On March 29, 1982, Canada adopted the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Canadians should be proud to have supported this important Charter. This is a blog post about when we use our tax money to ignore it.

Public education, in my opinion, is education paid for by tax dollars that is available to everyone in a community; without prejudice. Regardless of your sex, age, creed, religious beliefs or colour (and a host of others) public schools in Canada should offer a high level of education to all who attend, without any doctrine or bias forced upon them. If anyone wants to educate their children in any other manner, then public school may not be for them. Private schools or home-schooling may be an option.

However, when one does choose the public school system, one should expect that their children will be treated in a way that is respectful and understands these differences; without prejudice. If your child requires the use of a wheelchair, then as a tax payer into the public school system you could reasonably expect the school to provide ramps, washrooms and perhaps even transportation to accommodate. You would not expect your child to have to sit outside in the rain because there is no access to the classroom. If your child has a learning disability, is from a single parent home, or even from a home that relies on social assistance, then in the public school arena you would expect that none of these things would be a barrier to your child or in the school’s ability to provide them the same educational advantages as everyone else.

The Prairie View Elementary School in the Prairie Spirit School Division in Saskatchewan does not see it this way. They have decided that secular is not acceptable and that your tax money should instead be used to promote the most popular faith that is practiced in the surrounding community; Christianity. If you practice Judaism, Hinduism, Islam or are an Atheist, then you are expected to suck it up and incorporate Christian doctrine into your daily education. To hell with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, to hell with secularism. You will pay for a Christian bias whether you like it or not. And if you don’t like it … then fuck off. We don’t want your type around here anyway.

In December of 2007, the school principal wrote the following in a public newsletter:

One of the most important lessons I have learned is public education does not equal secular education. Separating references to faith, observances of faith, acts of faith, and anything faith related from school culture is as difficult as separating salt from sea water. Our holidays, literature, morals, values, foods, behaviors, hopes, and almost everything we do has a faith connection. Attempts to remove all faith related things from school life always seem to be fractious and futile. Rather than removing faith life from schools, we should be recognizing the role that faith plays our students’ lives. Our Saskatchewan Curriculum recognizes Personal and Social Development as a Common Essential Learning. In other words, emotional, social, and spiritual development is essential rather than optional. Schools are supposed to foster understanding, acceptance, empathy, and constructive and harmonious relations among people of diverse cultures. Faith is a large part of our culture. You cannot separate faith from culture or education. Schools should be teaching children to be aware of their own culture and ethnicity. Furthermore, schools must develop an understanding of similarities and differences among cultures. To this end, our school has been preparing for the Christmas season in a different way. We have been learning about celebrations observed by various faiths using resources that are available in our school library. Students have learned about celebrations that are akin to the celebration of Christmas. We have learned about Kwanza, Diwali, Id EI Fitr, Potlatch, Hanukah, Chinese New Year, and Christmas traditions around the world. Again, I am being educated along with the students. Together, we have discovered a lot of differences; however, we have been amazed by the similarities. Holiday celebrations usually celebrate a wondrous birth or a wondrous event. People celebrate to remember and to pass on their faith to future generations. Most of the celebrations involve meeting together in a place of fellowship or worship to give thanks, reflect on the past, and express hope for the future. It is also a time to get together with loved ones to share special meals, making crafts, dramatize past events, exchange gifts, and honor ancestors. I am not saying all faiths are all the same, but we do seem to share a universal need to explain our existence, find our purpose, express our beliefs, and provide our children with a moral compass to follow. As we approach this holiday season, I hope that you will have a special time with your children celebrating a wondrous event, remembering, giving thanks, expressing hope, sharing special meals, and expressing your love for one another.

I see this as a message more akin to a religious school as one of a public school. He claims that “Separating references to faith, observances of faith, acts of faith, and anything faith related from school culture is as difficult as separating salt from sea water.” This analogy exposes his personal bias. He may not be able to separate his own personal doctrine from the school culture but most other school divisions certainly have been able to. I guess that I should be thankful that he is not a supporter of Stalinism.

So what the hell am I talking about here? Well, I am talking about a public school that supports segregation and is in favour of indoctrination. I am talking about an issue that happened in the Prairie View elementary school. I am talking about my six year-old daughter being forced to declare her personal belief system to all her peers and, consequently, being teased about it. I am talking about my tax dollars being used to support one faith over all else. I am talking about the total absence of a separation of church and state. I am talking about a school division flouting their power over the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I am talking about a seemingly lethargic and corrupt governing board that believes that the Christian faith supersedes all else. I am talking about a governing body that failed to protect the young and innocent in favour of their own beliefs.

There were two things that upset me about this school, for my daughters sake. They begin each day with the Lord’s Prayer piped into each classroom and they insisted on performing a strong Christian-focused school play at the end of each year. Now I realise that these do not seem like much, but to me they are symbolic of a system over-stepping the boundary of public education. They are deliberately promoting Christianity and their personal bias towards that one single belief system. To me, it is as bad as a public school using public taxes to teach intelligent design over evolution. Perhaps it is just a precursor to that.

Now I went through the proper channels and tried to plead the secular case. In the end, instead of taking the fights to the courts where it deserved to be, I pulled my daughter out of the school and sent her to one that was truly secular and taught inclusion, respect and cultural diversity. My daughter now has friends that are of many different faiths and nationalities. She does not have to publicly declare her belief and the school. She is not being taught to segregate.

The problem is that I had to move her away to do this. It is inconvenient to have to move your child to a different school division and it is something I shouldn’t have had to do. To fight would have caused my daughter more pain than it was worth and she was just too young to have to have this kind of fight brought to her school playground. I guess my point really is, I shouldn’t have had to fight. I should have been able to rely on a governing board to do the right thing, despite whatever personal beliefs that they may have personally.

Behind closed doors, I am told I am anti-religion and I only made a complaint to stir up trouble. The fact is, I couldn’t really care less what people believe in. I just don’t want to know what it is. If I ever do want to know, I will read their blogs, go to their homes and frequent their churches.

What I do want is for my child not to be subjected to segregation by the very institutions which are supposed to be protecting her. I cannot shield her from bigotry and prejudice but I can expect certain safe havens from them; school should be one of them. I tag it Faith Bullying.