Re: How stupid and dangerous is John Tory's faith-based school funding?
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Posted by Salim Mansur on 23:30:21 2007/10/06
In Reply to:
Re: How stupid and dangerous is John Tory's faith-based school funding? posted by Edmund James
Dear Edmund:
I am surprised by your letter and then in finding out the letter being not private as you got it posted on the CCD forum. So this response of mine is also not private, and I will post it also on the CCD forum even though I am mostly reluctant to engage in post-hoc debates over my public writings.
First, a general critique of what you write and then somewhat of a substantive answer to why John Tory and his party deserve a resounding defeat in this general election in Ontario.
Your letter is riddled with contradictions. It indicates to me that your position on matters pertaining to the October 10 election is poorly thought through, or worse that you have not examined your position carefully so that you might have worked out the wrinkles in how you weigh the different issues at hand the faith-based school funding and the referendum on the mixed proportional system and reconcile your respective stands on them.
You write, 'As a Political Science Professor, who I admire, why didn't you write about this "change of vote for the sake of change"? We Ontarians once were the spine of the country, but should special interest groups become involved then you might end up having the bloc voters of the Sikh Party (that wishes knives at school), Jihad Party or The Canadian-Muslim-Moderate-To-A-Point Party along with the Rocky-Mountain-Loco-Weed-Party.'
Now examine what you are saying here and contrast it with your stand on the faith-based school funding. You find it intolerable that mixed proportionate system will get a bunch of unelectable characters from special interest groups into Ontario's legislature with consequences that both you and I can imagine as being detrimental to the running of this province.
I am opposed to the "reforming" of our existing parliamentary system that has stood has well over time and works better when compared to any other system in the provision of accountable and responsible governments (both terms "accountable" and "responsible" being relative), and in preserving our freedoms and enhancing our prosperity. I did not write against the "reform" proposal because others (perhaps more able than I am as is Colby Cash and George Jonas) have written in disrobing Andrew Coyne and his friends on this matter. I also believe that this matter is not going to get the double-majority, and so the passage of the "reform" proposal being passed remains slim to nil.
The matter of opposing in print publicly Mr Tory's policy, as I have done, was far more important than wasting my ink on the "reform" proposal that others were weighing from varying perspectives. Moreover, I was in a position to state publicly what others were not going to touch upon for fear of being labeled bigots, i.e. write without any equivocation about the perils of Muslim faith-based schools receiving public funding and getting entrenched in our society to the detriment of everyone. This was not fear-mongering on my part as you suggest; instead it was placing the interests of my country in the broadest terms ahead of any partisan or sectarian loyalties in assessing factually and objectively what Mr Tory's policy amounts to for Ontario and Canada.
Faith-based school funding reproduces the similar problem with the most vulnerable segment of our population in the hands of those who would have no scruples to use their position in advancing an ideology detrimental to our province, our country, our national security, our public safety. A fragmented school system is what Tory's proposal would produce however it is sold for public consumption (i.e. bringing faith-based schools under one funding system and making them accountable to the provincially approved curriculum) that would over time entrench ethno-religious enclaves across the province (and the country as Ontario model would possibly be emulated).
Mr Tory is a lawyer, having served previous Progressive Conservative administrations in Ontario in varying capacity, and yet he seemed to have been oblivious to the history of the legal battle over this issue that brought down the Supreme Court of Canada ruling in 1996. How did Mr Tory assume that he could push forward with his proposal on a matter that had been so thoroughly litigated, and then expect Ontarians would simply accept his proposal on the basis of good faith? He set himself up for being hoisted on his own petard. It would have been entirely wrong on the part of any conscientious student of this issue to give Mr Tory a pass without questioning the fundamentals of his policy as I did.
If I had the public space available in the media (which I do not), I would have raked the ground on which Mr Tory stands on this matter and exposed the flaw in every single argument advanced by him and his supporters in support of the policy for faith-based school funding. Here was an instance where the principle foundation of the policy being flawed meant every supportive argument in its favour was also untenable.
For instance, the case made that all faith-based schools receiving public funds would have to teach the approved curriculum and their teaching and student results would be monitored. You also make this case. But the objective reality is contrary to the pious wishes of Mr Tory and his supporters. Anyone who is in classroom as a teacher knows that the teacher determines how subjects are taught, and the teacher works within an environment selectively constructed by the school authorities and parents. A faith-based school implies a certain environment in which teacher-student activity is conducted as is done in a public school system. The students are there to absorb that environment and grow in its culture. The environment is not mathematics or chemistry or geography; the environment is culture, of wearing a certain type of dress, of believing in a certain doctrine, of learning a certain constructed reality about the world beyond oneself, etc.
A proliferation of faith-based schools (once public funding is available such proliferation would be the expected result as given by the laws of economics where demand for them would grow since supply would be made available at public expense) will invariably affect our social environment that is largely secular, and affect it for the worse. But most importantly, my concern of what follows arises from the reality of the post-9/11 world.
You should know better, and surprisingly your partisanship has blinded you on this matter of what Islamism (radical Islamist ideology on a rampage worldwide) in our province would do as Islamists receive public legitimacy by receiving public money to spread their toxin. The fact that Wahhabi funds are readily available from Saudi sources to Islamists in our midst does not warrant providing the same people with our tax money. The two matters cannot be conflated except by partisans like yourself who have lost their perspectives and their logic. The external funds available to Islamists in Ontario needs to be closed, and this is much more of a federal (Ottawa) responsibility than it is provincial in jurisdictional terms, and we should all be putting pressures on Ottawa to take this matter seriously and find the means to stop Wahhabi funds sowing discord and peril in our society.
Finally, (I want to end this letter for it is already too long, not that I am exhausted of the arguments to be made to drive this ghoul of an idea Mr Tory picked up into its deserving grave) let me say this simply and unambiguously. Should any politician in North America seeking election remains dismissive, light-hearted, or ignorant willfully or otherwise, of the crushing reality of what 9/11 has meant for our generation and the world in which we live, he or she then deserves to be repudiated without much ado. Mr Tory has displayed no understanding of what the world of 9/11 demands of our elected officials, and therefore deserves to be repudiated as he most likely will be. The sad part is that his opposite numbers are deserving of the same repudiation. But we do not live in a world entirely of our choice and making; we play our hands with the cards dealt to us. Mr Tory pushed his policy on faith-based school funding that has the most immediate and proximate relationship with the wider concerns emanating from the reality of 9/11. Mr Tory seemed to be oblivious of the implications of his policy in the 9/11 world; on the contrary, in defending his policy he demonstrated the greatest degree of nonchalance about concerns relating to Islamists in our midst (I discount the NDP as a non-serious party in every sense and not worth spending my time in engaging with its politics or leadership since there is not a snow ball's chance for the NDP to form a government presently at the Queens Park or in Ottawa) and therefore I felt duty bound to contend with him on this matter.
Am I oblivious myself to the fact that defeat of Mr Tory means a second term to Mr "Fibber" McGuinty? Certainly not. What it means to me, and hopefully to many others, is that the defeat of Mr Tory on a policy of his choosing will send a message to others that such a policy, or pandering to ethnic votes as Mr Tory was doing (and not that the "Fibber" does not do), is the kiss-of-death with the public that has become much more aware of the implication of 9/11 for our world of liberal-democracy and secularism than our politicians are willing to show.
I trust our respect for each other will survive Mr Tory's debacle, and that we will continue to learn and grow together. With best wishes,
Salim
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