Rabble Rants: Publicly Funded Catholic Schools (no thanks)
Publicly Funded Catholic Schools in Canada
Only three provinces still publicly fund Catholic Schools...why?
After yet another Catholic school board in Ontario refuses to fly the Pride flag, our hosts discuss the merits of fully dismantling the Catholic school system.
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Transcript
There is so much out there to get mad about. Social injustices, class warfare, continued
Speaker:colonization, the act of destruction of our planet by those focused on prophets and not
Speaker:people. We can find it overwhelming at times. The good news is there are equally as many,
Speaker:if not more, stories of people coming together and rising up against the forces at play. So
Speaker:the creators of Blueprints of Disruption have added a new weekly segment, Ravel Rants, where
Speaker:we will unpack the stories that have us most riled up, share calls to action, and most importantly,
Speaker:celebrate resistance. Another Catholic school board. has confirmed they won't be flying a
Speaker:Pride flag during the month of June. This time around it's the York Catholic School Board
Speaker:in Ontario and this isn't new to them either. Last year was quite contentious in their board
Speaker:meetings. Parents and allies and really hostile environments were surrounding a lot of these
Speaker:meetings where it seems like as we've talked about before the anti-LGBTQ movement. if we
Speaker:can call it that, is really mobilized around school boards right across Canada. And we're
Speaker:starting to really see the impact. But in this particular case, it's a mix of bigoted parental
Speaker:pressures. And then, of course, going into the Catholic school board system, which has a long
Speaker:history of banning pride flags. I have been wanting to just stop public funding for Catholic
Speaker:school. It's been on my... kind of side agenda, my B agenda, everything else just always seems
Speaker:so much more pressing. But you know, with the rise of anti LGBT organizing and rhetoric and
Speaker:policies now, I think the time is to really examine how these school systems feed into
Speaker:that. This is a funny one for me, right? I graduated high school in 2016. So really not all that
Speaker:long ago. and I was into York Catholic District School Board. I can't believe how much things
Speaker:have changed in such little time because I feel like when I was in high school, there was a
Speaker:lot of really good progress being made. Like when I was a bit younger, like when I was in
Speaker:elementary school, I remember there was quite a bit of homophobia, pretty common to hear
Speaker:different homophobic slang being thrown around and... And by the time I got into high school,
Speaker:that kind of really started to disappear. And I'd say my high school was a place where there
Speaker:was very little homophobia, both from teachers and from students. And, and friends of mine
Speaker:actually started what was called the identity squad, which was a club that met on Mondays
Speaker:where people could, you know, talk about their experiences. It was a safe space for people
Speaker:of all different identities. And We had a pride flag in there. It was in the drama room. The
Speaker:drama teacher was the faculty that hosted it. And that was completely okay at the time. There
Speaker:was no one who tried to shut it down. It was just kind of accepted for what it was, right?
Speaker:The pride flag, that wasn't a taboo thing. It was normal. There was many, many students who
Speaker:were out and it was normal. There was nothing strange about it. There was nothing taboo at
Speaker:all. That doesn't seem to be the case anymore, right? No, I mean, if you've seen footage of
Speaker:some of the meetings that have happened around the school board decisions. So like, yeah,
Speaker:the York Catholic School Board is not the first even in Ontario, Peterborough, Northumberland
Speaker:and Halton region, which are two very large school boards. They made these decisions a
Speaker:couple of years ago. And you know, the move that's before York. is also unique in that
Speaker:it's not just the exterior, but it would become against school policy or school board policy
Speaker:to even have it inside. So even in that affirming safe space created, it would have to be void
Speaker:of any flags other than Canada, Ontario, I guess York region has a flag apparently, the Vatican
Speaker:and a school flag. It's so funny that they allow these flags without question as though they're
Speaker:not each problematic in themselves, except maybe the school flag. I haven't seen, you know.
Speaker:I'm sure there's some that we could criticize. But generally the nationalism and the Vatican
Speaker:flag in itself have such rooted history and oppression and controversy, but that's not
Speaker:what they're targeting at all. Those are green flags, those are good to go, but obviously
Speaker:the pride flag and there's another one that schools typically fly that we can guess why
Speaker:the Catholic school system would not want to fly and that is the Every Child Matters.
Speaker:the guys of it's trying to bring consensus, you know, we're not going to fight over flags
Speaker:because we're only going to fly the uncontroversial flags. It's so political in itself, right?
Speaker:We talked about that for almost like the absence of bias, the pretending that there's no bias
Speaker:in something is so evidently biased. Does that make sense? Yeah. I can understand why Catholic
Speaker:school boards don't want to do this, but the fact that they have any leeway, and there's
Speaker:some stories around Catholic- publicly funded hospitals as well that get to kind of pick
Speaker:and choose whether or not they're going to follow the human rights code of the province. And
Speaker:in general, it's this religious exceptionalism that we allow to leak in. I mean, I guess as
Speaker:we talk about this, you'll probably find I'm definitely not happy with organized religion.
Speaker:I feel like religion is another one of those things that divide the working class into segments
Speaker:and a lot of them have, you know, a level of superiority. built into them, like their God
Speaker:is the right God, and so you're on the right side, therefore everyone else is on the wrong
Speaker:side. And it's generally very polarizing when you look at it from a global perspective. And
Speaker:I don't think I need to remind anybody of the complications that arise or the ability to
Speaker:veil issues. Like right now, a lot of people are looking at the issue in Gaza, the siege
Speaker:on Gaza, as rooted in religion. and we're looking to religion to explain its history and to justify
Speaker:things and to call certain things off limits. And I generally just have a beef with religion
Speaker:and the level of toleration that will allow because you look at these Catholic school systems,
Speaker:I know that they are open to non-Catholics as students. You know, in Ontario, that is like
Speaker:a third of the students are in Catholic schools. That surprised me. But then when I thought
Speaker:about it, I actually, the closest schools to me are Catholic. And my kid actually has to
Speaker:take a bus past the Catholic school to get to his school, even though they're both publicly
Speaker:funded. Yeah. But you know, as teachers in Ontario for the Catholic school system, they need a
Speaker:letter from a priest. And that is literally the only job in Ontario that allows you to
Speaker:discriminate based on religious affiliation. Like, I don't know, maybe you can get it. Maybe
Speaker:I could convince a priest to write me a letter. I don't know what the letter has to say, but
Speaker:generally like that. There's exceptions made there and I just don't understand. It's funny
Speaker:though. It's funny because, um, most of the faculty are not Catholic. Most of the students
Speaker:are not Catholic. Yeah. I'd say it was very rare for someone to legitimately be Catholic
Speaker:or for it to be important to them, uh, other students who were there. In fact, you know,
Speaker:there's a lot, there's, there's a pretty, uh, common joke for people who went through that
Speaker:system, which is that Catholic school made me an atheist. You know, ironically, I was probably
Speaker:the most Catholic one out of my friends at the time I was at least. And yeah, it was more
Speaker:common for there to be Catholic schools and non-Catholic schools. And from my school, for
Speaker:example, we had people who came from all over. You know, my school was in the south of Aurora,
Speaker:but we had people from North York, Richmond Hill, Vaughan, Markham, Newmarket. And that's
Speaker:what makes this a little bit ridiculous, because to an extent, I would understand. I wouldn't.
Speaker:I wouldn't. accept it but I would understand if you know this was a really religious institution
Speaker:but it wasn't you know most people skipped the masses that there were and we did all kinds
Speaker:of things while we were there to kind of I guess rebel against that institution in general.
Speaker:My parents sent me to catholic school because they thought it was better or whatever. or
Speaker:you know people hear bad things about the public school system and they assume it doesn't apply
Speaker:to the catholic school system and It's just not the case and we also had to wear those
Speaker:god-awful uniforms and people did everything in their power to rebel against those and I
Speaker:think the uniform is actually quite a symbolic thing to What like it really represents what
Speaker:catholic school represents which is like that level of authority authoritarianism, right?
Speaker:That limiting self-expression, individuality, and people in a very important stage of their
Speaker:life to be expressing individuality, right? It's supposed to be, don't do that. But of
Speaker:course, when you tell teenagers not to do something, it's oftentimes that that's the thing they
Speaker:most want to do. Another one of the things that Catholic schools, specifically in Ontario,
Speaker:have the right to make exceptions to is the sexual education curriculum. And in Ontario,
Speaker:folks will know that... Premier Four did everything possible to really simplify and make as many
Speaker:erasures as possible to references to the LGBTQ community, delaying those conversations with
Speaker:kids. In the end, there was some pullback and they settled on a curriculum. But you know
Speaker:what? Either way, the Catholic school gets to decide what they will, they've always had a
Speaker:different curriculum. And it's all based on this. faith-based exceptions. And when you
Speaker:think about a third of kids in the public school system in Ontario, so we're talking about 600,000
Speaker:students are taking a sex ed curriculum that's funded by public dollars that is determined
Speaker:by bishops and not based on what is best for those kids, upholding a certain set of values.
Speaker:And that's what banning the flag is about. Can you imagine the message that sends to those
Speaker:public school system kids when they know none of this is about unity? It's about not letting
Speaker:them fly that pride flag, about erasing them and forcing them back into the closet. You
Speaker:pair this with the anti-trans policies coming out of the Ministry of Education. And all of
Speaker:a sudden, these Catholic schools are not safe places for... queer kids at all and the fact
Speaker:that we fund them. You know, I'm trying to build an argument around defunding the Catholic school
Speaker:system or really just dismantling it, right? And just having a public school system. And
Speaker:I stumble across a pamphlet that the Catholic School Trustees Association put together and
Speaker:it's almost designed specifically to refute common arguments. And I will link it so you
Speaker:folks can know that I'm probably being generous. The arguments that they put back are so antiquated
Speaker:and weak. It's basically like because we've always had it and it would be really disappointing
Speaker:to the Catholic school students and the Catholic community. And historically we had to protect
Speaker:Catholics because they were minorities and they don't really have any argument for it at all
Speaker:because they can't say it's to maintain Catholic identity. I mean, they can try to say that.
Speaker:But from your description and from what we know, there isn't a whole lot of indoctrinating going
Speaker:on. And that really isn't an excuse for public dollars. No. Surely we can agree that my tax
Speaker:dollars shouldn't go to maintaining someone else's religious identity. Especially, I don't
Speaker:feel like that really contributes to the social fabric in a positive way overall. No. And it's
Speaker:something that, you know, when we look at what's the actual underground difference between Catholic
Speaker:school and the public school, right? What would really change if you just turned them into
Speaker:public schools? You could save $1.5 billion every year in Ontario. Yeah, I mean, for one,
Speaker:public schools already have, you know, religious freedom and like Catholic schools have students
Speaker:from all different backgrounds, like I said, right? Like it's not just that many of them
Speaker:were not religious. You had plenty of students who were religious, just not Catholic. And
Speaker:so for them, being in those schools where you're forced to follow the certain Catholic things,
Speaker:it's not fair to them, right? It's not that they made the decision to be in these schools
Speaker:in the first place, right? It's decisions that parents made for them. And it's such a, oh
Speaker:God, I'm remembering things as we're talking about this now. Like I remember grade 12 religion
Speaker:class, because we had to take religion every year, right? I got into a big fight with my
Speaker:religion teacher because they were talking about the morality, it wasn't a religion class, it
Speaker:was a ethics and morality class where we studied different moral theories, but it was done applying
Speaker:Catholic religious lens to it. And I remember the topic of sex work came up and I was obviously
Speaker:defending it and one of the students was saying all of these things about how it was wrong,
Speaker:it was ethically wrong and uh, and The teacher said something along the lines of how, oh,
Speaker:it's so nice to see a guy standing up for women's rights to that other student. And I was like,
Speaker:oh my goodness. I was like, are you fucking kidding me? Clearly haven't, like I got into
Speaker:it with them and I boycotted the class after that. I walked in on the last day of the semester
Speaker:with a stack of all of the assignments. Like I had like a stack of papers, handed them in,
Speaker:passed the class, and I never went back after that because I was not having it. See, that's
Speaker:troubling though. If you hadn't said anything, this would have been a conversation largely
Speaker:gone unchecked, the demonized sex workers, which in turn actually is misogyny. And there's a
Speaker:lot of kids in this system. Yeah. And the thing is, many of them told me privately that they
Speaker:agreed with me, but they were afraid to kind of voice that in that environment. They didn't
Speaker:feel safe and comfortable disagreeing with the teacher's stance on this. You know, because
Speaker:it's one of those things that when you bring it up, it's immediately thrown out by a lot
Speaker:of people who might even agree with you in principle, but they go to ye olde, you'd have to reopen
Speaker:the constitution, right? And so, yes. Back in 1867, the British North America Act did enshrine
Speaker:that the education rights that were held by minorities, I'm going to make sure I get into
Speaker:this minority word after I'm done, that the minorities at the time of confederation would
Speaker:be constitutionally protected. No other minorities. This is important. This is an important point.
Speaker:Not to necessarily talk about the political possibilities of reopening the Constitution.
Speaker:I mean, here in Ontario right now, Ford would not even entertain this idea. His Minister
Speaker:of Education spent all his time either in a Catholic school or a private school. So that
Speaker:issue isn't moving in this province anytime soon. And often it's not a very politically
Speaker:popular one either. John Tory pretty much almost sunk his hole in... political career suggesting
Speaker:in the 2007 provincial election that we should perhaps not fund Catholic schools publicly.
Speaker:And like you hate to agree with them, but that didn't turn out very well. But let's talk about
Speaker:minority. I know if you're talking about math and statistics, technically the minority is
Speaker:the fewer number. But when you're talking about socio-economic issues... Minority is a power-based
Speaker:concept. So there's no fucking way Catholics can get away with calling themselves a minority
Speaker:back at the time of confederation. Most of the, uh, quote-unquote, founding fathers were Catholic.
Speaker:And that's why it had to be written in. If you get your shit written into the Constitution,
Speaker:you're- pretty much guaranteed not to be a minority. If you hold so much sway over the negotiations
Speaker:that the country, the formation of the country just wouldn't be possible without your agreeing,
Speaker:you aren't a minority. You are the powerful. You are the majority. And they tried this shit
Speaker:with the Senate. The Senate was created to secure minority rights. When they said that, they
Speaker:meant the rich, just because there's fewer in number of them. And so it's framed as though
Speaker:it's like a necessity, a protector of minorities. And it's not, it's a secure of power. And we
Speaker:know this because the Catholic Church is so full of shit to begin with. Those folks still
Speaker:haven't paid reparations that they were supposed to pay in terms of the residential school.
Speaker:They still have records they refuse to release. This is a garbage institution that shouldn't
Speaker:be associated with our public school system, if I'm going to be frank. But- The fact that
Speaker:this relationship continues is because they design themselves to be too big to fail. You
Speaker:know, other provinces got rid of them. Quebec, even Quebec, Quebec was notoriously the most
Speaker:Catholic area of Upper and Lower Canada. Okay. Like, and even they got rid of it back in 1997,
Speaker:although it's to make sure they focused on like French language as opposed to wasting time
Speaker:on religion. That might have its own issues that we could talk about later. But you know,
Speaker:Newfoundland, they asked the people in a referendum. The answer was, we don't want to fund that
Speaker:anymore. We're going to do one school system. So it's not unheard of, but on a material,
Speaker:once they secured equal funding. So they were funded at a less rate, which went through the
Speaker:courts or whatever. They secured equal funding back in the eighties and then opened it up
Speaker:to more people, even though that kind of goes against the idea of maintaining a Catholic
Speaker:identity. And they kind of balance that. And you wonder why. And I. I think it's largely
Speaker:to do with the part that it would then become something like what it is now. A third of students
Speaker:in Ontario are in these systems. They have their own separate school boards. And so another
Speaker:one of the main arguments that's used to not do this is that at the onset, like any kind
Speaker:of amalgamation, there's cost, right? Rebranding, shuffling, whatever needs to happen. People
Speaker:are like, oh, it's going to cost money at first, but it will save money in the long run, but
Speaker:it's a principal thing. It's like we're maintaining two different school boards that are just another
Speaker:mechanism to divide the working class. And we shouldn't be paying for that. I don't even
Speaker:think private schools should exist. Oh, God, no, the private schools are such a... Like,
Speaker:there was one close by to my school. And I remember when I went there. It's ridiculous. The resources
Speaker:that they had that we didn't have. was almost offensive. I remember we borrowed their theater
Speaker:to do a con at one point and it was just, it felt like such a slap in the face. Like why
Speaker:is it that this group of people over here gets such an advantage over us? But anyways, there's
Speaker:a certain irony which is that I'm pretty sure that Catholics are probably a minority within
Speaker:the Catholic school system. Like I don't think that they make up a majority of uh... of either
Speaker:the student or the faculty. One of the things that you really notice is that, because in
Speaker:the suburbs, demographics are a little bit different. It was, there wasn't a lot of students of color
Speaker:in my high school. And you go to the public schools and there were a lot more students
Speaker:of color, right? So there's also like a certain segregation that happens because of that. And
Speaker:I don't think that's the benefit of anybody to isolate people. There was almost no Asian
Speaker:students, for example, in my high school, but my neighborhood had a very large Asian population.
Speaker:What kind of division does that create even within the communities? I don't think that
Speaker:that's a good thing. Absolutely not. And whenever you put a religious symbol atop of a public
Speaker:institution, you immediately are going to make a segment of the population feel unwelcome.
Speaker:That's just natural because it's almost like you're showing preference to one particular
Speaker:religion and in public institutions that simply just can't exist. I had somebody ask me if
Speaker:only Jewish patients could go to Mount Sinai. What does it mean it's a Jewish hospital? I
Speaker:didn't know that. Olivia Chow said her family was there. How is that possible they're not
Speaker:Jewish? And so it set this misconception up. that it's actually a segregated system, but
Speaker:it's a public hospital. And one thing that does create here, because we started talking about
Speaker:transphobia, homophobia. Those were not primarily my experience in these schools, but what was
Speaker:my experience? Islamophobia, anti-Asian racism, anti-black racism, communities that were not
Speaker:represented within these institutions. Because there was plenty of people who were not religious,
Speaker:but we didn't have a lot of Muslim students. We didn't have a lot of black students. They
Speaker:might not be there, but they're in an environment where Catholicism is set as the ideal. Yeah.
Speaker:But so what I'm saying is that just being in these schools, being like in that environment,
Speaker:created an environment where that kind of racism thrived. Yeah, I bet. That alone. Yeah. And
Speaker:it's obvious why that would happen. When you look at... the damage versus the pen, there's
Speaker:just no argument in favor of this. You know, this is, and we look at like the history of
Speaker:residential schools. We haven't even mentioned that as much, right? And the forced Catholic
Speaker:education within residential schools, right? We can see the history here. You think that's
Speaker:gonna be taught in a Catholic school? You think they were teaching about those things in a
Speaker:Catholic school? No, they didn't teach any dark. aspects of Catholic history at all. I went
Speaker:through, like I said, I took every history class possible and they're burying those sins as
Speaker:deep as they can. Not just that, but it's naive to assume that they have drastically changed
Speaker:the model in which they run schools. I know they might not have graveyards in the back
Speaker:of their Catholic schools, but just the ideology that comes from the Catholic institution that
Speaker:attempts to indoctrinate people. It intends to teach people that Catholicism is the one
Speaker:and only way. And that is very similar to a lot of religions, but that was always the purpose
Speaker:of Catholic schools and especially the residential schools. It was to mold those indigenous children
Speaker:into what they considered the ideal. And I imagine that although they've moved beyond the more
Speaker:atrocious ways of doing that, the idea is still there. The idea is still that there is a set
Speaker:of values determined by one set of religion. And we've really just, we think we've rejected
Speaker:that. I mean, we can point to a lot of examples where Canada still has really kind of Christian
Speaker:rooted policy decisions and has to deal with that. But generally, if you ask people, we
Speaker:believe in the separation of church and state. And the fact that this has been able to maintain
Speaker:itself in so many provinces to me is a little unusual, but I think indicative of the power
Speaker:that Catholics hold in politics, because there's just there's really not a whole lot of rationale
Speaker:behind them. You talked about homophobia and Islamophobia. One of the troubling aspects
Speaker:that I've witnessed kind of anecdotally of the Catholic school system is I have a young relative.
Speaker:And at some point in a conversation, the pride flag came up and we were talking about it.
Speaker:We were describing it and I could tell she was very puzzled by the conversation. So I asked
Speaker:her, I believe she was 10, 11. Do you know what this is? And she had no idea. She had no idea.
Speaker:And so for me, that was really upsetting. I know that sounds really young, but in today's
Speaker:world, surely 11. was too old in my mind for her to have never really been experienced to
Speaker:pride. Not just the flag. What it does is it asks questions because the reason... Well,
Speaker:I've had this conversation with my kids many times, but it becomes a conversation in June.
Speaker:When the flag is on the pole, it may seem so trivial, but when that flag is on the pole,
Speaker:kids ask their parents. So maybe it's not in their curriculum. Maybe it's not being taught
Speaker:well enough in school tolerance and different... folks' identities and all of that. But if it's
Speaker:never, if it's always hidden away, then that conversation is surely much less likely to
Speaker:happen. And then the tolerance level of straight students is also impacted, right? It's not
Speaker:just alienating LGBTQ youth and anybody else who feels like their flag won't be flown because
Speaker:of bigotry, but it's the students that need exposure the most too, right? The ones that
Speaker:are possibly causing the bullying. because they've not properly had these conversations at home.
Speaker:And there's no way to kind of undo that if you're always going to allow religions to make exceptions
Speaker:in those environments. Yeah, I think it's about time we reopen this conversation, although
Speaker:it's hard to prioritize it amongst all of the other things that are happening. But I don't
Speaker:think LGBTQ parents and queer students perhaps would agree, right? It probably feels quite
Speaker:pressing. in these times that they not roll back all the work that's been done. Because
Speaker:that's how it feels, right? It's like we got to a certain, we talked about this before,
Speaker:like we got to a certain point where I felt like queer rights were a given, you know, and
Speaker:that's maybe naive of me, but it felt like it got to a point where, you know, a lot of derogatory
Speaker:terms, like people know not to use them and that there's an acceptance level and it seems
Speaker:like it's just rolling back. So to me, that's scary. Yeah. in a really short period of time
Speaker:too. Like it felt like a lot of good progress was made and then we've gone so far back. And
Speaker:I really feel for the students who are having to go through that right now, right? Because
Speaker:I've said it before, but I think one of the most vulnerable groups of people is high school
Speaker:students. Like when people are in that age range, right? Because you lack a lot of autonomy,
Speaker:but you're like the... the amount of autonomy you have versus the amount of autonomy that
Speaker:you should have for someone of that cognitive ability of, you know, like of development.
Speaker:You're making all of these decisions about your life, you know, what you're going to do is
Speaker:like a really fundamental period in your life and yet other people have such control over
Speaker:you, whether it's your parents, whether or not it's your educational institute and the ability
Speaker:to escape from harmful environments. It's quite difficult, lack of financial means to do so,
Speaker:lack of, well, just the damage that it can do to your future. I think it's really important
Speaker:to do everything we can to help protect people who are in those situations. And, you know,
Speaker:I think there was no exception. Like the amount of people I knew, the amount of friends I had,
Speaker:or just stories I had heard of people who were living through extremely abusive situations
Speaker:at that age, you know, seeing them now. eight years removed, many of them still processing
Speaker:that trauma, still dealing with the consequences of what they were forced to live through. It
Speaker:seems like, oh, you know, flag this or not in these, you know, just graduate and then you
Speaker:can do whatever you want. It's not like that. You know, these are formative years. You carry
Speaker:that shit with you. It's important to do everything possible to make it easier for them. It's important
Speaker:to note here that Suicide takes a lot of LGBTQ youth from us. And the people making these
Speaker:decisions, they know that. And so to think that they wouldn't do everything within their possibility
Speaker:to help the youth who demographically speaking and statistically speaking are likely in the
Speaker:same percentage as public schools, as public English schools, what do we call them? Secular
Speaker:schools. because they're all public schools. But it doesn't make sense to me too that people
Speaker:go into these trustees positions, these school trustee positions and don't have students'
Speaker:best interests in mind. Because surely it's not harming one straight student to put that
Speaker:flag up. We know that it doesn't. Their main concern is a faith-based model of decision-making
Speaker:or protecting the Catholic school system or appeasing. really angry parents that have no
Speaker:vested interest in that flag going up or down in reality. And that's a real danger that's
Speaker:kind of repeating itself. We interviewed on our episode, Community Defenses, a group that
Speaker:does a lot of work, but much of it is focused on countering all of this mobilization around
Speaker:the school systems. And so organizing around these trustee positions in the school board.
Speaker:is perhaps a mechanism of disruption that folks can attempt to weigh in on this subject. Yeah,
Speaker:I briefly mentioned it before, but again, like we do this with hospitals, right? There's hospitals
Speaker:out there that are gonna refuse to do MADE. They're refusing to perform abortions. They're
Speaker:forcing patients that are often terminally ill in the last days, hours to... go down an elevator,
Speaker:go down the street and go into a different facility or worse, go across the city to try to get
Speaker:it or across the province. And they're able to do that not based on the Hippocratic oath
Speaker:or the other values rooted in the medical system, well, the ones that they're supposed to have.
Speaker:And BC now is going as far as building separate facilities near Catholic hospitals that are
Speaker:publicly funded. because they're refusing to perform procedures, refusing to do the assisted
Speaker:deaths in the province. And I think at this point in time, when you've got governments
Speaker:pretending to like be penny pinchers and trying to implement the most efficient healthcare,
Speaker:all of this, you know, falls under that, right? There's really, the only excuse would be to
Speaker:maintain some sort of supremacy here that only one religion gets a school system. that no
Speaker:one's willing to do anything about. If you were to reverse, if you were to switch out the names
Speaker:here for a second and imagine that there was a Muslim school system that was as funded and
Speaker:as prominent and widespread as a Catholic school system, I think we all know what would happen.
Speaker:There's no way it would still be funded. You know, my argument isn't here that we should
Speaker:fund, we should segregate people and fund a bunch of different specific school systems.
Speaker:No, my argument is especially when we're talking about people who are still figuring out what
Speaker:they believe, what you know, what they value out of life uh independent from whatever their
Speaker:parents raised them to be because you know times change people have the right to make their
Speaker:own decisions. We shouldn't be have, we shouldn't be forcing people into religious schools at
Speaker:all. It should all be public schools freedom of religion and let kids figure out what they
Speaker:value and what's important to them. Don't try and segregate people off and hope that they
Speaker:end up believing whatever their parents believed, right? Life doesn't work that way. No way,
Speaker:we need kids thinking like they're one, right? Like that global singular identity is the ideal
Speaker:for me. So anything that detracts from that is a detriment to that. that global revolution.
Speaker:Okay, well, you know what? I want a socialist school system then. Let's just... That is your
Speaker:public school system, right? One system, no private schools, because then you got your
Speaker:leches out there that go to St. Mike's. They get better protected during COVID. They get
Speaker:a better education, and their parents and their families don't give a shit about a well-funded
Speaker:public school system. So once you have a wealth under public school system, obviously, then
Speaker:you have to seize power. And then any changes you make to that school system to better the
Speaker:social fabric, to better the experience of kids, you don't have to do it 10 times over and then
Speaker:just have someone put down their UNO card and be like, guess what? We're religious, we don't
Speaker:have to do it. Well, let's just take this to the extremes, I say. Let's have... a hundred
Speaker:different school systems with different identities and see where we all end up after that. I'm
Speaker:sure we'll have a healthier society out of it, right? I'm sure it'll be great. I look forward
Speaker:to the... I mean, we can't even have just a socialist school system, though we've got to
Speaker:have different schools of thoughts, right? You'll have your Marxist You know, let's separate
Speaker:it out, see where we end up. We'll all be better for it, right? Let's, anyone who doesn't think
Speaker:like us should be somewhere else, right? Well, you can be my minister of education. Oh God.
Speaker:That is a wrap on another episode of Blueprints of Disruption. Thank you for joining us. Also,
Speaker:a very big thank you to the producer of our show, Santiago Helu-Quintero. Blueprints of
Speaker:Disruption is an independent production operated cooperatively. You can follow us on Twitter
Speaker:at BPofDisruption. If you'd like to help us continue disrupting the status quo, please
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Speaker:let us know what or who we should be amplifying. So until next time, keep disrupting.
