An Ontario Catholic school board’s ban on donations to charities that aren’t in line with its values has outraged some parents and students, with more than 12,000 signing a petition to repeal it.

The Halton Catholic District School Board won’t provide or facilitate any financial donations to organizations that “publicly support, either directly or indirectly,” abortion, contraception, sterilization, euthanasia or embryonic stem cell research.

The controversial motion was first introduced in January and moved by Oakville trustee Helena Karabela. The motion was upheld at a meeting last week.

“With this motion to ban donations to charities that support abortion, we are making sure the Catholic schools are walking the talk,” Karabela said in a statement to the Star. “The church teaches that abortion is the killing of an unborn human being.”

Share Your Thoughts!

The list of organizations that receive financial donations from schools “is currently under review to ensure compliance with the motion,” a Halton school board spokesperson told the Star in an email.

David Harvey, a father of three, said he felt the board acted “as a matter of principle” rather than looking at which charities would be affected.

“If you had an earthquake in Haiti, and Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders were the first ones in there trying to save lives, well, those two are off the list because both of them work in developing countries where they hand out condoms to try to reduce the spread of HIV,” Harvey said.

“I understand what they’re trying to get at, but they’ve done it in such a broad and indiscriminate way that I think they’re doing far more harm than good.”

More than 33,000 students attend the board’s schools.

“It is always the right time to do the right thing,” Karabela said in her statement.

“People today look back on (the Second World War) and wonder why no one did anything for the people being murdered by the Nazis. They wonder why so many people — not just Germans, but even citizens in occupied territories — did little or nothing to protest the atrocities at Auschwitz, Dachau or the rounding up of Jews in France.

“We must not be bystanders to today's gross violations of human life.”

Board chair Diane Rabenda said the Catholic school board remains “committed to embracing the social values of collective responsibility and the common good.”

“The Board of Trustees adopted a motion to ensure that funds raised through our schools are donated to charities and organizations that support activities that are in keeping with the mission of our Catholic school system,” she said in a statement.

Board spokesperson Amanda Bartucci didn’t answer the Star’s question regarding how much money has been donated by Halton Catholic District schools in the past.

As an example of how much money can be raised, staff, students and parents raised more than $20,000 in support of Canada’s Famine Relief Fund, as part of a board-wide toonie collection in June.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“I was just really disappointed in the whole motion to begin with because as a Catholic myself . . . I don’t feel like charity is something that should have any judgment involved at all,” said Olivia Pineau, a 16-year-old student leader at Corpus Christi Catholic Secondary School.

Pineau said students are the ones running the events to raise funds and, “to have them be taken away from us without our voice in the matter, it was really heartbreaking for a lot of people.”

Corpus Christi has hosted “civvies days” that permit students to wear non-uniform clothes for about $2 each, to benefit organizations like the United Way, Pineau said.

Students from at least three different schools have banded together to request greater clarity as to what organizations could be impacted by the ban.

“We don’t expect (the board) to completely repeal this motion, because we do realize, and we do accept, that there is support of this motion,” said Margaret Manangan, a 17-year-old student leader at Bishop Reding Catholic Secondary School.

“We just want to get more clarity and — if anything — our main goal is to amend the word ‘indirect’ (in the motion) because that just . . . really limits the ones that we would be able to support. Our end goal is to limit as little organizations as possible.”

Keith Boyd, Halton secondary unit president of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association, said that Catholic teachings were already “front and centre” when it came to deciding what organizations to financially support.

Boyd said fundraising has “always been directed to appropriate charities,” and didn’t understand the desire to change. He added that the schools have been fundraising and participated in charity initiatives in his 30-year career, “and long before that.”

“Some of the charities we’re talking about are the biggest in Canada,” he said. “Some of them are the biggest in the world, like the Red Cross, United Way . . . so we’re talking about the big, big charities, and only a fraction of their activities fall within the restrictions of the motion.”

Boyd said he’d like to see the new policy repealed. He also suggested that organizations could sign a waiver agreeing that none of the funds donated by the board would go to the restricted activities — a solution suggested by at least one trustee at last Tuesday’s meeting.

“I think that might be a solution that everyone can live with,” Boyd said.