The Ben Mulroney Show - Is it time to end public funding for Catholic schools in Ontario?

Episode Date: January 27, 2025

Guests and Topics: -Is it time to end public funding for Catholic schools in Ontario? -Do you trust your kids on the TTC If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I forgot to press my little button there. But you know, it's good that I remember that every now and then I shouldn't do the talking. You should do the talking, our listeners, and we want to hear from you because this next talker is a doozy. There's an article in the Globe and Mail that everyone should have an opinion on. Mine is ever evolving, which is one of the great reasons to do this show. I get to talk to people and get some new information in my brain hole.

And the article is entitled, It's Time to End Public Funding for Catholic Schools in Ontario. We've got the, for example, in Toronto, we've got the Toronto District School Board, we've got its Catholic analog. And the author writes that having a vast separate system for Catholics makes no sense in 21st century Canada. We don't fund Jewish, Hindu or Muslim schools. Why Catholic ones? So that's the question I'm asking our listeners at 416-870-6400 or 1-888-225-TALK. Should we be

funding a completely separate Catholic school board? A level set with you? I'm Catholic, not a particularly good one. But my my kids are in the TDSB. And we were flirting with the idea of them going to the Catholic school in our neighborhood and ultimately decided that it was best that they go to the TDSB school just around the corner. And all three of them have been in the public system for years.

There's the good, there's the bad, there are the sacrifices and there are the benefits. So like like any experience. And there are things that I would change about the about the school board. And I have to assume that the problems that I have with the TDSB exist in the Catholic school board as well. Now, the author, Marcus G, sort of starts his article by pointing out the controversy in the Catholic school board with the pride flag. And that's sort of his starting point, saying, look, in 21st century Canada, we shouldn't be having this debate, so why is there an entire school board that wrestles

with something that should be a layup for everybody? Of course we should be flying the pride flag. I guess the counterpoint to that is I don't think you have to be Catholic to be somebody who is an outlier on that. And you've got issues of institutional neutrality. Like why should, if you're gonna fly the pride flag, there's a whole other, you're opening up a can of worms

to be flying any number of flags. And what point does that serve in the education of our kids? And I'm speaking intellectually here, I'm not taking a position. So don't at me. But let's see what you have to say. Robert, welcome to the show. Good morning. I've been saying for over 50 years, it makes no

sense to have two school systems in Ontario. I mean, Quebec got rid of their separate school. They have one unified school board. Did they not? I think they do. Yeah. And Newfoundland just did it. I mean, it's been, it just, we could close one in five schools across the province. We could build super high schools for trades. We could rationalize our cash,

our money and our school system. We could take the benefits of both systems and make a better unified system for all. How are we ever gonna get our kids to grow up to be Canadian and we keep telling them you gotta be Catholic, you gotta be Protestant or any other domination? Mix them all together.

Robert, thank you for that. I mean, I think a lot of people remember John Tory floated the idea. Well, if we're doing it for the Catholics, let's open up funding for all these different groups, all these different groups. And the knock on him was, you are going to be dividing people further into silos.

And if you believe that, if that is your argument, then a step towards a unified school board would be uniting. I would suggest that if we go down that road, if that is ever a possibility, then we gotta take this unified school board down to the studs because I think a lot of rational, fair-minded parents would say, if we're gonna close one down,

we might as well take advantage to fix the other one and make sure it's a far better version of itself than say the TDSB is, given the myriad issues we heard about this year with in relation to taking kids down to Hamas protests and the like. Welcome to the show. Do we have we've got Brad Brad, what do you say? Hey, Ben, good morning. I think this is a great topic because

the party's over. It has nothing to do with education. You want to be a practicing Catholic dude outside of education, but it should not be a public responsibility to support a defined religion in school. Done. Yeah, originally it was a concession, from what I understand from this article, it was a concession to the Catholic minority in a Protestant-dominated province. But, you know, just look at Toronto. I mean, when I moved here, it wasn't nearly sort of the multicultural paradise. I mean, that's not the right word,

but it wasn't nearly as multicultural as it is today. And these institutions should be a reflection of their communities. And I don't know that the binary choice of the public system, the Catholic system accurately represents the multicultural mosaic that is Ontario and specifically Toronto. Ian, what do you think? One school board, two school boards, three school boards? Um, I could, I could argue for the Catholic school board to stay if it was truly a Catholic school board. Religion is not taught. Teachers are not Catholic. Priests are not present.

Most of the students are not Catholic, and they are, they're not observant Catholics. It seems to be a Catholic school board or school only in name alone. In name only? And can I ask how you know that? I've had friends that went to Catholic schools when I grew up in the 70s, and it was very structured, very Catholic-oriented. Now their children go there, and the only thing that differentiates them from public school kids are usually a uniform. Yeah, yeah.

And that's about it. Well, thank you for your perspective. Yeah, thank you for your perspective. I really appreciate it. But the one thing I keep going back to is from our first caller, which I thought was really interesting, which is, yeah, if we had one unified school board, we could move the efficiencies that we could

find and the value for our tax dollars would be greater because we could you wouldn't have two different boards representing smaller communities following their own parallel priorities. And by and large, I mean, if your job is to educate kids, you gotta buy books, you've got to pay staff, you've got to upkeep buildings, you've got to buy new buildings, and you could do that at a lower cost if it was all coming from the same pot.

And so that to me is quite a compelling argument. But let's see, we got a lot of calls on this. So let's keep going. Steve, what do you think? Hey, Ben aware? I'm well, thanks. Yeah, I think I think they should get rid of it. I mean, like your previous call has said, he said it best, they don't teach religion anymore.

If they did teach religion, it would be one thing. Oh, look, I'm Greek Orthodox. Should I advocate for a Greek Orthodox school in the city? We send our kids to Greek school, you know, at nights or on the weekend. Yeah. I'm looking at it from a different point of view. Think about all the real estate you're going to open up. If you close the Catholic schools, wherever they are, you're putting at least 40, 50, maybe even 100 homes. You're opening up. Well, that's it. Those students have to go to school somewhere. wherever they are, you're putting at least 40, 50, maybe even 100 homes, you're opening up.

Well, that's, those students have to go to school somewhere, my guess would be if we ever did go down that road, some of those schools, most of those schools would just be converted. We're joined now by Andrew. Andrew, what are your thoughts on this? Good, good topic, Ben. As somebody who went through the entire, their entire school group in the Catholic school system. Yep. I think it's time for it to go. Um, just to clarify, I'm almost certain that the teachers have to be Catholic themselves, but the students do not. Um, and most of the people that I, as an instructor, most of them were either non-Praxian Catholics like myself or not Catholic at all.

Um, it just turned into a segregated public school. It feels almost like a like a quasi private school. And the like, to be perfectly honest with you, I think the values that they teach don't match the values that society now lives by. And when they when you were going for the mass or whatever, most of the students myself included, that was a chance to skip and go do something you actually wanted to do. It just seems like it was it was not taking that definitely

not taking seriously. And the only thing that makes you different than anyone else was the uniform. Yeah, yeah. Well, I thank you for your call and I'll remind everyone the number is 416-870-6400 or 1-888-225-TALK. So from what I understand, the amount spent in the Catholic school board versus the regular school boards per capita

is virtually identical. But if 74% of Ontario is non-Catholic and those numbers are similar, then by definition, there have to be non-Catholics in the Catholic school system. And if that's the case, you gotta ask yourself, what's the value of having a separate, standalone religious specific school board

if the litmus test to join isn't religion? Let's welcome to the show. Who do we have here? We've got Robert. Robert, welcome. Good morning. I think school choice is in the stats. If more Catholics are going to Catholic school, that's by choice. The parents believe there's a benefit to going to a Catholic school. I think school choice is important. Just like grocery stores, the more you have, the better it is for the consumer. Okay, so Robert, let me ask you a question, and that's a very good point. So I'll put it to you, though.

But if those are the only two choices, is it really a choice? I mean, if your choice is between a public school that you're not too keen on, or a Catholic school that you think will provide a better educational experience for your kid, but you don't happen to be Catholic, like are you really being given anything resembling a choice?

Well, two is better than one. And I think everybody should have the choice to educate the child the way they want. If the state is going to sponsor it. I think the john tory method, though not voted for was actually a great effort on his part. He was punished for it, but I believe in principle that the choice should be with the parents. And today we only have two publicly funded school boards. And I wish there were more. Well, listen to Robert, I take your point.

And it's a really interesting perspective. And I thank you. And he's right. John Tory was excoriated for wanting to create supposedly increasingly divided people by teaching everybody according to their religion, if they so chose. I think he was of that camp,

that if you want that, if you have, the more choice you have, the better the system could be. And some of the people who were attacking him a few years later got on board with schools specific to people from other cultural communities in the post George Floyd world in a in a world of reconciliation, we start started seeing, you know, schools specific to the experience of black Canadians and First Nations. And so some of the people who attacked him then

got on board with something that was very, very similar for completely different political reasons. Just saying, who do we have now? We've got Daniel, Daniel, welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. Morning, Ben. So not a lot of people may know this, but the Catholic school board in Ontario was originally funded by a lottery system was called when Terrio. And this was going back to the 70s. And then for some reason when Terrio ceased to exist, they no longer received funding from proceeds of lottery winnings. So what I'd like to suggest

is possibly creating the Pope triple gold windfall lottery ticket backed up by the Vatican church. And you know, let's get back into Catholicism and gambling because they go well together, don't they? Daniel, what did you call it again? The what? Oh, is he gone? Oh, too bad. I can't remember what the name was. But that was a heck of a name for a lottery. Yeah, I might buy a ticket. I might buy a ticket. But yeah, listen, it's again, it's it's

worth the intellectual exercise to have an honest conversation I might buy a ticket, I might buy a ticket. But yeah, listen, it's, again, it's worth the intellectual exercise to have an honest conversation about these sorts of things. Because I think we all want our tax dollars to go as far as possible, and we want our kids to have the best educational experience possible. Claudio, Claudio, welcome to the show. Hey, how you doing, Denny?

I'm well, thanks. Great, listen, I think some of your callers are missing the point. So, in the Catholic school system, between zero and eight, that's when the fundamentals of the religion are hot, right? And so you must be Catholic, one of your parents must be Catholic, and you go through the initial sacraments, right? Communion, confirmation between zero and grade eight. Then you establish that base. Now high school, they loosen it up. And you notice that, of course, that other different religions are allowed to come to high school, into a Catholic school. What I think is very

interesting is that you will see now a lot of Indian people that are not Catholic, and you'll see Muslim religions in the Catholic school. Why? Because they recognize that the schools actually have a better teaching message. It's just a better system than the public system and by destroying that you're doing what we're doing to Canada. Remember Canada was based on a Christian fundamentals right back in the day and we are systematically destroying that and have been for years and you know and we're going back to flying the flag and all that. Like we are systematically destroying that and have been for years. And you know, and we're going back to flying the flag and all that. Like we are degrading society, whereas

at least in the Catholic system, you know, you may, yes, for Catholics, but at least they're teaching Christianity, which this country was, you know, focused on early on in the days. And that's those are our ideals. Claudio, I got a few other calls I wanna take, but I absolutely take your point. I thank you for adding to the conversation. You know, listen, we are a Judeo-Christian nation. I mean, we were founded by people of those beliefs.

And I believe that if you lead a life of faith, you are probably going to be a far better person than somebody who doesn't. I mean, that's just what I believe it's generally speaking. But I don't know that you throw the baby out with the bathwater. I mean, if we did get rid of the Catholic school board, that doesn't mean we have to get rid of the teachers, they would find jobs in whatever new unified school board, there would be ways of incorporating the best parts of that system into a new system, you find best practices, and and you adapt, I don't know that it would be the end of how it's taught, it would just be a new way a new a new school board, not just a new school board, it would be a lot more than that. But who do we have? We've got Janice, Janice, welcome to the show.

Morning, Ben, great, great, great topic. Thank you. Listen, my grandkids were in the public school system. They're young, they're like kindergarten and now grade three. Because of COVID, obviously, you know, academia fell behind. The young one, they were both in the public school system, resulted in no catch up academically,

evacuating the classroom daily two and three times, hiding under your desk, night terrors, violence, open concept violence. And the principal said to me when I finally went over, we have to be inclusive. What's inclusive about letting the one child run the classroom and evacuating all the others who don't get their lunch because now their lunches are in the classroom and they're in the hallway or the library day after day, no academics. So going forward, we switched them to the small Catholic school. They interviewed us, the parents. We went over there. I'm shaking because this was such a traumatic event in our family.

I've got to get back. I've got to get to another call. But I want to ask you before I let you go, Janice, is the moral of the story here that you moved your child to the Catholic School Board? We brought them into the Catholic system. We were welcomed. They have a line up waiting list to get in. The difference in these children, neurotically,otically academically happy they've been taught of

course, they're teaching them right from wrong. Yeah, well, there's that yes, ethics and values. Well, thank you, Janice and and that I guess would be information worth having as well like what are the academic benchmarks that are getting hit in the Catholic school board that aren't in the public school system. We got time for one quick last call. Brandon, I want you to button this up for me. How's it going, man?

Well. Love the show. Thank you. So my, like, I went to a Catholic school, I was brought up Catholic, I follow the values. And like Claudio said, zero to eight, we learned the fundamentals of Catholicism. We learned our faith, we do our sacraments. And the school

itself is really good. And I like the Catholic school board because they do have a little bit pushback on the leftist ideology, right? We don't want to. Yeah. And you know, I think we got to leave it there, Brandon. But I think that's something worthy of discussion as well. I think a great many people would hope to have, you know, a little bit of that Catholic pushback in the TDSB. Because from what I've seen as a parent and what I've seen as somebody who covers these stories, there's a certain type of activism that's run amok in the public school system that I don't think the Catholics would put up with.

If we could take that and add it to a new unified school board, I think everybody would be happy, or at least a great many people would be happy. But hey, I want to thank everybody for their calls. I want to listen to you 416-870-6400 or 1-triple-8-225 talk. Before you call in, listen to a little bit of a conversation that Greg Brady had this morning with Dr. Eric Kam. He's a outspoken economist, but he's got thoughts on all sorts of issues, especially issues that affect the city of Toronto. Here's what he said about his recent experiences on the TTC. Kind of wanted to address something you were saying,

and I'm not trying to slam dunk on the TTC, but in 10 straight days of taking the TTC, there wasn't one of the 10, Greg Greg that I wasn't sitting on a subway car with somebody sound asleep, lying in their own bodily fluids or screaming at the top of their lungs or begging for money on the TTC. Not once. I know that some people, not once. And I know that some people listening are going to say, that's a mental health crisis. This has little to do with the TTC. And I'm not some people, not once, and I know that some people listening are going to say that's a mental health crisis. This has little to do with the TTC.

And I'm not saying that they can be completely held accountable, but what you're talking about in the larger picture of do people feel safe on the TTC? Can they rely on the TTC? I wanted to speak to this safeness factor and I looked around and I saw a lot of people either looking for a different car or getting off and waiting for a different subway. Yeah, that's a fair. I mean, my experiences on the TTC are slightly, well, not, are completely different.

I've never had an issue on the TTC, but it might be how I'm traveling, where I'm traveling, what time I'm traveling. But he goes on and I think this is the point that I wanna this is the point that I want to draw into the conversation because Greg asks a very personal question. Let's bring it home to let I have a college aged son, you have a college aged daughter, your daughter is not going to school in Toronto and neither is mine. They made their own choices.

But how would you feel about your daughter being on the subway 10-15 times a week on those same cars Going to school and back and sometimes at night I'm gonna get a little bit of pushback when I say this but it wouldn't happen Greg She would take an uber and I know that not everybody can do that I know but I can and after what I've seen there is no way she'd be taking the subway Later at night to go to or come home from class it is frankly right now not safe and so when something's not safe you and I know that's not something for our child. Yeah so that I want to hear from you 416-870-6400 or

one triple eight two two five talk are you in the same camp or do you have no choice but to let your kids use the subway system? It's a really, really important question. My sons do everything together. They are identical twins and they travel in like a mini wolf pack with their buddies and they've got each other's backs and they know how to use the TTC and they're always using it.

I trust them and I do not fear for them. But my daughter is, she's my princess. And I don't care if you say I'm reverting to traditional gender roles. She's tough and she's amazing and she's gonna be, she's a world beater and she's kind as hell. All the more reason that I'm gonna protect that girl and I'm not gonna make dumb mistakes

like putting her in harm's way. And if I get the sense that the TTC is dangerous, ain't no way she's traveling on the TTC. So let us know what you think, 416-870-6400 or 1-888-225-TALK. How do you feel about your kids riding the TTC, especially at night? And do you have a choice kids riding the TTC, especially at night? And do you have a choice to put them in an Uber or have them walk from place to place?

Some people have a very small 15 minute city that they live in. And so they don't ever have to get anywhere near. Maybe they cycle everywhere like Christie Freeland. You tell me 416-870-6400. Is this your only option? And if so, how do you feel about it? I've seen enough videos about what's going on on the TTC. I've heard stories like this. I have friends who comment about their struggles with public transit. And I heard a journalist years ago say

something that makes a lot of sense to me because I know there's a push to get people out of their cars and onto the TTC. But what seemed to be happening is rather than focus on making the TTC a more attractive option, they have been trying to make your car a less attractive option. And that doesn't drive people to the TTC. That just pisses people off that you are trying to choke them out of their car and forcing them into using a subpar service that they pay for through the nose. Let's welcome Nancy to the show. Nancy, what are your thoughts on the TTC? I agree with your guest.

I experienced the same thing. There's people screaming, people defecating, people sleeping on the subways, professional beggars harassing elderly people. It's just very, very unsafe. I don't have kids, but I would be very concerned if I was a parent or for anyone taking the TTC. I mean, there's lots of people that

have to take the TTC to work, to shift at a healthcare facility, anything, and I mean, everyone is scared, and I do think that if they would crack down on the non-fair payment, a lot of this would stop because I'm guessing a lot of the people that are causing the problems for whatever reason have not paid to get into the PTC.

That makes a good point. And thank you for your call. I think we've got time for another call. Let's say hi to Luke. Luke, welcome to the Ben Mulroney Show. Well, we have 5,600 police officers. Why don't we put like a couple of dots from a monument subway system every day, make them visible. And I mean, that's all you really need. Yeah, well, Luke, Luke, let me let's have a conversation on this, because I agree having a police presence, I think would would be helpful. But 5600 cops is not a lot. I think we we've got a dearth of them in the thousands. So it's's okay. So I'll hire another 400 police officers. I mean, in fact, we're, we actually

were down short. We're less than that now because police officers are leaving because we don't, it's not an attractive job anymore. Luke. Yeah. No, Luke, do their job, which I'm sure that a lot of police officers like to go down on the subway system and clean it up. Luke, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Have a lot of police officers like to go down in the subway system and clean it up. Luke, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Have a good day. Thank you to everyone for their calls. I hope Olivia Chow's office heard that. We need more cops. She has partial retrograde amnesia. She can't remember the last eight years. Tuesdays. What are the odds I get my memories back?

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