Harper hurt by faith-based schools issue

[StoneMtn]

I find I have so much to say about so much of this article, that I don't really know where to begin. I think I'd like to hear others' opinions, though.

[color:blue]LARRY ZOLF: POLITICS

Harper hurt by faith-based schools issue

Nov. 2, 2007

Three weeks past the Ontario election, it's apparent that the provincial Tories' proposal to fund faith-based schools — and, in particular, Jewish schools — has hurt Stephen Harper politically.

Harper’s social conservative base in Ontario rebelled at the idea of their taxes going to Jewish religious schools. En masse, rural and small-town Harper sympathizers voted no to Ontario PC Leader John Tory and taxpayer-funded Jewish religious schools, preferring either to lodge their ballots with Dalton McGuinty and the Liberals, or not to vote at all.

As a result, Harper’s base in Ontario was damaged, with Tory’s ineptitude reflected in a drop for Harper in polls of Ontarians. At least one poll, taken by Decima after the Ontario election, showed diminished support in the province for the federal Tories.

Tory put forward a campaign promise to fund faith-based schools of all denominations, but the issue quickly zoomed in on Jewish schools. Jewish groups were the most vocal of the communities that Tory was trying to court with his funding plan, and many Jewish voters endorsed John Tory even more strongly than they have Stephen Harper. The Canadian Jewish Congress and many rabbis said Ontario taxpayers should pay for Jewish religious schools.

The federal Conservatives quietly hoped the proposal would bring a major breakthrough for them among supporters of faith-based schools. Peter Kent, the party's candidate in the Greater Toronto riding of Thornhill, was one of several party bigwigs who backed the measure. But perhaps because he's learned from history, Harper himself remained mum.

In 1979, Tory leader Joe Clark promised the Jewish lobby that if he was elected, he would move Canada’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. When he became prime minister that summer and followed through on his promise, the move was very popular in the Canadian Jewish community.

But Clark's Jerusalem promise led to hostile anti-Semitic letters to the press and a backlash against Canadian Jews. It also led to Clark’s defeat in the 1980 election.

Harper, perhaps with an eye to that backlash, kept Jim Flaherty, Tony Clement and John Baird, his high-profile Ontario lieutenants, right out of the Jewish schools question. And as a result, Jewish voters who were looking to Harper to champion their cause got worried about its lack of widespread appeal and came to feel alienated from the Conservatives.

Thankfully, the John Tory plan did not lead to the same kind of anti-Jewish backlash that Joe Clark’s Jerusalem promise had caused in 1979.

But in the end, the Ontario Liberals carried all the significantly Jewish ridings in Ontario (St. Paul's, Willowdale) save one, Thornhill. Jews voted Liberal, and John Tory delivered the Jewish vote not to Harper but to McGuinty.

So Harper suffered in the Ontario campaign on two counts: he saw his rural and small-town base reject Conservatives, and Tory threatened the prime minister's very close ties to Ontario’s Jewish population. The upshot has been renewed strength for the federal Liberals in Ontario.

For their part, the Jewish advocates of faith-based funding made some really bad political moves that have isolated them in Ontario.

The first mistake they made was to see Tory as a disciple of Harper. Harper, as part of his pro-Jewish stance, would not mind ultra-Orthodox Judaism being taught in schools paid for by the taxpayer, they thought.

But that was a mistake. The second error was to bait Ontario's Catholic school system — which, under the Constitution, is publicly funded — for getting special favours the Jews were entitled to and were not getting.

Here, the Ontario Jewish leaders showed an appalling ignorance of Canadian history. When Irish Catholics fled the potato famine of the 1830s and came to Toronto, they transformed Canada completely. Soon there were enough Irish Catholics in Ontario to set up their own separate school system, which they could choose to receive their school taxes.

Many Canadian Jewish groups still do not see anything wrong in asking the general public to pay for their religious schools. That stance by the Jewish community has set its relations with the Ontario Tories back a long, long way.

And now that Premier McGuinty‘s political machine has proven to be a major force, it will bring Jewish, Sikh and Muslim votes to the federal Liberals in the next national election. John Tory’s follies will make Ontario go Liberal in the next federal election and maybe, just maybe, take Harper’s dream of a majority away.

Link

[bradm]

Tory put forward a campaign promise to fund faith-based schools of all denominations, but the issue quickly zoomed in on Jewish schools. Jewish groups were the most vocal of the communities that Tory was trying to court with his funding plan, and many Jewish voters endorsed John Tory even more strongly than they have Stephen Harper. The Canadian Jewish Congress and many rabbis said Ontario taxpayers should pay for Jewish religious schools.

Hmmm...I didn't pay an extra-ordinary amount of attention to the election, and while I recall commentators saying Tory's move was a mistake for him, the whole issue of Jewish schools (in particular) being an important facet of Tory's plan didn't register with me at all. Did I miss something? Was this (the Jewish school part, not just faith-based school funding) reported in the press during the election?

Aloha,

Brad

[Birdy]

I think funding faith-based schools noble in nature but really unfeasible and any sort of political promises to support it are bound to hurt some electorate, somewhere. Regardless of our history, continuing to fund the Catholic school board is undoubtedly creating a culture of entitlement amongst other religious groups. My vote would be to abolish all funding of religious schools entirely and to create a broad curriculum of religious studies in our public system.

[meggo]

agreed. and bradm, i also didn't notice on the news the question of funding "jewish schools in particular" playing a big part in the election.

[d_rawk]

I'm with Birdy and meggo so long as getting out of the agreement vis-a-vis our commitment and agreements is on the up and up. Quebec for its part no longer has separate Catholic / non-Catholic systems, as per the arrangement, but they replaced them with french / english school boards - which seems to honour the heart and intention of the arrangement.

It seems that there is a lot of wiggle room to change course, but I don't think that we get it for free without being absolute douche-bags about it.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

I'm finding this whole business really curious for a bunch of reasons.

As far as the focus on Jewish schools goes, my guess is that the simplest explanation comes from the fact that it had been a Jewish parent who'd brought the matter to the UN in 1999, and that was the case that became the main talking point. The UNHCR submission from that parent can be found here .

I'm more puzzled how it is that the election came on the heels of the scandal that broke at an evangelical Anglican private school (Grenville Christian Academy) involving all sorts of abuse, but nobody made anything of that (apparently only the Globe and Mail picked up on it). My best guess is that so many high-profile people were connected to the school (Ottawa Mayor Larry O'Brien, e.g.) that they managed to keep it under wraps. That I find pretty disturbing.

What appalled me about the last time this got in in Ontario, under the Harris government (as one of Jim Flaherty's tax measures, to keep it away from debate) was realising that "private schools" could consist of as few as five students; if that were the case, how in the hell could any government like Ontario's, already strapped for funds, ensure adequate supervision of these schools, if a collective nightmare could have unfolded at as high profile a place as Grenville Christian Academy?

The last thing that I keep wondering is why nobody talks about the Muslim schools. I mean, I don't have to wonder very far, and this discourages me, but still, I wonder.

All that said, I wouldn't mind having the funds to set up a school for children of Deadheads, but then, I think, I'd really rather have them out in the general population, doing what they need to do .

[bradm]

All that said, I wouldn't mind having the funds to set up a school for children of Deadheads, but then, I think, I'd really rather have them out in the general population, doing what they need to do .

There are schools now (public schools, IIRC) that require a certain number of hours of community service per year from their students, so you could work it in that way (along with studying in class).

Aloha,

Brad