This book is an essential tool for those interested in the vital relationship between international human rights law and domestic policy. It explores this subject in the context of public funding for religious education in Canada, an area of controversy for well over a hundred years.
This work provides in one volume a unique set of source documents concerning the legal and political history of religious education in a multicultural environment and especially in Ontario, Canada’s largest province. It makes available for the first time a complete set of documents concerning the international litigation which has occurred between the Canadian government and its citizens, who have been seriously affected by entrenched religious discrimination.
An introductory essay provides an overview of how religious discrimination forms the backbone of Ontario’s education system. Having failed to remedy such discrimination in Canadian courts, the UN Human Rights Committee provided a mechanism to address this breach of Canada’s international legal obligations. The volume is an expose of the process and the consequences of international human rights litigation before the UN Committee, and will be of special interest to others seeking to take cases of human rights violations forward to the international level.
Canadian policy makers and analysts will consider this collection an invaluable resource for future consideration of the public funding of religious education in Canada, still unresolved after 135 years.