text: I'm increasingly convinced that the separate school system (which many decades ago I attended for my primary education) should be merged with the public system. However, in Ontario at least, the Catholic school system is protected by the constitution, which in case nobody's noticed has as of this year been in effect for 150 years. It was hardly discriminatory against any other religion to establish a separate school system in 1867. In fact, it was seen as a means to protect minority language and religious rights. The religious role of the separate school system is probably redundant in an increasingly secular and diverse society. But I believe the argument favoring the accommodation of other religions within the publicly funded school system on grounds of the continuing existence of the separate school system is only weakly logical, at best. We can't effectively move forward by taking a backward step.