The existence of Catholic schools in Canada can be traced to the year 1620, when the first school was founded Catholic Recollet Order in Quebec. The first school in Alberta was also a Catholic one, at Lac Ste.-Anne in 1842. As a general rule, all schools in Canada were operated under the auspices of one Christian body or another until the 19th century.
History In the early 19th century, there was a movement to take the responsibility for education away from individuals and make it more of a state function. Thus, governments allowed schools and school boards to collect taxes to fund schools. Previously, a combination of charitable contributions from the members of a particular religious body, supplemented with tuition fees paid by the parents of the students, had been the method of financing a school.
Nevertheless, an element of religious formation remained as this was considered a necessary part of educating the whole person.
As the Catholic minority played an integral part of founding and establishing the country of Canada, it was important to them that their rights to educate their children in Catholic schools be protected in the British North America Act 1867. In fact, when the Fathers of Confederation came from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Canada East, and Canada West to meet in Charlottetown and Quebec, they quickly concluded, in the words of one of the Fathers, Sir Charles Tupper, that "Without this guarantee for the rights of minorities being embodied in that new constitution, we should have been unable to obtain any Confederation whatever." As described by The Canadian Encyclopedia:
The "public" school system was that of the majority of taxpayers in an area. In most of the English-speaking parts of Ontario, this tended to amount to a form of "common-core Protestantism". This was accelerated under the 1846 School Act spearheaded by Egerton Ryerson. He believed it was part of the Government's mandate to be a social agency forming children in a uniform, common, Protestant culture, regardless of their individual family backgrounds. Although working in Ontario, his ideas were influential all across Canada.
In Ontario, Alberta, and in other provinces, if there were enough families of a particular faith that wished to do so, they could set up a separate school, supported by the specially-directed taxes of those families who elected to support the separate school over the public schools. In practice, this gave a mechanism for Catholics to continue having their own schools. Separate schools tended to be Catholic in the south of Ontario whereas in northern Ontario, where the majority of people were Catholic, Protestants were the ones to set up separate schools. Yet, Catholic schools form the single largest system in Canada offering education with a religious component.
In the 1990s there was a further movement in many provinces to dis-allow any religious instruction in schools financed by taxes. Currently five of the thirteen provinces and territories still allow faith-based school boards to be supported with tax money: Alberta, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Northwest Territories, and Yukon (to grade 9 only).Public Funding of Religious Schools in Ontario mired in controversy Newfoundland and Labrador voted to end the denominational school system, in a 1997 referendum, and a corresponding constitutional amendment.'We couldn't afford it': Brian Tobin on ending denominational education, 20 years later Quebec also passed a constitutional amendment in 1997 that abolished its Catholic and Protestant school system.
In 1999, the United Nations Human Rights Committee determined in Waldman v. Canada that Canada was in violation of article 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, because Ontario's Ministry of Education discriminates against non-Catholics by continuing to publicly fund separate Catholic schools, but not those of any other religious groups.
Quebec
Schools in Quebec were organized along confessional lines until amendments to the Education Act took effect on 1 July 1998. Thus, just as in Ontario, there existed parallel Catholic and Protestant school boards, financed by taxpayers who chose which schools to support, but ultimately controlled by the Provincial Government.
Until the changes of 1998, the law in Quebec required all religion teachers in Catholic schools to be practicing Catholics. Religion courses at the time, while dealing with Theology and Church history, were more pastoral in nature, especially in elementary schools. It was thus assumed that a non-believer could not properly instruct children by modeling for them an adult living their Catholic faith.
The changes of 1998 re-organized school boards along linguistic lines – English and French – and reduced their number, among other things. Catholic students no longer attend Mass. Before the changes of 1998, each Catholic and Protestant school board had an English and a French sector. The importance of either sector varied from region to region and board to board.
Ontario Catholic schools
Origins of Catholic schools in Ontario Canadian Catholic schools were established in Upper Canada (Ontario) before Confederation. This raised tensions between the Protestant majority and Catholic minority. They wanted a separate education from the Protestants that focused on their religion. Catholic schools were often based in Irish Catholicism. During the mid-1800s, Irish Catholics in Ontario had a strong distrust towards public education. In Ireland, the Protestant minority ruled over the Catholic majority, and there was a strong connection between the Protestant government and the control of religion. The Catholic church in Ireland felt condemned by the Protestant government, so in Canada, Irish Catholics had precedent to distrust an English-based government. Public school legislation made the Irish Catholics worried about losing Irish culture and heritage. Catholic schools were not thought of highly before Confederation, but in the British North America Act 1867, Catholic schools are recognized alongside public schools.
The British North American Act (BNA Act) was the piece of legislation signed during Canada's confederation. In 1863, Sir Richard W. Scott created the Separate Schools Act (also known as the Scott Act), which outlined the creation of a separate school system that would grant religious privileges to students - in this case, Catholic. The first paragraph of section 93 in the BNA Act stated that "nothing in any such law shall prejudicially affect any right or privilege with respect to denominational schools which any class of persons have by law in the Province at the union." This sanctioned Scott's Separate Schools Act in Canada's constitution.
As a part of the Scott Act, rural Catholic schools gained the same rights as those in urban areas. They also gained financial support from the central government. Canada's confederation complicated the national Catholic school situation. By 1867, the groundwork and foundation for Catholic schooling had been created, but after confederation, jurisdiction over education was given to the provincial governments. One of the complications was for the minorities in the different provinces. The French minority in Ontario and English minority in Quebec struggled greatly with the Catholic school question post-confederation. As part of section 93 of the British North America Act, denominational schools (like Catholic schools) had their foundation from pre-confederation preserved in legislation. This small part of section 93 became a strong argument when Provincial governments tried to infringe on their rights.
Catholic schools often grew out of parishes, and through the transitional period, most parishes in the Toronto area were connected to a Catholic school. Catholic and public schools had a similar curriculum, but Catholic schools were as much about maintaining a Catholic identity in a largely Protestant province as it was about a good education. Opposed to public schools, Catholic schools started with a religious education and used that as a baseline. Once students had a religious background, it became acceptable to teach them secular subjects, because they understood Catholicism.
Catholic schools were extremely underfunded in the late 1800s, because they relied on private funding rather than public. Ontario Catholic schools survived because of religious leaders who built the schools, created the curricula, and gave large donations. The business and corporate taxes Ontarians had to pay were not allocated to Catholic schools; however, in the 1880s Catholic businessmen were allowed to target their commercial taxes to Catholic schools. Ontario Catholic schools used the Separate Schools Act to justify public funding. The Separate Schools Act allows separate school boards to be created with relative ease in Ontario. Five families would have a meeting where they elect one member from three of the five families to be trustees of their new school board. The families then notify the leader of the local School Board and gain their signature. Lastly, the families send the signed document to the Department of Education in Toronto. The minister of Education did not need to be involved, and there were no mandatory minimums for class sizes, or proof of financial stability required.
Since 1855, Ontario Catholic schools have not paid public school taxes. Tax conflict and tension between separate school and public school supporters involves the "corporation tax" introduced in the 20th century. The corporation tax allows corporations to divide a portion of their public school tax to be given to the separate schools. This is one way Catholic schools have gained their financial aid.
In 1876, Egerton Ryerson instituted Catholic high schools, which added four years of additional schooling. Although the majority of Catholic students still joined labour forces after elementary, high school gave those who wanted it additional education for careers in business or theology. Public funding for Catholic schools happened after the mass migration at the beginning of the 20th century, when Catholic populations rose and the demand for better and more Catholic high schools increased.
This is when Ontario's government used section 93 against the Catholics. The government argued that because public funding for Catholic high schools was not a part of the foundation created pre-confederation and protected in the BNA Act, the government had no legislative obligation. Catholics argued that pre-confederated Canada did not have any high school education, and that curriculums taught in grades 9 and 10 were already taught in Catholic schools. There were some compromises. At the end of the 19th century, the provincial government included "Separate School Trustees" on high school boards. This gave Catholic students access to Catholic support in public high schools. Moving into the 20th century, this was still not enough. In 1925, Ontario Catholic bishops took the provincial government to court. In 1928, the case made it to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (the highest court in the British Empire) and they ruled in favour of the province.