It’s unclear exactly what Ontario classrooms are going to look like in the fall with the realities of COVID-19, but one certainty for school boards is an extra $736 million in funding from the province.

Updated 04/25/19 with letter from the Sisters of St. Joseph

A cut to legal aid in Ontario for migrants and refugees is “devastating” and will put people’s lives in danger, according to the Canadian Council for Refugees.

Little was mentioned about education in Doug Ford’s first budget as Ontario premier that wasn’t already known, but all the entities involved had heard all they needed to hear in the weeks leading up to the April 11 budget.

Starving Ontario’s school boards of money will eventually lead to the loss of Catholic education, protesters told The Catholic Register during a rally at Queen’s Park.

Catholic parents fear the massive March 15 education cuts are just the opening salvo of a campaign to fold Ontario’s Catholic schools into a unified public system, while French Catholic trustees are warning of much deeper cuts to come.

Catholic educators in Saskatchewan are “cautiously optimistic” that two days of hearings in a Regina courtroom will lead to the overturning of a 2017 ruling that threatened the existence of Catholic schools in the province.

OTTAWA – Seven of the eight groups or businesses challenging last year’s pro-abortion Canada Summer Jobs attestation on constitutional grounds received a setback in federal court Feb. 22.

The rumours have been swirling through the halls of the Toronto Catholic District School Board that a more lean fiscal future will be the new reality, and a late Friday afternoon e-mail from the provincial government Dec. 14 did nothing to allay those fears.

The federal government’s requirement that churches and their agencies sign an attestation endorsing abortion as a human right before receiving summer job funding violates Canadian human rights in the same way Christian human rights have been violated throughout the Middle East, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer told about 300 people gathered for the annual Christians in the Middle East Benefit Dinner in Toronto Nov. 17.

Canada Summer Jobs is a worthy federal program that subsidizes employment for thousands of high school and university students. Ottawa trumpets that “all small business, not-for-profit organizations and public-sector employers are encouraged to apply for funding” and hire summer students.

OTTAWA –Pro-life groups are pushing back on social media against Canada’s commitment to fund abortion overseas and make it a “pillar” of international development policy.

OTTAWA – The Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace has received $5.95 million in additional funding from the federal government’s Syria Emergency Relief Fund.

The Diocese of Hamilton is picking up the pieces after a Chaldean Catholic priest admitted to gambling away $500,000 of donations meant for refugees.

Each year during Lent the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace makes its major push for funding, tapping the one source that not only keeps the organization afloat but also the only source of funding that can validate its existence — ordinary Canadian Catholics.

I was surprised recently to read that defunding Catholic schools was the leading piece of advice the Ontario Government had received so far in its budget consultations. And I couldn’t help thinking that just because you have a thought, an idea, a proposal, it doesn’t mean you have to say it out loud. And even if you feel compelled to utter it, forcing the rest of us to listen, it doesn’t mean we have to pay serious attention.