When Ontario's Progressive Conservative Party blew their collective electoral brains out in the 2007 provincial election with the promise to provide public funding to private confessional schools, any casual observer would have concluded that the issue was beyond hope of revival.  Aside from some continued pressure -- well below the radar screen of the mainstream media -- to dismantle the system of publicly-supported Catholic separate schools which has existed in Upper Canada since well before Confederation, the matter has disappeared from public discussion and it would appear that taking up cudgels to revisit the idea would be a hopeless task.So, against this wide and even growing consensus of opinion which seeks to maintain a secular-only system of state-funded education (where denominational schools are not currently subsidized) and even reverse the status quo where public funds currently flow to religious institutions, what intelligent arguments remain to be advanced?Like most important public questions, this debate is multi-faceted, complex, philosophical, historical and, in the end, amounts to the need to reconcile competing values.The historical part goes back to the end of the Seven Years' War, when the British conquerors of New France wisely foresaw the need to assure the loyalty of the residents of this territory in anticipation of an uprising by the colonists to the south against the Imperial Crown. So, under the provisions of the Quebec Act of 1774, the French-speaking subjects of His Majesty were guaranteed the free practice of the Catholic faith, granted the application of French civil law for private matters and, indirectly, though not expressly, assured the use of the French language.These rights, after constitutional meanderings in 1791 and 1840, took the form, as to language, of the guarantee, in Section 133 of the British North America Act, 1867, of the right to use either English or French in the Parliament of Canada and the Legislature of Quebec and in the courts of Canada and Quebec. Section 93 of the same document protected the educational rights of religious minorities wherever those rights had existed prior to 1867. The continued use of French civil law was assured by the provinces retaining jurisdiction to legislate on property and civil rights within the province.But this “historical artifact” stemming from “archaic constitutional obligations”, as one secular organization's website has put it, does not contemplate equivalent claims to public funding by denominational schools catering to communities, such as Hindus, Copts, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Buddhists and many others. The PC proposal in 2007 would have extended some tax-based assistance to all of these institutions, provided that they followed the provincial curriculum.A number of provinces have had exactly such programs in place for some time. While the four Atlantic Provinces provide no funding for religious private schools, some variation of public funding is available in the other provinces and territories. Not all of these by any means are based on any inherited constitutional obligation. Only Ontario limits taxpayer support to the Separate Catholic School Boards. In Quebec, for example, partial funding is offered to established religious schools that follow the Quebec curriculum.The arguments usually made against the principle of public funding for faith-based education are economic (the cost of overseeing the delivery of the provincial curriculum in many separate school systems is seen as greater than supervising a single, homogeneous one), secularist (separation of church and state in all things including a child's right to avoid inculcation in the principles of any religion of parental choice before the child is old enough to make his or her own decision), or values-based (opposition to the teaching of doctrines that run counter to the evolving liberal-democratic tenets of civil society).The elephant in the room is clearly the last-mentioned of these.  Organized religion is alleged to be out of touch with societal trends on moral issues, and seen as behind the times, traditionalist and archaic. The clash of principles on such matters as abortion, contraception, homosexuality, women's rights, for example, lead some to conclude that the values of our organized churches are retrograde. Religions are reproached for historical atrocities committed in their names, from ancient human sacrifices, to the Inquisition, to the burning of witches and conversion by the sword. On our evening news telecasts, we witness the barbarism of the Islamic Jihad perpetrated by ISIS, spreading carnage in the name of Allah.The premise of secular education, then, would appear to be to insulate young, innocent minds from belief-systems that defend ethical standards not shared by the so-called enlightened, progressive element of main-stream society. This, of course, ignores centuries of progressive development within the doctrines of the organized religions themselves, constantly seeking to adapt to new realities.But, pace Christopher Hitchens, not all the catastrophes of history can be laid at the doorstep of those who purport to follow divine inspiration. Man-made calamities like politics and war, the Holocaust and genocide, environmental degradation, the poverty engendered by the extremes of the business cycle, cannot be laid at the doorstep of those motivated by religious zeal.  Should the syllabus in our schools be designed to also shelter young, impressionable minds from all instruction on the history of man's wickedness to man?We forget how often God is invoked by people with evil intentions for their fellows without the actual endorsement of the Deity or His representatives on Earth.  We also forget the extent to which the liberal values espoused as the logical and natural end-result of the moral evolution of the human spirit began as doctrines of our inherited faiths. Concepts such as the dignity and worth of human life, the value of charity, the importance of education, and the imperative of the golden rule in interpersonal conduct all owe their origins to the world's major religions.One would think that the most progressive thinkers would endorse religious freedom on a basis equal to the fundamental rights of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and association, and that the defenders of our most basic liberties would not seek to homogenise the thoughts and tenets fit for propagation in the public square.The most puzzling conundrum of all is the disassociation in the minds of many good, upstanding, well-meaning citizens between the long-established Canadian convention of supporting multiculturalism and the right of a Canadian parent to have some part of the taxes he or she pays for the provision of a public school system to be directed to a denominational private educational institution in which his or her children are enrolled.  We welcome new arrivals from a wide variety of traditions and, to their delight, recognize that their languages, their customs, their menus, their clothing, their national distinctiveness do not have to disappear into some vast melting pot of a neutralized Canadian identity.But when it comes to education, we “draw the line”; everyone should go to the same school. We do so without grasping the incongruity between the vast benefits to Canada of the recognition and respect implicit in our multicultural policies and our insistence on identical educational systems for all.We may be arriving at this conclusion because the word “private”, which often precedes the term “confessional” or “religious schools” implies privilege and special status, like queue-jumping or two tiers in the health-care system. But the term “private” merely seeks to indicate that schools or school boards created along denominational lines are not, where the constitutional protection does not now exist, meant to be entirely supported by the public purse. Rather, what is sought is a partial contribution towards the cost of running those institutions, for the remainder of which the parents would remain responsible. Forty percent to sixty percent of budgets are currently the standard where provinces do in fact offer such a gesture to mitigate the double burden of school taxes and faith-based school fees.Perhaps we allow ourselves to be misled into believing that the students involved and their parents are seeking some advantage not afforded to the rest of us. Put most starkly, we fail to realize that some students simply cannot attend the public school system as presently constituted. Take, for example, the Orthodox Jewish boy who attends a traditional Jewish school or “Yeshiva”.  Large numbers of them do not have the means to pay for this schooling, and rely on communal support or the charity of individuals. But the suggestion that this young lad could, if he wanted to, just fit in to the local public school cannot seriously be defended. He cannot eat in the cafeteria; he would be the object of ridicule over the religious accoutrements which supplement his clothing and the imperative that he wear his hair curl sideburns under his skull cap or other head covering. The schedule for his required prayers would be disruptive to the classroom. The only school this child can attend is a separate one, devoted to the study of his traditional texts, along with the provincially-mandated curriculum.The revulsion which greeted Quebec's attempt to legislate and enforce its so-called “Charter of Quebec Values”, both outside Quebec and, thankfully, sufficiently within the province to bring about the political demise of its authors, ought to be enough of an example to those of us who consider ourselves open-minded.  The anti-clerical phenomenon within Quebec which had its origins in the Quiet Revolution of the 1960's, and which eventually led to the disappearance of confessional school boards in Quebec in favour of linguistic boards, was based, in part, on blaming the clergy for keeping Quebecers isolated, rural and poor in order to keep them French and Catholic.  The policy of using state capitalism to ensure the growth of the economy with full francophone participation turned out to be a better way to preserve language and culture, but not religion.  When all is said and done, the recent Quebec experience ought not to inspire our attitudes about what constitutes tolerance in our social institutions.Similar examples of school-children simply not fitting in could be cited for other traditions. But the case does not need to rest on prevention of bullying or the acceptance of differences.  A Catholic student of elementary school age does not look any different from his or her contemporary counterparts.  His or her right to a Catholic education ought to be part and parcel of our respect for freedom of religion and of conscience.  The preamble of our Constitution Act recognizes that “Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law”.  Our national anthem asks God to keep our land glorious and free.  Freedom to worship ought to be inherent in those concepts, along with the freedom to study in an environment respectful of one's beliefs.Stanley Herbert Hartt, OC, QC is a lawyer, lecturer, businessman, and civil servant. He currently serves as counsel at Norton Rose Fulbright Canada. Previously Mr. Hartt was chairman of Macquarie Capital Markets Canada Ltd. Before this he practised law as a partner for 20 years at a leading Canadian business law firm and was chairman of Citigroup Global Markets Canada and its predecessor Salomon Smith Barney Canada. Mr. Hartt also served as chairman, president and CEO of Campeau Corporation, deputy minister at the Department of Finance and, in the late 1980s, as chief of staff in the Office of the Prime Minister.