http://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/newfoundland-votes-for-secular-schools

'Newfoundland's schools had always been controlled by the Protestant and Catholic churches, and the status quo was guaranteed when Newfoundland entered Confederation in 1949. As an August 1997 Globe and Mail article explained, "Church control of schools is about as old as Newfoundland. It was made formal in the 1927 Schools Act and it was continued in the Terms of Union when Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949. Measured against the rest of the country, this church control seems curiously dated, a quaint anachronism in a secular land."'