FPTP vs MMP

[Lennart Sorensen]

On Sun, Oct 07, 2007 at 03:25:27PM -0400, CLIFFORD ILKAY wrote:
> Actually, no. I would rather that all schools get funded using a voucher 
> system, regardless of whether they are "faith-based" (I guess parochial 
> was too big a word) or not. Star columnist Haroon Siddiqi has an 
> interesting analysis of the backlash against funding of parochial 
> schools here: <http://www.thestar.com/columnists/article/264177>. I 
> cannot say that I disagree with him judging by the comments I've read 
> on-line.
> 
> I used to be very much opposed to funding of any parochial schools, 
> including the Catholic system, a few years ago but have since changed my 
> mind. It seems to me that the most ardent opponents of funding of 
> parochial schools profess a faith, though they don't call it as such, of 
> secular humanism. Quite often, these same people are the ones who argue 
> that Christmas should be called "Winter Festival", or some such 
> ridiculous euphemism, and Christmas trees should be removed from public 
> buildings. More often than not, the people who promote these views are 
> not Jews, Hindus, or Muslims but rather people who a generation ago 
> would have been called "Christians" and now consider themselves to be 
> agnostics or atheists. They pursue the promotion of their beliefs with 
> as much zeal as any "fundamentalist" of any other religion. Therefore, 
> funding only the public system funds only one particular religion, that 
> of secular humanists, which is just as unjust as the status quo. Of 
> course not all parents who send their children to public schools fall 
> into the category of secular humanists but that is no different than 
> non-Catholics who send their children to Catholic schools.

Schools are run by the government.  Religion and politics should be kept
seperate, hence schools should be kept seperate from religion too.

Schools are most certainly not secular humanist.  Many schools are
christmas decorations and other such things, since that is what happens
at certain times of the year in this country.  Those that aren't
christian for the most part just try to ignore it (with probably about
as much luck as anyone has ignoring haloween or valentines day).  A few
vocal nuts try to make everything politically correct by wanting to
rename everything, but are just a small annoying minority and are far
from representative of anyone.

If the government truly believes that reduction of duplication is more
efficient (and they did make mega toronto after all for that reason),
then they should elliminate funding to all but one school system, since
obviously it is more efficient to run only one school system without
duplication.  For our government to propose anything else would be
hypocritical.

> I found the arguments put forth by all political parties wanting on this 
> issue but in particular, I found the position of the Liberals most 
> indefensible. McGuinty's use of such divisive language as "segregation" 
> with respect to funding parochial schools was just reprehensible and 
> offensive. His claim that stopping funding of Catholic schools was not 
> possible due to constitutional obligations was just political cowardice. 
> If he were truly concerned about "inclusiveness" and against 
> "segregation", he would pledge to stop funding Catholic schools but of 
> course that would be politically suicidal. There is also the minor 
> detail that he and his Education Minister, Kathleen Wynne, who 
> represents my riding, both supported extending funding to all parochial 
> schools in the name of fairness before they were elected. They attack 
> the very same position that they themselves had promoted. Did they 
> change their minds? If so, I can respect that as long as they put forth 
> credible arguments but they pretend that they never supported that 
> position. That is just hypocritical.

Well I think changing the constitution would be the right thing to do.
If people want their children educated in religion, they can either do
it themselves (which probably works best, and is apparently supported by
scripture in a number of relitions), or maybe they can use sunday
schools or the equivelant.  Leave schools to educate children, and let
the parents take care of any faith based morals and other such things
outside of school.

> I don't understand how hearing "the views" of more politicians is going 
> to make this any more a representative democracy. How are more MPPs 
> going to ensure we don't have scandals and corruption? Why not have 
> twice as many politicians then? That should be twice as representative.

You don't need more, you need better and more accountable.

if all you need is the most votes in half the ridings to get a free ride
for 4 yeats, then you are not really accountable to everyone, only to a
large number of people in half the ridings.  It is currently possible to
get a majority government with only about 25% of the popular vote.  Not
very likely but still possible.  35 to 45% of the popular vote on the
other hand can easily be enough.  So even of 2/3 of the voters didn't
want you, you still get ultimate control.

--
Len Sorensen
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