“The Financial Cost of Religious Discrimination”
Speech delivered at the One School System Network conference
May 28, 2011

Contact: Greg Oliver
President
Canadian Secular Alliance
president@secularalliance.ca

Canadian Secular Alliance  216 Beverley Street, Toronto, Ontario, M5T 1Z3   www.secularalliance.ca

The exact savings that would be realized from a transition to a one school system are extremely
difficult to quantify. The main reason for this is that it entirely depends on what the amalgamated
school system that would replace the status quo would look like. Common sense tells us that there will
be some obvious savings. For example, if students in rural areas are travelling large distances to attend
Catholic schools when a public school is much closer or vice versa, this will result in more
transportation expenses. If two school boards exist where there should be one we can easily deduce
that this overlap creates higher administration costs. If some communities have two half-empty schools
instead of one full school to accommodate the two existing systems, this hikes maintenance costs,
utilities, support staff expenditures and so on.

But while these factors are obvious, the realized cost savings of an amalgamated system are still going
to depend primarily on the specific details of the replacement system that is proposed. Hypothetically,
if the amalgamated system proposed created 10,000 new school boards, then we would actually incur
an increased burden to the taxpayer. On the other hand, a plan that eliminated 99% of administrators
would result in a much more severe decrease in financial costs to the taxpayer.

Since I am a late replacement for this conference I have had to rely primarily on the research of others
for my analysis. Most importantly I have relied upon Gilles Arpin, who is a retired vice-chair and
trustee of a French public school board that covers a geographical area that is twice the size of
Belgium. He has put together a detailed plan for amalgamation based on analysis of data gathered from
each of Ontario’s 72 school boards. This speech will be focused on detailing his plan while adding my
own analysis.

First, I’d like to present you with some statistics. 32% of Ontario’s 1.9 million students in publicly
funded schools are currently enrolled in the Catholic system. There are currently 29 English Catholic,
31 English public, 8 French Catholic and 4 French public school boards. This means there are 37
Catholic school boards and 35 public school boards in total. The average public school board has
36,449 students, while the average Catholic school board has just 16,245 students. The projected
funding for the 2011-12 school year is $14 billion for the public school system and $6.9 billion for the
Catholic school system. This means an average cost of $10,998 for public school students and $11,513
for Catholic school students – a $515 discrepancy.

The plan that Mr. Arpin has proposed projects a savings of over $1.4 billion per year using a set of
assumptions based on his extensive experience as a school board administrator. However, it would see
the 72 existing school boards replaced by 36 amalgamated school boards. With some minor
exceptions, most of the existing Catholic and public school boards share the same boundaries. The
Arpin plan essentially proposes maintaining the existing geographical boundaries for each currently
overlapping public and Catholic school board while creating one new amalgamated school board in its
place (once again, with some minor exceptions). It is his view is that in addition to the waste caused by
the two overlapping systems, that there is simply no need for 72 school boards in Ontario. His plan is
attempting to address two problems at once.

A quick look at the number of students in each school board reinforces this train of thought. The
Toronto District School Board has over 237,000 students, but after that there is a dramatic decline.

Only 8 of 72 school boards have over 50,000 students. And 50 of 72 school boards have less than
25,000 students.

After speaking to Mr. Arpin in detail about his plan, examining his figures and considering his twelve
years of experience as a high level administrator, I am personally convinced that his plan would be to
the benefit of Ontario. However, it has one potentially major problem in my view. His plan tackles
two issues: the discrimination and waste from the overlapping Catholic school system AND the waste
due to having too many school boards. Defending this proposal means we would need to win two
debates instead of one.

It may well be the case that there are too many school boards in Ontario, but either way this is likely to
arouse dissenting opinions, especially where potential lost employment interests are concerned. I fear
this proposal will be subject to the same kind of criticism that the Harris government faced when they
reduced the number of school boards from 129 to 72 back in 1997 – that is that it will erode community
participation in the governance of schools and reduce teacher and student access to significant district
support services.

While some reasonable degree of expenditure cuts will be regarded as an efficient trimming of
redundant expenses, more severe cutting – even if based on completely legitimate and prudent rationale
– may be falsely characterized by our opponents as eroding the quality of education that students
receive. I am worried about the voter who would otherwise support the initiative to eliminate the
Catholic school system, but opposes us on the grounds that they falsely perceive that our proposal
would reduce the quality of their child’s education. This would serve as a distraction from our primary
aim, which is to eliminate the special privilege accorded to one religious faction of our society. And
my primary concern is with maximizing the probability of eliminating the Catholic school system.
Eliminating the waste caused by too many school boards would certainly be beneficial but can always
be dealt with separately.

Anyway, perhaps my pragmatic political concerns are legitimate or perhaps they are unfounded, but as
we proceed through the details of the 36 school board Arpin plan, I will contrast it with a modification
of his plan I have come up with that involves a reduction to 52 school boards. The purpose of this
endeavor is to provoke some thought. The reason I selected 52 is because if the existing Catholic
school system students had the same student per school board ratio as the public system, there would be
16.5 Catholic school boards. If rounded up to 17 and added to the existing 35 public school boards,
there would be 52 amalgamated school boards. This proposal is designed with the aim of eliminating
the argument that the quality of administration would be diminished in any way due to dilution.

The Arpin plan assumes a reduction in the number of elementary schools by 10% and of secondary
schools by 5%, which is approximately 9% overall. These figures are based on his personal judgment,
the demographic decline in the total number of children in Ontario (a 4.8% decline in students between
2003 and 2010) and the fact that elementary and secondary schools are currently at 83.6% and 89.4%
of capacity respectively. Based on these factors and the numerous incidents I have heard about the
existing quantity of under-populated schools that would be redundant under an amalgamated school
system, I will defer to his expertise for the assumptions of the modified plan.

The administration and support personnel savings under each plan can be broken down into six
categories. First of all, the current number of trustees is 12 per school board and would remain so
under both the Arpin plan and the modified plan. This would amount to a savings of $6.5 million and
$3.6 million respectively.

Proposal	Employees	Cost	Savings
Current	864 (12 per board)	$13M	$0M
Arpin Plan	432 (12 per board)	$6.5M	$6.5M
Modified Plan	624 (12 per board)	$9.4M	$3.6M

Table 1: Trustees

The current number of Directors of Education is 1.57 per school board and would be cut in the Arpin
plan based on his personal judgment to 1.2. For the sake of eliminating diversionary arguments, the
modified plan will assume 1.57 per school board. This would result in a savings of $11.3 million and
$3.7 million respectively.

Proposal	Employees	Cost	Savings
Current	100 (1.57 per board)	$20M	$0M
Arpin Plan	43 (1.2 per board)	$8.6M	$11.4M
Modified Plan	82 (1.57 per board)	$16.3M	$3.7M

Table 2: Directors of Education

The current number of superintendents and equivalents is 6.24 per school board and would be increased
in the Arpin plan based on his personal judgment to 10, creating a savings of $14.7 million. Since this
ratio at 52 school boards would actually result in more superintendents, the modified plan will assume
the status quo with no savings.

Proposal	Employees	Cost	Savings
Current	449 (6.24 per board)	$74.1M	$0M
Arpin Plan	360 (10 per board)	$59.4M	$14.7M
Modified Plan	449 (status quo)	$74.1M	$0M

 Table 3: Superintendents and Equivalents

The current number of school principals is about 1.5 per school and would remain the same under both
plans, resulting in a savings of $94.1 million due to the reduction in schools for both plans.

Proposal	Employees	Cost	Savings
Current	7,381	$941M	$0M
Arpin Plan	6,643 (10% reduction)	$847M	$94.1M
Modified Plan	6,643 (10% reduction)	$847M	$94.1M

Table 4: School Principals

The current number of teachers for both school boards combined is 114,872 and would be cut by 5% in
the Arpin plan based on personal judgment. To eliminate the argument that the plan will reduce the
quality of education due to an increase in class sizes – regardless of its legitimacy – the modified plan
will assume no reduction in teachers. This would result in a savings of $488.2 million and zero
respectively.

Proposal	Employees	Cost	Savings
Current	114,872	$9,764M	$0M
Arpin Plan	109,128 (5% reduction)	$9,276M	$488.2M
Modified Plan	114,872 (status quo)	$9,764M	$0M

Table 5: Teachers

The current number of support staff is 10 per school and would remain the same under both plans,
resulting in a savings of $179.4 million for both plans.

Proposal	Employees	Cost	Savings
Current	49,350 (10 per school)	$1,974M	$0M
Arpin Plan	44,866 (10 per school)	$1,794M	$179.4M
Modified Plan	44,866 (10 per school)	$1,794M	$179.4M

Table 6: Support Staff

This equates to a $794 million savings in total for administration and support personnel under the Arpin
plan and $281 million under the modified plan.

Expense	Arpin Plan	Modified Plan
Administration & Support Personnel	$794.2M	$280.8M
Student Funding Equalization	$179.2M	$0.00
Transportation Costs	$137.7M	$137.7M
Operation & Maintenance Costs	$324.3M	$324.3M
GRAND TOTAL	$1,435M	$743M

Table 7: Total Savings

As discussed earlier, according to the projected funding for the 2011-12 school year, the average
Catholic school board student will receive $515 more in funding than a student in the public school
board. According to Mr. Arpin’s calculations, if this discrepancy were eliminated on a school board by
school board basis, a total savings of $179.2 million would be realized.

Upon examining the financial statement data, I have noticed there is a negative correlation between the
number of students in a school board and the average funding per student. This suggests to me that the
primary cause of this discrepancy is due to the fact that public school boards are larger on average and
are simply realizing economies of scale. In the future, I will be able to conduct a more detailed
analysis to generate a more informed assessment – for this and all other figures in the plan – but for the
time being I will exclude the potential equalization savings from the modified plan.

The savings to transportation has already been covered in detail earlier in the conference, but would not
be significantly affected by the number of school boards. A savings of $137.7 million is projected for
both plans.

Finally, the cost of operating and maintaining schools will decrease in proportion to the number of
redundant schools that are closed. Both plans project a cost savings of $324.3 million.

When adding up the grand total of each category, the Arpin plan projects an annual cost savings of
$1.435 billion per year. The modified plan projects a savings of $743 million per year. It should be
noted that both plans do not include the savings from the reduction or elimination of capitalization
projects or gains from the sale of closed schools and redundant properties. Nor does it include the
benefit of recovering the $5.3 billion in surpluses that have been accumulated by the Catholic school
boards as of August 2010.

Although the specific details of any proposed replacement will have a dramatic impact on the actual
savings realized – and in my opinion we should continue to debate the details of our proposal – under
any realistic scenario this figure is going to be well into the hundreds of millions.

The Ontario deficit for the current fiscal year stands at $16.7 billion and is not projected to reach
surplus until 2017-18. This is a near-record and far surpasses any deficit experienced prior to the 2008
financial crisis. Among provinces, Ontario has been hit among the hardest. While Western Canada has
been able to rely upon immense resource wealth, the strength of the Canadian dollar relative to our
American counterparts has decimated Ontario’s manufacturing industry and dramatically stunted our
capability for a quick recovery. For the last two years, Ontario has been on the receiving end of federal
equalization payments for the first time in its history. In addition to ending discrimination, now more
than ever we need to trim wasteful expenses for the sake of the citizens of this great province, and for
future generations.

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Billions of dollars wasted

Ontario’s provincial debt is currently $236.3 billion. Its deficit for fiscal
2011/2012 will be $16.3 billion.

Yet the provincial government spends hundreds of millions of dollars
every year to operate separate public schools for the benefit of Roman
Catholic parents and their Church. This is a costly relic from a bygone era. In
the 21st century, the Ontario spends everyone’s tax money on two school
systems segregated by religion: one for Roman Catholics, and one for
everybody else.

Roman Catholic parents have the choice of sending their children to either
secular or Catholic schools. But non-Catholic parents of elementary school
children may not, and non-Catholic teachers can’t get jobs in Catholic schools
paid for with their own taxes. This is clear discrimination, supported with
money that could improve secular public schools for all children. Or it could
be spent on health care. Or it could reduce the deficit.

This historical anomaly results from an era in Ontario of warring
Protestants and Catholics over 160 years in the past. Publicly-funded
sectarian school systems were terminated in Manitoba in 1890,
Newfoundland in 1997 and Quebec in 1998. Why not Ontario? The Ontario
Legislature could send a request to the federal Parliament in Ottawa to end
this injustice at any time.

In 2011, the wars of religion are over. If a plebiscite were held today, a
clear majority of Ontarians would vote to bring all Ontario school childrentogether in one secular public school system. Religions would be taught about, but no child would be indoctrinated at public expense.

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PREFERENTIAL FUNDING

Preferential Funding – Comparison of the Funding of the English Public and the Roman Catholic School Systems in Ontario, provided by  All 4 One

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Standing Committees on Finance & Economic Affairs
Ontario Legislature

Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs, 2007 Pre-budget consultations, 31 January 2007.

Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs, 2006 Pre-budget consultations, 27 January 2006.