No, We Like Jews. Really.

And a secondary mention today, no less deserved but a bit overshadowed perhaps, Québec Premier Jean Charest.

I an ill-conceived, ill-advised, and un-consulted move, he’s unilaterally decided to fully fund Jewish private schools. The idea is to be more inclusive, to make them feel fully welcome in Québec society.

Let’s disregard that it was probably less than an hour before the Muslim schools demanded equal treatment and that he should expect every religious or ethnic group that has private schools to put their hands out as well. Charest’s heart is in the right place (otherwise he’d keel over), but I’m not too sure about the brain. This wasn’t very well thought out. If you want society to be more inclusive educationally, I’d think the best way to do it would be to make the public schools more welcoming and inclusive to all groups so that so many of those groups wouldn’t find it necessary to have their own private schools. Translation: more money into public education. (This would, by the way, take a lot of the money that goes into public school tuition and put it back out into the rest of the economy.)

The loud criticisms and angry cries of “Foul!” probably started far less than an hour after the announcement, quite likely even before the announcement finished airing, and in more than just our two official languages. My guess is that it will be less than 72 hours before he flip-flops. Considerably less.

And let’s not forget that Québec public education is as under-funded as it is in Ontario. Give the public school more money, you Tool.