Personally I think there should be one public school, with courses for any kind of religion you want to take. Publicly-funded Catholic schools should not be funded by public money. I know it's Constitutional, but the Constitution was written in the 1800s, where the population was divided into Roman Catholic French and Protestant British. But now Ontario is home to millions of people, with different religions and cultures.
Conservative government wants to extend funding to faith-based schools (facing opposition, and election days away, they promise a free vote). Muslim and Jewish schools are already running, but they are private schools, and parents are complaining that they are paying taxes to support public schools their children don't even attend. That's valid, and considering the amount of racism the Jewish community receives from ignorant people (most of whom have never even met a Jewish person), I understand why their parents would want to send them to an exclusive, Jewish school.
But funding schools of all faiths would only segregate the kids in our community by their religion. There is already some conflict between public and Catholic school kids. I went to a public school from Kindergarten to Grade 8, and there would usually be a fight or two between kids from public schools and Catholic schools. In grade 8, my school had our lunch hour rescheduled so that we wouldn't be going to Mcdonald's at the same time as the Catholic kids, to avoid fights.
As a multicultural society, we should be working on bring together different people with different beliefs, not creating separations in any way. Public schools are the choice of school for immigrant families, and they integrate all children who attend into Canadian society, bringing them into contact with children of other cultures and fostering unity and acceptance.
My kitteh is sleeping on my arm between the keyboard and me, so I'm cutting this short. =)
