Brendan Cavanagh on Montreal’s Loyola High School declining public funding

Full text of a response to the Register by Brendan Cavanagh, executive director of the Alberta Catholic School Trustees' Association, to a story by Quinton Amundson and ensuing letters to the editor regarding the decision by Montreal’s Loyola High School to decline public funding in order to protect its Catholic character.

The principled decision of Loyola High School to remain true to the mission of Catholic education is to be lauded. On the matter of public funding, however, it is important for Canadian Catholics to reflect critically on any dichotomy that pits mission fidelity against ‘government’ funding. 

Since the founding of this country, the religious minorities have asserted their right to public funding for faith-based schools. As Catholics, let us not forget that the Church teaches not only that parents are the primary educators of their children, but also that the State also ought to support parents in fulfilling their role as such (see Canon 793 §2). 

This is a matter of natural justice that finds sympathy across political and denominational boundaries. After all, why should families be compelled to contribute to an education system whose approach to education, values, and worldview may conflict with their most deeply held convictions? Meanwhile, those same families are expected to pay privately for the faith-based education they desire for their children. At Loyola, we are told that may amount to $20,000 per year per child. Parents who can’t afford it may have little practical choice but to send their children to be formed by the assumptions and values transmitted at public schools. 

Families who choose homeschooling likewise face significant financial and practical burdens that are not shared by families whose beliefs and values align with those of the secular system. Canadian Catholics should not view this erosion of religious freedom with resignation – particularly with a heritage such as ours, where public funding for faith-based education has been a foundational piece of the pluralistic compromise upon which our nation was built (see section 93 of the Constitution Act, 1867). 

In this sense, the complete elimination of funding for faith-based schools represents a serious departure from the national norm. Catholics and other people of faith across Canada must become more vocal and politically engaged in response to these increasingly frequent challenges to religious and parental rights. Such rights and freedoms were not won in this country by passivity, and passivity is certainly not going to maintain them. Once this inheritance is lost, it will be much more difficult to recover. Loyola is right to prioritize its Catholic mission, but Catholics should not accept the false choice between Catholic mission and public funding.

Government funding does not have to mean government control; it can instead be understood as civil society’s support for parents' right to choose an education for their children that is consistent with their convictions. The far more critical factor for mission fidelity is availability of faithful teachers and school leadership. 

The question is not whether Catholic schools must choose between receiving provincial dollars and respecting their mission, but whether public policy in Canada is still capable of supporting educational pluralism without requiring religious schools to surrender the very identity that makes them distinct. 

A version of this article appeared in the November 15, 2026 issue of The Catholic Register.