Thursday, September 6, 2007

Creationism in Canada

We are in the midst of a provincial election here in Ontario and yesterday the front page headline of the Globe and Mail read: "Christian private schools should be allowed to teach creationism if they receive public funding, Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory said yesterday." Tory is the leader of the Progressive Conservative party, a party vying for control of the province. Currently the Liberals are in power here in Ontario, the premier is Dalton McGuinty. I went online to find out a little more about Dalton and I was saddened to see that the first thing that pops up on the screen is some footage of McGuinty shaking hands with Arnie, the governor of California - I guess Dalton thinks that will garner him some votes "I am pals with the terminator..." But back to Creationism in Canada - some six hours after the headlines appeared John Tory went into damage-control mode, saying "creationism should be explored only in religion class and not elsewhere in the curriculum, such as in science class." In Ontario there a basic school curriculum that everyone has to follow if they receive public funding. As a tax payer you can choose whether your tax dollars for education are put into the public or separate (Catholic) school system - a legacy of the French/English divide. At the moment those are the only choices for public funding. Both school systems teach evolution, but in Catholic school in religion class they might go into creationism or they might not. In response to Tory's comments the current Minister of Education (coincidentally the person running against Tory for the Don Valley west seat in Toronto) stated "In terms of public dollars, those public dollars should go into a curriculum that has been agreed upon as being the one that is the best for our kids and is rooted in science and is rooted in evidence." There is hope yet...

The other day we were going to Booster Juice for a smoothie. As we got to the front door we all noticed a couple seated on the patio. The male had his shirt off and the female was picking things on his back. We were all taken aback and quite frankly - repulsed. LL really wanted a Booster Juice but none of us wanted to walk any closer to this couple, finally her Daddy relented. We did decide that if you did not believe in evolution this public display of "nitpicking" was living proof.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I bet LL would say that was "disgusting", and who could disagree!? Grooming in Bloor!

AMP said...

EWWWWW!!! In so many ways!

Sue said...

They were just being good primates. How hairy was he BTW ?? Hide the kids if they start "presenting"...

فرانسيس said...

Yuck to both. Canadians are sounding more and more American all the time, I'm sad to say...