Politics
Monday February 20, 2006
Ontario Tories Pledge Financial Aid for Faith-Based Schools
TODAY'S HEADLINES
E-MAIL
PRINT
By Gudrun Schultz
NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario, February 20, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Parents with children in private religious schools will get help with tuition fees if the Progressive Conservatives are elected in next year’s election, PC leader John Tory said yesterday.
Speaking at a policy conference in Niagara Falls, Mr. Tory said the financial assistance would most likely take the form of tax credits for parents.
"I have now been to several [independent faith-based schools] to visit and I have learned a lot from listening to people of all kinds ... and I have come to understand even better the fact that there is a fairness issue that needs to be addressed," he said to delegates at the conference, reported by the Hamilton Spectator.
Mr. Tory said it wasn’t clear yet whether all private schools would qualify, or just those that are faith-based.
In November 2005 the UN Human Rights Committee called for an end to Canada’s system of government funding for Catholic schools, saying it amounted to discrimination against parents who send their children to non-Catholic private schools.
Mr. Tory said that while he agreed with the UN that the present system was unfair, he would not consider withdrawing funding from the Catholic schools as a way of equalizing the situation. Mr. Tory said public funding of Roman Catholic schools was part of “the bargain of Confederation.”
The PC party under Mike Harris introduced a tax credit for parents with children in private schools in 2001, but Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals threw out the program when they won the 2003 election. When fully implemented, that tax credit would have covered up to $3,500 per student annually for tuitions up to $7,000.
The original independent schools tax credit program was a pet project of now Conservative federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty when he was Finance Minister in the Mike Harris Progressive Conservative government. Harris’s successor, Ernie Eves, slammed the program and killed the next stages of increased deductions. Near the end of his term Eves reversed course but too late to save his government from defeat at the hands of the McGuinty Liberals.
It remains to be seen what conditions John Tory will attach to his proposal to restore a tax credit for private school tuitions given that, like Ernie Eves, he is a social liberal strongly supportive of abortion, same-sex marriage, the advancement of the gay agenda and more.
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
UN Rules Government Funding of Catholic Education in Ontario "Discriminatory"
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/nov/05111803.html
ONTARIO INDEPENDENT SCHOOL TAX CREDIT APPROVED WITH MINIMAL RESTRICTIONS
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2001/dec/01121701.html
EVES COMES OUT SWINGING AGAINST PARENTAL CHOICE IN EDUCATION TAX CREDIT
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2001/dec/01121801.html
Back to TopLatest Headlines
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase out Lab Rats
- Ohio Supreme Court Allows Planned Parenthood to Conceal Abortion Records in Sexual Abuse Case
- LifeSiteNews Canada Day and Independence Day Message. Taking a few days off. LSN returns Monday July 6
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- Pro-Life Groups Announce New Colorado Personhood Initiative
- Judge Puts Kibosh on DC Gay "Marriage" Referendum
- Al Franken Win Hands Supermajority to Senate Democrats
- Group Funded by Canadian Bishops' D&P Joins with Others to Denounce the "Natural Family" and "Family Rights"
- Financially Troubled Planned Parenthood of El Paso Closes Doors
- Abortion Linked to Subsequent Pre-Term Births, New Research Again Confirms
- New Orleans Homosexual Couple Ask Fed. Court to Overturn Marriage Amendment
- Slim Hope Of New Ontario Progressive Conservative Party Leader Promoting Pro-Life, Pro-Family Issues
- Pope Accepts Resignation of Bishop Caught Involved in Homosexual Encounters
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- Northern Ireland Politician Cleared of Wrongdoing after Reiterating Christian Teaching on Homosexual Acts
- UK Conservative Leader Speaks at Gay Pride Fundraiser
- More Letters to the Editor on Canadian Catholic Development and Peace Scandal (July 1)
- Letters to the Editor - Readers Respond to Development and Peace Scandal
- Watch This Dramatic New Video on Catholic Bishops Conference Funding of Pro-Abortion Groups
Most Read this Week
- Homosexual Duke U. Director Charged with Offering Adopted 5-Year-Old for Sex
- Famed Fr. Corapi Calls Canadian Bishops' Dissent from Humanae Vitae "Catastrophic"
- Pope: It is a Childish Faith to Oppose the Church Teaching on Life and Family
- LifeSiteNews Detailed Response to Canadian Bishops' Whitewash Report on Development and Peace
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- Is Pro-Choice the New Pro-Life?
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase Out Lab Rats
- Swedish Parents Won't Tell if Child is Boy or Girl as Gender Experiment
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
MORE NEWS: 
LifeSiteNews.com Home Page Last 10 Days Archives Special Reports
Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.