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Education in Canada, a specific context

Provincial Oversight

The intersections of religion and education must be understood in context. Unlike many other western democracies, there is no national ministry of Education in Canada. Individual provinces and territories oversee the delivery of education in their respective jurisdictions. Thus, variation in how religion is approached in Canadian classrooms is a reflection of both historical and contemporary concerns about linguistic, cultural, and religious diversity. There is a high degree of variability from province to province. Divergent state funding structures operate at the core of this variability, with some provinces extending varying levels of support to both public and private confessional institutions.

Historical Context

Understanding the current situation requires a retrospective look to nineteenth-century constitutional agreements crafted in response to the religious composition of the population during that time period. Section 93 of Canada’s Constitution Act of 1867 established a parallel system of confessional and secular schools in some provinces, wherein Catholic and Protestant institutions were guaranteed public support. This system of separate schools operated alongside publicly funded non-religious institutions.

D 20 June 2017    AChristine L. Cusack

CNRS Unistra Dres Gsrl

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