On Michael Coren’s show (CTS, Sept.25, 2007) his guests included Bernie Farber, Kathleen Wynne and John Vanasselt. They talked about faith based school funding. Wynne claimed first, that "infrastructure" would cost too much for discrimination to end in Ontario (what a proud Liberal!); then, she blamed the constitution; then, as expected, she played the old Harris card to sum up her sorry defense of Ontario’s educational double standard. Of course, no real answer was given by Wynne, the current Minister of Education, to Farber’s question. Some comments by the panellists were:
Farber: “What is the problem of eliminating religious discrimination finally in this province? How can it be, in the year 2007, that we have the only jurisdiction in the world that permits one faith based group to have special rights others don’t? How is that possible?”
Wynne: “The argument I’m making is that we’re not talking about 400 or 500 million dollars, we’re talking about into the billions of dollars once you start to house and put infrastructure in place and we cannot afford to go there.”
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Vanasselt: “The issue of infrastructure has been handled in the other provinces where they fund faith based schools. They’re not issues. [gives examples: Edmonton, Manitoba, British Columbia] The educational infrastructure is not an issue. It’s not an issue anywhere in the Western world. Why would it be that way in Ontario?”
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Farber: “Kathleen, you didn’t answer the question. I just want you to answer the question about discrimination. For a whole hour I’ve been asking you to answer that question. Is it discriminatory or is it not? Yes or no? No politician from your party has answered that…Is it discriminatory in your opinion? Don’t give me a political answer.”
Wynne: “It’s a historic tension. And we have historic tensions across the country."
Farber: “And so we continue with discrimination because of “historical tension”; is that what your telling me?”
Wynne: “The worst discrimination is against the mass of children in this province who are in our publicly funded system who need resources that were taken away by Mike Harris and now, John Tory…”
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Vanasselt: “The suggestion that in this largely multicultural province that the only place to propagate democracy is in public schools and the language that’s being used by the party in power is just absurd. The notion that these other schools and these other communities do not contribute to democracy, to the growth and the advancement and the development of this province it remains offensive…you can’t answer Bernie’s question about discrimination - this is not going to get better, is it?”
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Coren (to Wynne): “I don’t think you actually believe this at all. I think John Tory brought this forward and you thought at Liberal headquarters ‘we can get him on this’. And in fact it’s entirely Liberal to say that you can have funding for faith schools. I’ve heard New Democrats and Liberals say to me ‘yeah, it’s not against our ideology. But you knew this would be real loser for the Tories, and you bashed away and you know what? You’re doing well at it, you’re doing very well at it indeed."
Wynne: “That’s not true.”
*
More and more, these Ontario Liberal hypocrites are just looking like bigots.
Farber: “What is the problem of eliminating religious discrimination finally in this province? How can it be, in the year 2007, that we have the only jurisdiction in the world that permits one faith based group to have special rights others don’t? How is that possible?”
Wynne: “The argument I’m making is that we’re not talking about 400 or 500 million dollars, we’re talking about into the billions of dollars once you start to house and put infrastructure in place and we cannot afford to go there.”
*
Vanasselt: “The issue of infrastructure has been handled in the other provinces where they fund faith based schools. They’re not issues. [gives examples: Edmonton, Manitoba, British Columbia] The educational infrastructure is not an issue. It’s not an issue anywhere in the Western world. Why would it be that way in Ontario?”
*
Farber: “Kathleen, you didn’t answer the question. I just want you to answer the question about discrimination. For a whole hour I’ve been asking you to answer that question. Is it discriminatory or is it not? Yes or no? No politician from your party has answered that…Is it discriminatory in your opinion? Don’t give me a political answer.”
Wynne: “It’s a historic tension. And we have historic tensions across the country."
Farber: “And so we continue with discrimination because of “historical tension”; is that what your telling me?”
Wynne: “The worst discrimination is against the mass of children in this province who are in our publicly funded system who need resources that were taken away by Mike Harris and now, John Tory…”
*
Vanasselt: “The suggestion that in this largely multicultural province that the only place to propagate democracy is in public schools and the language that’s being used by the party in power is just absurd. The notion that these other schools and these other communities do not contribute to democracy, to the growth and the advancement and the development of this province it remains offensive…you can’t answer Bernie’s question about discrimination - this is not going to get better, is it?”
*
Coren (to Wynne): “I don’t think you actually believe this at all. I think John Tory brought this forward and you thought at Liberal headquarters ‘we can get him on this’. And in fact it’s entirely Liberal to say that you can have funding for faith schools. I’ve heard New Democrats and Liberals say to me ‘yeah, it’s not against our ideology. But you knew this would be real loser for the Tories, and you bashed away and you know what? You’re doing well at it, you’re doing very well at it indeed."
Wynne: “That’s not true.”
*
More and more, these Ontario Liberal hypocrites are just looking like bigots.
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