy time and votes for his beleaguered Conservatives in 1985, was blown wide open just after Labour Day when John Tory told reporters that creationism could be taught in Ontario schools since "the theory of evolution is still a `theory'"

     A firestorm of criticism and opposition has ignited across the province and the editorial pages are full of denunciations of Tory's statements. Ever since, he has been trying to "clarify" and downplay his comments, while his staff are spinning it as fast as they can. The statement may well have cost them the election.

     Yet the Liberals' position on publicly funding religious schools is not significantly different. The coalition of Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Hindu and fundamentalist Christian groups was active in the 2003 election, and was successful in generating support from McGuinty with the caveat that funding of the public school system had to first be stabilized.

     In 2007, the Liberals' opposition to funding religious schools is that it's too expensive; not that it's bad policy and not that it reflects a dangerous departure from a secular state.

     In their last term, the Liberals played with the idea of allowing religious sharia law to parallel the secular legal system in Ontario, assisted regrettably by former NDP Attorney General Marion Boyd, who somehow equated sharia law with affirmative action for Muslim women. Then too, a coalition of religious groups pressed the government to allow a parallel religious system to exist, in the name of "choice" and under cover of "multi-culturalism", "democracy", and even "equality."

     Once again, a firestorm of public opposition forced the government to rebuff proponents of sharia law, and Ontario retains its single, secular and universal legal system. At least, for today.

     But clearly, the attack on the secular state, including our legal and education systems, is not going to stop with this election. Further, there is no strong, principled opposition to this attack in Queen's Park. Both Liberals and Tories regard it as a risky vote-getter; while the NDP is divided in its own ranks, mainly but not only on the issue of Catholic school funding. It's no wonder the religious coalitions are growing in size and in determination; they can see what we can see, and it's dangerous for working people, for children and youth, and for Canada.

     The descent into a non-secular state is not wholesale, but piecemeal. Conservative efforts to re-open the debate on same-sex marriage, and reproductive rights last year is not coincidental, and it's not dead though Harper has moved mountains to try to bury it.

     Not incidentally, while the newspapers were filled with John Tory's incredible proposal to allow the teaching of creationism in the 21st century (bringing to mind the arguments made in the Scopes trial almost a hundred years ago), there is ongoing media coverage of Grenville Christian College and the accusations of students and admissions by some staff of physical and sexual abuse, torture, and cult activities that took place over two decades until 1997. The school was run by the Anglican Church of Canada.

     Margaret Atwood's book The Handmaid's Tale should be on the reading list for all students - and their parents - this fall, preferably before the October 10th election