I just found out two startling things! What saved Canada in the beginning and who the camel in the tent was. We’ll start with who was the camel in the tent, because it leads directly into what saved Canada.

In Aesop’s wonderful old story, a camel freezing out in the cold is able to persuade an Arab to let him into his tent bit by bit. First his nose, then his head, then his neck and then his whole body and finally, there wasn’t any room in the nice warm tent for the Arab tent owner. That camel is … Ontario Progressive Conservative leader John Tory.

Tory is the camel whose final goal will end up allowing 26,000 faith-based schools to be established in Ontario. It will dry up the funding for public and Catholic schools and end up having more bureaucrats running the 26,000 schools than teachers.

How is John Tory going to say that there are only going to be 53,000 students, “mostly Christian fundamentalist, Jewish and Muslim (who) would be affected by the plan which would only cost $400 million”? Where’s Tory getting that claptrap from? The first court challenge would shoot that turkey dead.

Is Tory going to discriminate against Hindus, Zoroastrians, Shintoists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and a host of others waiting hungrily for an equitable share of the taxpayer pie? His projected 53,000 students would balloon to 100,000 students before you could say “Ontario premier Mike Harris produces bad vibes.” The initially projected $400 million wouldn’t even cover the cost of the school buses for the year.

Tory says elite private schools like Upper Canada College would be excluded from public funding. Who said that elite schools were ever interested in public funding? They couldn’t care less. They meet their growing costs with growing fees. But, for the sake of equality for all God’s children, why couldn’t they demand a slice of the taxpayer pie?

Tory totally ignores the historic fact that makes us a nation today – the British North America Act in 1867.

The BNA Act was, and still is, the most important Act ever promulgated in Canada – even when compared with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which doesn’t merit the paper it’s written on. (No protection for unborn babies in there.) The BNA Act established Canada as a nation, creating Quebec and Ontario and giving equal footing to two rival factions, joining New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and laying the groundwork for Canada. It declared English and French to be official languages having equal protection.

It allowed for a deal that saved Canada from collapsing at the very beginning, when, to prevent Protestants being assimilated in Quebec by French confessional schools run largely by nuns, brothers and priests – a horrible thought to English-speaking Protestants – a separate Protestant school system was set up in Quebec. The public school system in Ontario was a largely Protestant school system and frightened Catholics seeking to preserve their faith were allowed a separate school system. In an era when almost everybody was either Catholic or Protestant, Confederation held the country together in defence of British holdings and American threats, evidenced by the invasion of Canada on two occasions: the War of 1812 and the American Revolutionary War.

John Tory has only a passing interest in “faith-based” schools. He’s after votes! Not that Dalton McGuinty isn’t after them, with the Ontario Libs shovelling out $26 million to ethnic groups this year. But it’s just that I think if Tory were elected, he would wield a bigger shovel.

I’m sure that if Tory found stamp collectors were a large untapped voting group, he’d be prostrating himself in front of them. But, did you notice something strange? Tory’s not prostrating himself in front of the millions-strong Christian community or the majority of those polled who threw up at the thought of same-sex “marriage.”

Many people accuse Tory of using the “faith-based” schools issue as just a tactic to get himself elected premier of Ontario. Don’t let him. Think camel in the tent. Think of the Catholic-Protestant schools deal in 1867 that made Canada what it is today. The BNA to Canada is what the Declaration of Independence is to the United States. The BNA brought two rival factions together and we reap the benefits today. If there is no FCP candidate running in your riding, hold your nose and vote Liberal. St. Peter will understand the extenuating circumstances.