Mr. Speaker, even though I have 20 minutes available, I think probably I will use less. I just appreciate not having the stricture of having to quit at 10 minutes after instead of 12 after in case I am in the middle of an important statement.
Education has to be one of the most important things to parents and to families. There is no doubt that the education that children receive from the time they are very young until they are really old and graduate from university that every day at school there is an influence on their lives, not only academically but also in terms of their growth as citizens and their growth as individuals.
I remember—and this will date me—about 30 years ago or a little less, the debate hot in the schools at that time was whether sex education ought to be in the schools. I taught mathematics at the college level while some of my colleagues taught physics. One of my colleagues, in addressing that question, said “Well, of course, sex should be taught in the schools. If the schools do as good a job of teaching that as they do of teaching math and physics then the children will lose all interest in it”. I do not think that is probably true, but that was his statement at the time.
This leads me into the part that I want to talk about in this debate, and that is that there is so much more to education than simply the academics. There are many studies that show this. All of us who have had children have observed it and anyone with common sense would agree that children behave not only in the way they are taught but also in the examples that are given to them. The values and beliefs that are held by the significant adults in their lives are going to be the values that the children adopt in their own lives. That is very true and there are very few exceptions to that.
Of course, there are some. In my own case, I went through a few years at the latter end of my teens when I rejected the values of my parents. I rejected their religious faith and ran away from home when I was 17. I know members will not believe that but I really did. Eventually I was reconciled not only to my parents but also to God and my life has been totally different since then. This was a very important and integral part of my life.
I believe very strongly that for parents who want to have a Christian education or some other values-based education in their children's lives that they should have the right to do so. I do not believe that it is the role of any government, be it federal, provincial or municipal, to take away from parents their rights and responsibilities to provide for the education and training of their children.
I again emphasize that I believe that those are two things that work together but are not synonymous since training and education are two different things.
I believe that in this debate one of the questions which we must answer is to what degree is that right being taken away. This is a real tug of war in this debate because on one hand we want to vote for it. There are many strong, compelling arguments to vote for this amendment but there are also some very compelling arguments to vote against it.
One of the reasons to vote for it is that this levels the playing field. The fact of the matter is that in Newfoundland there were certain groups that had the right to run the schools and their children could go to those schools while other groups were excluded from it. In a sense that is a reason to vote for this amendment. It will provide them all with an opportunity to send their children to the school of their choice.
It reminds me of the old days when Henry Ford started the Ford Motor Company. I do not know if you remember, Mr. Speaker, but I remember when the Model Ts first came out the advertising was “You can have a Model T in any colour you want so long as the colour you want is black”. This is exactly the same as the public school systems. Everybody can go to the public school of their own free will because that is the only one that is going to be available.
I do not think that is a right decision to make. I speak not only to the province of Newfoundland, I also speak to the province of Alberta where this debate is currently going on in terms of funding of schools which are not part of the public school system, and to every province in this country.
I really wish that we would truly recognize the rights of parents on all the different positions they hold on this issue to have the right to choose for their children the kind of training they want. While I say that parents have this right and responsibility, and it is not to be taken lightly, I believe that the role of government is to provide the freedom for parents to make that choice.
There is one thing to say. Any parents who really feel strongly about this issue can start their own schools and run them as private schools with no other funding. I have been in that position. My wife and I chose to send two of our children to a private school. At first that private school received no funding. Now it receives about 20% to 25% of the funding that public schools in Alberta receive. We made that sacrifice because to us it was very important, but we had to make a considerable financial sacrifice in order to provide that education.
One could argue that I did not have full exercise of freedom because there was a price for it. For example, we might say that we have the freedom of movement across this country, but if one of the provinces were to put up a tollgate and charge everyone $1,000 to come into that province, then we could say that now the freedom is somewhat curtailed. It is a little less freedom than before. We still have the freedom to go there but we have to plunk down the bucks.
I contend that people who make choices about their children's education should have a free choice. I do not mind a certain amount of financial commitment having to be made for that. It deepens the commitment if nothing else. At the same time I believe the people who make those choices should not be cut out of the educational funding dollar.
There is an argument that public funds should not be used to support private schools. This Liberal government uses that terminology too yet it quite clearly uses public funds to support private business. I cannot forget about Bombardier which is a private business. The government gives piles of public funds to it. I am saying that is really no different. In the case of schools, the parents are taxpayers.
I will use this analogy. Let us visualize it as a big barrel. All of the taxpayers put their money into the barrel for the education of the children in this province. Why should some parents be able to take the money out of the barrel to provide education for their children? In our province of Alberta it happens to be people who choose the secular based education in the public school system in which God or any mention of religion is anathema, or they can choose another system if they are catholic. They have the right and others do not. To me that is curtailment of a freedom of choice which I think we should really value in this country. I am saying the same thing for the province of Newfoundland.
I would have been delighted to vote for this measure if the provincial government of Newfoundland had instituted a plan like a voucher system in which there is public money from the taxpayers. If there is a group of parents that can set up a school for their children based on their deep values then that public money or at least a large proportion of it should be available for that education system. To me that would have solved the problem of whether their rights were prejudicially affected.
I really do not believe we should be forcing people to go to a religious school if they are not so inclined, but at the same time we need to recognize that the secular school where there is no religion is also teaching a form of religion and the message to the students has to be confusing.
Why is it that at home we deal with the reality of the existence of God? Why is it that at home we are taught to integrate this belief into all areas of our life whereas in school it cannot be mentioned? To me that is a contradiction and one which we should be correcting, and one which the Newfoundland government had an opportunity to correct. I wish it would have done it.
I think the point has been made that the parents have the primary right and responsibility. The government's responsibility should be to provide the opportunity for the parents to exercise that right without undue financial penalty.
Last, I believe also that there is really no such thing as a values free education. I am thinking of this training. The member for Broadview—Greenwood put it well. He came from the Catholic tradition. He pointed out in a way I can certainly relate to, and I put this so it is properly understood, there are some people whose religious belief and faith is more nominal. They have the label, they live good lives and there is no problem with it. But there are others for whom it is a deeply held value and one which they are not content to take lightly. They integrate it into their own lives and they want to do this also with their children. In saying that, I think we need to provide the ability for parents to do this without great financial penalty.
There are some for whom this is not important. I believe in our present society they are probably in the majority. We have become secularized. I was talking to a person the other day and we got on to this subject. He is about my age and so we have all this wisdom. We can look behind us and see the ripples and the waves from the boat that has just gone by. We look back and we can see how it used to be calm waters and now it seems to be a little more stormy. He said one of the big reasons for the increase in crime and for the increase in some of our societal values toward women and toward children which are so disturbing to us all is the secularization of our society. We have basically in our society written out that impact which a deep religious faith has and did have for many years in the majority of Canadians. This is unfortunate.
Had the Government of Newfoundland taken what I urge all provinces to do, arrange their administration of school funding so that it would bypass that built-in bias, I would have total freedom to go through this because there is so much in this amendment that is plausible and positive.
However, because I am not convinced at all that the rights of these parents which were put into the constitution have been prejudicially affected, I believe that they are losing rights. Consequently I cannot support this motion.
In thinking about the courses they are going to have in these schools where they want them, courses about religion, I thought of an analogy. I taught young people all my life, and this was my job when I taught at the college level. Take one of these young people and say instead of ever getting married what we are going to do is teach you all about marriage. We will have courses about marriage. We will have courses about how men and women relate to each other, how they should get along and all these other things. But you will never be able to get together with another person and form a marriage bond.
Really in a way a course about religion is about at the same level. It will talk about it but it does not give the children a clear example of what it means to be deeply committed to a faith in God or to a faith in whatever it is the particular group is promoting.
With that I rest my case. I urge all members in the House to think carefully about what choices they are making when they vote for this. I believe that we should defeat this amendment and send it back to the people in Newfoundland, to the government in Newfoundland so they can fix this inequity. Then when they bring it back we would be pleased to support it if they showed that they did not prejudicially affect the parents who are quite clearly prejudicially affected by this amendment and by the changes the provincial government is proposing.