PAGI 4, WEDNIESDAY, SEIPTEMBEIR 25, 1985,WIIITBY FREE PRESS whitby >Publihed every Wednesday F- ~~~~by ÃM.H.M. Publishing CmuiyEio and Photography Inc. Phone 668-61 Il AEI OE i J > j e The Free Press Building. lg Editor 131 Brock Street North. Second Cass Mail Voice of the County Town Michael Ian Burgess, Publlsher-ManagLP.O. Box 206, Whitby, Ont. Regsiration No.5351 The only Whitby newspaper independently owned and operated by Whitby iresidents for Whitby residents. If Ct wants fulo public funding RC board must acSept universality "This ould smply Regsratheo oncept We note with a degree of sadness that the Durham Region Roman Catholic Separate School Board wants all the public money It can lay its hands on but wants to retain the right to discriminate In Its hiring and admission practises. In a brief to the Ontario Legislature committee examining Bill 30, the bill to grant full public fun- ding to the Catholic school system, the board says It should have the right to exclude non- Catholics from what it has refered to as "leader- ship" positions, i.e. principals. Furthermore, they want the right to interview, I'm beginning to think that experience is more of a curse than anything else. When I was a young repor- ter, there were solid blacks and dazzling whites and very little on what we in television call the grey scale. But the landscape is grey in varying shades everywhere 1look these days. Near the end of two weeks in South Africa recen- tly, I was asked by a young white liberal what I made of the place and Its problems. "The trouble with South Africa," I blurted, "is that it's full of people". What she wanted me to do, I suppose, was damn apartheid and damn the Voortrekkers, embrace the black leadership, have another drink and sing a chorus of "We shall overcome", with feeling. I could have managed ail of that 20 years ago, and did, when I was covering Eugene "Bull" Connor and his ex- cesses in Birmingham, Alabama. But I couldn't manage it In a Hout Bay living room near Capetown. The trouble wlth South Africa is that it's full of people: black people, of varlous tribal persuasions; white people divided Into at least three distinct groups; the Afrikaners, the English-speaklng natives, and the first generation refugees from Rhodesia, Angola and Mozambique; brown people, the Asians, mostly of Indian origin; and the so-called "coloured people", the racially mixed. I say so-called "coloured", because coloured is the official classification and a hateful designation to a man like Alan Boesak. It would not be fair to say that each and every one of these groups, or sub-groups, hates each other, but it would be a lot fairer than suggesting they ail get along famously. I won't soon forget an Indian cab driver in Durban, who delivered an unsolicited diatribe about the Zulus who burned and looted Indian stores and houses a few weeks ago. "They should have bombed hell out of those blacks," he said. And then he tur- ned on the white population. "You can be sure that if it was white stores and houses that had been bur- ned, they'd have bombed those damn Zulus into oblivion". There you have It. The Zulus don't like the Indians, because they are the store-owners, the landlords, the money lenders. The Indians don't like the Zulus because they think the Zulushate them. The Indians don't like the whites because they believe the whites don't see them as equals. It's a wonderful country, but it's full of people. and presumably reject, teachers who apply for positions on their board after being declared sur- plus in the public system because of the funding issue. The board's brief also states that only non- Catholic teachers who are "supportive of the Catholic mission of its schools" should be hired. However, they have no trouble hiring people to the "less sensitive" positions of secretary and custodian. What is even worse is that the board "strongly opposes the concept of universal access, if it means that the board must accept pupils from either system on a first-come, first-served basis, or totally open access without qualifications." We have said It before and we will say it again: If the separate school system is to receive full fun- ding from the Ontario taxpayer, then it must assume the responsibilities and obligations inherent with that funding. If they are going to take the public's money then they have to educate everyone's children and hire teachers regardless of their religious faith. After ail, if a Catholic family chooses to send their children to the public school system - they must be and are accepted without qualification, reservation or discrimination. The public system, being fully funded by ALL taxpayers, accepts ail children without paying heed to their religion, culture or ethnic origin. The public school system, therefore, works on the principle of universality. Any organization, whether it be a school system or not, that accepts public money must assume similar respon- sibilities. However, it would appear that the separate school system feels universality is a threat. "This would simply negate the whole concept and philosophy of a Catholic school and violate the intent of extending funding," their brief says. Well, that Is the price they should have to pay if they want universal, unrestricted access to the public treasury. The taxpayer should not have to fund any school system unless he or she has complete and unrestricted access to It. Since the basic issue here Is equity in funding of education, this newspaper would also like to suggest that If Catholics are to be allowed public money while maintaining Its special interests, this privilege should be extended to every school system in the province. Therefore, we belleve that the.taxpayer should be allowed the right to direct his property tax dollar and his income tax dollar for education purposes to whatever school system he or she desires. If, for example, a Whitby residènt has a daughter attending Trafalgar Castle School he or she should be allowed to direct those tax dollars to that school to help defray the cost of tuition. To us, that seems equitable. Neither the Catholic school system nor the provincial government can have it both ways. Equity In the funding of education must be exten- ded to ail residents of this province. If they have no desire to heed this basic prin- ciple, then there should be only one public funded education system In the province. Those who do not accept the public system should then have the right to seek out alternatives provided they pay for them out of their own pocket without recourse to the public treasury. No party has a mandate from the voters to force anything upon us, especially such a controversial issue. At the very least a referendum should be held.