Howard's End
By Simon J Black
Published: 10/31/2007
On the issue of public funding for faith-based schools, Ontario NDP leader Howard Hampton made a serious miscalculation. And now he will likely pay with his job, Simon Black says.
The Ontario NDP never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. The Rae government made a habit of it, its failure to follow through on the promise of public auto insurance – a very popular proposal – being the most glaring example. Now, on the issue of faith-based schools, the party has misfired again and Howard Hampton’s leadership should be in question because of it.
John Tory’s plan to extend public funding to faith-based schools dominated this past election campaign. The Conservative’s position proved wildly unpopular with voters and on Wednesday they were punished because of it. Dalton McGuinty took full advantage of Tory’s policy gaff and played up the issue throughout the election, creating a wedge between two parties similarly matched in a number of other policy areas.
Where did this leave Hampton’s NDP? Last week, Star columnist Tom Walkom wrote that Tory’s faith-based schools initiative “set in motion a train of events that ultimately derailed not only his campaign but that of Howard Hampton’s New Democrats.” Showing his frustration with the media’s preoccupation with faith-based funding, last week Hampton decried the campaign coverage and attempted to push other issues to the fore – from the minimum wage to environmental protection. Early on, the NDP leader unsuccessfully attempted to turn the faith-based debate on its head and claim that the ‘real’ issue with education was the Liberal’s failure to fix a funding formula that leaves desperate parents doing private fundraising for classroom essentials.
Hampton should have shown better judgment. Coming out in favour of a single, secular, publicly funded school system would have distinguished the NDP from the Liberals and Conservatives and sparked real debate. NDPers know that continuing to publicly fund the Catholic system is both untenable and unjust in a multi-faith and multicultural society. And polls have recorded that the majority of Ontarians are in favour of dissolving the separate school system. In this view, they are in line with the United Nations ruling which states that Ontario is in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by maintaining a Catholic system to the exclusion of other faiths. But most importantly, at the Ontario NDP’s provincial convention, party members have passed numerous resolutions clearly stating the Party to be in favour of phasing-out the Catholic school system and establishing one secular publicly funded system and defining this as a matter of party policy. Sadly, at the January 2007 convention, Party brass did not permit debate on the issue of support for a single, secular, publicly funded school system.
This leaves Hampton guilty on two accounts: First, for ignoring the democratic will of his party’s members and second, given the NDP’s poor showing, for failing to reap electoral gains in return for his sacrifice of party democracy. Had that had been the case, the grassroots might have been willing to forgive him. As it stands now, they probably won’t.