Every November, Operation Christmas Child asks parents and families to fill shoeboxes with toys and gifts to deliver to children in the developing world. While seemingly well-intentioned, these gifts are not freely given and are instead a tool to proselytize to a captive audience. The BC Humanist Association calls on...

Calling the funding contrary to the province's duty of religious neutrality, the BC Humanist Association today called on the province's finance committee to phase out the public funding of private schools in the next provincial budget.

Every year the BC government provides hundreds of millions of dollars in public funding to private schools, including elite prep schools. Given that BC’s public education system has been severely underfunded for most of the past two decades—and is still failing to adequately support students with special needs—this use of public resources...

Spend a bit of time looking through the websites of some of BC's independent schools and it's easy to find schools that proudly teach Biblical creationism alongside evolution in science classrooms. Independent schools that receive public money are required to teach the BC curriculum, which includes the scientific reality of...

Christian and Catholic groups are receiving a disproportionate amount of BC's Independent School funding, according to an analysis released by the BC Humanist Association today. Ian Bushfield, Executive Director, BC Humanist Association: Last week we showed how BC's Office of Independent Schools has been overseen by evangelical Christians for three...

The Office of the Inspector of Independent Schools, a department of the Ministry of Education, is responsible for the oversight of independent schools. Janet Steffenhagen’s thorough reporting in the Vancouver Sun in 2007 found that every inspector of those schools going back to the 1980s was connected to an Evangelical...

As students return to schools across the province today, so will the nearly half a billion dollars that continue to flow to private schools in BC. The Province of British Columbia currently provides private schools (also called independent schools) with public funding equivalent to up to 50% of the funding...

By Samuel E. Trosow, Western University and Bill Irwin, Western University There is a pressing need to consolidate Ontario’s separate and public school systems. Long ignored by most politicians, this controversial idea deserves a fresh and serious policy discussion — especially now, with the new Ontario government contemplating cuts to...

Humanists are disappointed that today's provincial budget continues the multimillion dollar giveaway to independent faith schools across the province. Budget 2018 estimates that independent schools across BC will receive over $425 million in public funding for 2018/19. Independent schools across BC can qualify for up to 50% of the per-student...

All schools and Provincial schools must be conducted on strictly secular and non-sectarian principles. The highest morality must be inculcated, but no religious dogma or creed is to be taught in a school or Provincial school. This section of British Columbia's School Act was written in 1876 and is, as...