Yesterday, as I'm sure you well know, was the first day of school.
As the education reporter here at The News, I was required to wake up at an ungodly hour in order to get to a new Mississauga public school, McKinnon P.S., for 8 a.m. Why it's necessary to start school, or work, so early, I'm not entirely sure, but I think it has something to do with hating and torturing students and employees. It is, I imagine, a conspiracy to keep the young and the working class oppressed, by keeping them too tired to revolt.
But I digress.
Standing on the tarmac of McKinnon Public School at 8 a.m. after a long weekend, was, despite the early hour, inspirational.
Going to schools in Mississauga nearly always is.
First, a little context.
I'm an immigrant. I'm not a real immigrant, though. I'm white, and don't have an accent. So, even though I didn't become a Canadian citizen until I was a teenager, no one I meet would ever question my Canadian-ness.
Only once in my life have I been a victim of racism. It was when Simon, a fellow classmate in elementary school, followed me around the school yard calling me "Scottie dog," making fun of my Scottish heritage.
I put up with it for a short while, but as we crossed the playground behind Sunningdale Public School in Oakville, I lost my temper and I punched him in the stomach. He fell to the ground and began crying. To this day, it's the only time, outside of a hockey arena, I have ever punched someone with the intention of hurting them.
So, aside from that, I never had to put up with racism personally.
I do, however, remember watching racism.
At Sunningdale, at the time, there were very few visible minorities. It was a school of nearly exclusively white kids like me.
Then a new kid showed up. He was Korean, and he knew very little English. The kids in his class would circle him, and they would teach him swear words, and everyone would laugh when he repeated them. These confrontations were never violent, and the Korean kid appeared to like making his peers laugh. Regardless, it certainly wasn't right.
It did turn slightly violent when another kid showed up. He was a brown kid, and, even though he was born in Mississauga and even though his command of the English language was superior to that of his classmates, he was bullied. The kids who used to teach the Korean kid how to swear in English taught the same kid to chase the brown kid around the playground, tormenting him. This went on for weeks.
I don't remember what I thought about it then, but I was, thanks to the shyness of my childhood, relieved of years of guilt by not taking part.
I doubt racism will ever completely die, even in Canada, but standing on the tarmac of McKinnon Public School Tuesday morning made me think that those scenes played out behind Sunningdale will likely never be repeated in Mississauga, or in modern-day Oakville.
A Korean kid or a brown kid in a classroom is not a novelty.
In fact, when you scan the faces at schools in the GTA today, it is the perfect picture of the Canadian Dream - these are places where there are no minorities because there is no majority.
Provided you buy into the ideal of multiculturalism - and I do; I think it's the best policy the Canadian government has ever come up with - you can't help but be heartened by seeing the kids in these schools.
And it made me rethink my position on John Tory's plan to fund faith-based schools in Ontario.
Previously, I had written in this space that I thought Tory, though he's going about it the wrong way, is at least trying to fix the problem of discrimination in our education system. McGuinty and Hampton are simply pretending there isn't a problem, that it's okay to fund schools for one religious group and not others. They do know it is a problem, though. They're not so stupid they would actually believe otherwise.
There are two solutions to the problem - offer funding to all faith-based schools, as Tory is promising to do, or stop funding Catholic schools.
Even if Tory's plan goes through, I don't believe every single Muslim will end up in a Muslim public school, nor do I think every Sikh will end up in a Sikh public school. But I think there will be an enrolment increase at religious schools. And that's a bad thing.
Here's what McGuinty should promise to do. Politically, it's a good idea, and morally, too.
Go to the people. Promise a referendum on the issue. It has become a significant enough issue in this campaign that there is obviously a need now for an answer to the question of what schools we should fund.
McGuinty should say that because of the increased interest from the public, if he's re-elected, he will hold a referendum in his first two years on whether or not the Province should fund faith-based education. If the public says we shouldn't, the Legislature must vote to amend the Constitution and get us out of funding Catholic schools. If the public says we should fund faith-based schools, then we use Tory's plan.
That would get McGuinty out of the mess he's in, and it would neutralize any of the power Tory's promise has.
And it would make me happy. I want everyone in the same school system. It's the best thing for our province. The more familiar we are with people who are different colours, or who have different accents, or who wear religious gear, then the more we will be able to relate to one another, and the harder it will be to insult one another, and to bully one another.
As I said, watching the kids line up outside McKinnon PS yesterday morning made me rethink Tory's stance.
I still support it, but only by default, and I really, really wish a party with a chance of forming the government would give me an alternative.