A strong case can be made for the proposition that the four most important words of modern Jewish history are: “We have not yet lost our hope.” (“Od loh avdah tikvateinu.”) Those words are not merely a roadside instruction for GAJE. They are the driving force that inspires our efforts to bring end the discrimination in educational funding in Ontario. They need to be because the wheels of justice are turning exceedingly slowly.
A brief summary of the timeline of the GAJE lawsuit tells the story.
In February 2025, three years will have elapsed since GAJE brought an application in court to compel the Government of Ontario to act fairly, without preference to only one religion, in its educational funding. Yet even today, even after almost three years, we are still not even in the “batter’s box” able to swing at the government’s legal pitches on the merits of our case.
The government responded to our February 2022 application by attempting to have it thrown out of court. In August 2023, one and a half years later, Judge Eugenia Papageorgiou rendered a 46-page decision that refused to agree with the government. She decided that GAJE’s case is worthy of proceeding to a full airing because it raises important legal, constitutional and societal issues.
Rather than accept Judge Papageorgiou’s decision, the government persisted in trying to have GAJE’s application tossed out of court. Queen’s Park was (and is) unwilling to allow a comprehensive legal discussion to bring forward the best possible educational funding policy for Ontarians for this day and age.
On September 10 of this year, a three-member panel of the Divisional Court agreed with the Province of Ontario. Our case was dismissed. Now, GAJE must receive the permission of the Court of Appeal to set aside the Divisional Court’s ruling.
GAJE brought a motion for leave to appeal. Our legal team filed our legal factum at the end of October. We now await the response of the government. After it is filed in the next weeks, we will await hearing whether the Court of Appeal will have granted us leave to appeal the Divisional Court’s decision that dismissed our case.
GAJE believes that the case is strong. It follows legal precedent. We also believe that the case is important for the people of Ontario. It raises matters of wide general interest and public policy importance.
As our legal team asserts, the issues in GAJE’s case “involve legal concepts of constitutional interpretation, as well as the scope of freedom of religion and the right to be treated equally before and under the law.”
Is equal treatment in education a meaningful value in Ontario in 2024? GAJE asserts that it must be.
If it is, should the Constitution of Canada not acknowledge it? Should the Constitution of Canada not operate in a manner consistent with that value, in a manner that demonstrates the full embrace of equality for everyone?
How can it be appropriate that a constitutional provision enacted in 1867 specifically to protect minority education rights in Ontario and in Quebec, is now being wielded by the Government of Ontario to deny minority educational rights in 2024? It is not.
Does the fact that Quebec abandoned the constitutional provision some years ago, not cast Ontario’s obstinate refusal to end the discrimination in educational funding in an inexplicably unjust and unkind light? It does.
Our fervent hope is that the Court of Appeal will agree with GAJE to grant us the right to appear in the batter’s box, in a subsequent hearing, to argue the case on its merits.
Though the wheels turn exceedingly slowly, we have not lost hope. Nor will we ever.
•••
If you wish to contribute to GAJE’s lawsuit for fairness in educational funding, please click here.
For further information, please contact Israel Mida at: imida1818@gmail.com
Charitable receipts for donations for income tax purposes will be issued by Mizrachi Canada. Your donations will be used for the sole purpose of underwriting the costs of the lawsuit.
•••
Shabbat shalom. Am Yisrael Chai
Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education (GAJE)
November 15, 2024
Grassroots for Affordable Jewish Education 