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Alberta voters should be able to cast ballots for both public and Catholic school board candidates, an Edmonton public school trustee says.

Trustee Cheryl Johner, who represents north Edmonton on the board, said her colleagues should ask school trustees across the province to advocate for the provincial government to amend the law to allow votes for both publicly funded school boards where their boundaries overlap.

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“A lot of people don’t know what they don’t know. A lot of people don’t know that they’re funding Catholic school boards,” Johner said in a Wednesday interview.

“I just think it’s equitable if you can vote for whoever you like, because, you’re paying for the system, why shouldn’t you have a say in the system?”

In 2018-19, Alberta Education is allotting $8 billion to school boards. $1.7 billion of that money is directed to Alberta’s 17 Catholic school boards, 14 per cent of which comes from Catholic property taxpayers. The remainder comes from the province’s general revenue.