How Faith-Based Funding Cursed This Election

By Gary Morton October.6.2007

    Faith-based funding or public schools, the issue was raised and it died during the 2007 Ontario provincial election campaign. Many of us still wonder why the news media picked up the issue with such ferocity and why all else was nearly forgotten.

    NDP leader Howard Hampton probably expressed the feelings of most of us when he lost it and attacked the media with his “Don’t You Care!” tirade. Meaning don’t you people care about anything else … this whole election has become like a broken record playing the same line repeatedly.

    How did it happen? Well, unfortunately I was a small part of the cause. PC leader John Tory announced his plan for faith-based funding well before the election. I noticed it and so did many other citizens with a tendency to write or blog. I quickly did a point by point article opposing faith-based and published it on my web site. I sent it out to the major media outlets, hoping to see it published or that it would have influence. At that time I thought the faith-based issue would be ignored and slip through. I also emailed it to all MPPs

    Nobody wanted to publish my article, but I got replies to the effect that it was an important issue and key reporters, journalists and columnists would be covering it. They decide the issue was too big for a little guy like me.

    A long time ago I listened to former Toronto Mayor John Sewell speak on media issues. He said it is very hard to get the media to pick up on a story and invest resources, but once they do decide to invest they will milk that story to the max and you’ll get top exposure on the issue.

    That’s what happened. The media had faith in pubic anger on the faith-based issue and swallowed it whole. Dalton McGuinty’s Liberals saw profit in the whole deal and led the hypnotized media by the nose with announcements and campaign events … and in the end, even after faith-based funding died as a possibility for any elected government; the media coverage ran on like a bull out of control.

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