The Ontario Progressive Conservative party has disclosed that, once elected, it will fund the education of "Faith Groups", namely the Muslim faith, the Jewish and the Christian fundamentalists.

The stated cost of this wrongheaded plan is $400,000,000. That is for the new schools that will be required, the land on which they will be built and the new busses required to transport the students back and forth to school daily. The salaries of the teachers, bus drivers etc,etc; a page taken from the Book of Davis" when he introduced Catholic school funding after repeatedly stating that he would not do so. The volume of votes that this produced made the switch a positive one. Is this new funding scheme designed to repeat that success?

The $400, 000,000 estimated for this grandiose and clearly divisive plan is a far cry from what will be the final cost. Davis repeatedly said that the funding of the Catholic system would not cost the taxpayer a penny more but that bubble soon burst.

Ontario has a public school; system to which all students should attend, regardless of the faith to which they subscribe. Religion should never control education. All of our Canadian youth, of whatever faith, culture, colour or creed, should be educated together so that the differences become better understood, and accepted by the whole student body, hopefully leading to a less violent society.

The exclusion of faith groups, other than the three noted, will soon lead to demands for full funding by others and if government bends to these demands the costs will become horrendous.

This political strategy to secure votes does not serve the Conservative party's image well: It does not reflect the leadership we have come to expect from them, it is too obviously politics without vision for the future of our province.

If the province fails to adhere to the values on which it was founded it will certainly unravel.

To paraphrase Arnold Toynbee's "A study of History"

K. Hayward

Mono