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I have a rather different take on it. I think the question was fair, but not for the reasons people are saying; and I’m not surprised if Mulroney was surprised by it.

Photo by Justin Tang/Canadian Press

In Britain, class politics makes public officials and private schools a perennial and famous source of controversy. It was news when David and Samantha Cameron put their son up for a private school — after he left office, for goodness’ sake. And Canadian politicians, too, have found themselves in hot water: NDP B.C. Education Minister Moe Sihota in 1996; Quebec Premier Lucien Bouchard and Education Minister François Legault simultaneously (and at the same school!) in 2000. In 2014 in Vancouver, protesters gathered outside the private school where then-Premier Christy Clark sent her son to allege underfunding of public schools and over-subsidization of private ones.

But it’s a much less frequent source of controversy here. My impression was that most Canadians who covet private education for their children do so as an aspiration, rather than as a grievance. It wouldn’t have surprised me had Mulroney never been asked about it.

No one in Ontario would be better off in any material way if Mulroney’s four children transferred into public schools on Monday; indeed, they would be adding a burden to the system. And I see no good reason to believe private education makes premiers or education ministers unable to preside over public education.