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What is the real issue here?
In Mississauga, several teachers in a publicly-funded Catholic school gave their students the option of signing a petition that might lead to the criminalization of abortion in Canada. More here. The president of the Canadian Secular Alliance, a group that supports the abolition of public funding for Ontario Catholic schools, is using the teachers’ actions as more support for his organization’s mission.
While I agree that these Catholic teachers should not have used their position of power to influence their vulnerable students, I do not agree that this is evidence that public money should be withdrawn from Catholic schools.
After all, many - if not most - teachers are constantly using their positions of power to influence their vulnerable students. Sometimes, the influence is wielded in obviously inappropriate areas, for example during political campaigns or when it comes to religious questions. Not so obviously inappropriately, however, there are campaigns and brain-washing going on in schools all the time - against, for example, global warming, smoking, and bullying, and in favour of, for example, homosexuality, good nutrition, and recycling.
Some of these campaigns I agree with, some I don’t. And therein lies the rub. Because most likely, your set of approved campaigns is going to be different from mine. And who is to say which of us is right?
The only fair solution I can see is to mandate schools to teach, as far as humanly possible, only the academic skills and knowledge commonly agreed to be essential for success in our 21st-century world. Simply removing funding from publicly-funded Catholic schools is unlikely to make much of a difference one way or another.