Three years ago this month, Ontario Conservative leader John Tory pledged to extend public funding to all denominational schools across the province of Ontario. At the time, Tory was preparing to lead his party into a fall election campaign against the Ontario Liberal Party, led by then-Premier, and still-Premier, Dalton McGuinty.
For Tory, the larger issue was fairness. Insofar as Catholic denominational schools receive public funding to the exclusion of other denominational schools in Ontario, it made sense to Tory as a matter of equality, as it did to some others, that if one religion enjoyed the privilege of public funding, then so should all other religions.
We know how the story ends. The controversial denominational schools issue felled Tory’s campaign from the very beginning. McGuinty was reelected. And Tory ultimately resigned, ceding the party flag to the current Ontario Conservative leader, Tim Hudak.
The bottom line is this: Ontarians voted against Tory on this issue. And no one can gainsay the freely expressed choice of Ontarians. They, and only they, can choose their representatives in the Ontario legislature.
So according to Ontarians, the answer is clear: John Tory was wrong.
But according to the United Nations, John Tory was right.
In the case of Waldman v. Canada, the United Nations Human Rights Committee ruled that Ontario’s policy of extending public funding to one denominational school without funding all others is a violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantees the right to “equal and effective protection against discrimination.” Here is the relevant passage from the full text of the ruling:
[T]he proclaimed aims of the system do not justify the exclusive funding of Roman Catholic religious schools. … In this context, the Committee observes that the Covenant does not oblige [Ontario] to fund schools which are established on a religious basis. However, if [Ontario] chooses to provide public funding to religious schools, it should make this funding available without discrimination. This means that providing funding for the schools of one religious group and not for another must be based on reasonable and objective criteria. In the instant case, the Committee concludes that the material before it does not show that the differential treatment between the Roman Catholic faith and the [Petitioner’s] religious denomination is based on such criteria. Consequently, there has been a violation of the [Petitioner’s] rights under article 26 of the Covenant to equal and effective protection against discrimination.
Perhaps John Tory can take solace in the knowledge that the United Nations thinks he was right after all.
