Public funding for private religious schools? That's nuts.

The holidays were great, thank you for asking, but nothing much has changed, I see, over the last couple of weeks in Ontario .

The Tories are holding firm to their promise to fund private religious schools. How stupid is that, especially since John Tory's former boss, Premier Bill Davis, managed to rile the hell out of voters when he extended public funding to Catholic secondary schools? What didn't Tory understand then and why is he determined to fall in the same hole again?

The US under Bush isn't much of a model for anything. However, it's interesting to note some of the problems they are having trying to fit religious schools into their system. Of course, they aren't allowed by their Constitution to have private religious schools funded by public bucks and these aren't, strictly speaking. religious schools (wink wink nudge nudge), but they are having many many problems. See Arabic public school divides Brooklyn. This story appeared in the New York Times more than a week ago and has been followed up by this story Critics Ignored Record of a Muslim Principal.

New York isn't the only state having problems. Florida has its own quagmire - see Hebrew Charter School Spurs Florida Church-State Dispute.

After eight years of turmoil, and with the history of his mentor Bill Davis firmly fixed in mind (or maybe not), you'd think John Tory would go out of his way to ensure that another Conservative government would avoid turning our schools once more into a battleground of political ideologies. However, Tory is turning out to have the same disease that afflicts many back room boys who try to transition to politician - an incredible insensitivity to what the guy in the street thinks and an inability to connect on an emotional level with the voters.

Tory has made a fatal mistake on religious funding, if the voters I've talked to are any representative sample. But not only is he striking out on major platform issues, he's also wiffing on easy, no brainer items.

Witness his performance tonight. There he is sounding like a wounded, wheezing buffalo, spluttering away about the Liberal'spromise to make the third Monday in February a statuatory holiday. People have been talking for years about needing a break between Christmas and Easter, a long long stretch in winter. So Dalton is going to create Family Day and we finally have the holiday.

Tory, who has promised he would be a different kind of politician, one who would support government when they came up with good ideas, was shown in front of his bus, red-faced and angry, demanding to know "why do you think Mr. McGuinty is doing this now? Why now?"

Hey John - do you think maybe it's because there's an election on? Because good promises make happy voters? Why the hell do you think he's announcing it now? I cannot believe you were actually dumb enough to ask that question but you did - I saw it on several stations. Unreal.

And who cares, quite frankly? People want it and McGuinty has said he'll create it. Meanwhile, there's John Tory, looking like a little boy with a trembling lip who just lost all his marbles to a smarter, better player.

I don't give a hang why McGuinty's doing it now and I think 98% of the people in Ontario don't care either; we're all just going to accept it and be grateful.

Carry on John. You sound like a guy who knows his powder's wet, the fuse won't light and who's on the ropes before the fight has even begun. A couple more items like funding religious private schools and whining about a statutory holiday and you can kiss your chances of election goodby.