55 Private Schools, Including Four Jewish Day School, to Receive Provincial Aid

The Province of Manitoba will extend financial aid to the province’s 55 private and parochial schools within a year, Premier Edward Schreyer announced. Four Jewish day schools, all located here, will receive assistance under the plan. The question of government aid has been a controversial issue in Manitoba since 1890, when the provincial government stopped its support of the French and Roman Catholic schools of the French Canadian minority who were the earliest settlers. There were unconfirmed reports that the three Jewish ministers of Schreyer’s New Democratic Party (moderate Socialist) Cabinet had opposed such support, though one of them, Saul Cherniack, Q.C., is himself a graduate and a former president of the I.L. Peretz Day School and another, Saul Miller, sends his children to a Jewish day school. Miller, the Minister of Education, earlier had stated that the government did not plan legislation on this issue in the current year–a statement now contradicted by the Premier’s announcement. The Premier’s statement may increase the pressure for aid to private and parochial schools in the Province of Outario, which will go to the polls in provincial elections within the year.