When public funding for private schools is proposed in Ontario, children with special education needs are usually the first group named. On the advocates’ own count, 57 of Ontario’s 1,445 independent schools emphasize special education. We traced the record — including the parts that cut against our own reading.
Special-ed schools
57 of 1,445
Things we did not find
6
Corrections issued
6
In brief
Quick summary
Ontario provides no direct public funding to private schools. That has not changed, and we found no plan to change it.
Proposals to change it are real and published. The narrowest version — funding only students with special education needs — was costed at $78 million to $195 million a year. Broader models were costed at $535.2 million to $1.539 billion.
On the advocates’ own count, 57 of 1,445 Ontario independent schools emphasize special education — 3.9% of the sector. There are 155 Montessori schools and 545 religious ones.
A funding entitlement is not a placement. Ontario private schools run no IPRC, owe no Individual Education Plan, seat no SEAC, and need not admit a child whose needs they decide they cannot meet.
We tested the theory that special education is being used as a deliberate wedge. It does not hold up — in every province that funds independent schools, general funding came first. We have published that against ourselves.
The number
Fifty-seven out of fourteen hundred and forty-five
In 2022, Cardus — an organization that argues for funding independent schools — published a count of Ontario’s independent-school sector. It is careful work, and it is the best public map of the sector that exists. It also answers a question its authors were not asking.
Of roughly 1,445 independent schools in Ontario as of July 2022, 57 emphasize special education. That is 3.9% of the sector. There are 545 religious schools. There are 155 Montessori schools — 2.7 times as many as there are special-education schools.
So when the case for public funding of private schools opens with children who have disabilities, it is opening with the constituency served by about four percent of the schools that would benefit from the precedent.
We want to be precise about what that does and does not establish. It does not establish bad faith, and we are not alleging any. Advocates lead with their strongest argument; that is what advocacy is. What it establishes is narrower and harder to argue with: our children are unusually persuasive in a debate whose outcome would mostly affect other people’s children.
Polling published in January 2026 puts a number on how persuasive. Asked whether government should fund children with special needs at independent schools, 64% of Albertans agreed. Asked whether government should expand education outside the public system generally, support fell to 39%.
The record
What has actually been proposed
Every item here is a public document, published under named authorship. Advocacy of this kind is entirely lawful, and nothing below suggests otherwise.
Government of Ontario (Progressive Conservative)
Equity in Education Tax Credit, announced in the 2001 Budget
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty
A refundable tax credit for parents paying independent-school tuition, phased in from 10% to 50% of the first 7,000 dollars of tuition, for a maximum credit of 3,500 dollars per child once fully phased in. Enacted as O. Reg. 498/01.
Costed at: The government of the day expected to forgo roughly $300 million in tax revenue at full phase-in.
The incoming government, elected on a promise to cancel the credit, repealed it retroactively to January 1, 2003. Ontario has provided no direct public funding to private schools before or since.
Funding Fairness for Students in Ontario with Special Education Needs
Deani Van Pelt, Ray Pennings and Taylor Jackson
That students with special education needs attending independent schools receive 75% or 50% of the per-pupil special education funding provided to public school students, on the argument that support for a child’s disability should follow the child rather than the school. The paper notes the 75% figure was previously proposed in a 2004 Fraser Institute paper by Hepburn and Mrozek.
Costed at: $78 million to $195 million a year at 75%; $52 million to $130 million at 50%.
Joint paper, ten named authors across several organizations
Modernizing and Streamlining Ontario’s Education System: Cutting Red Tape, Removing Barriers
Derek Allison, Patricia Allison, Barb Bierman, Justin Cook, Amanda Dervaitis, Tony Kamphuis, Ray Pennings, Ren Siebenga, Deani Van Pelt and Michael Van Pelt
Statutory recognition of independent schools, teachers and students; a streamlined notice-of-intention process; reduced or removed inspection fees; access to EQAO, special-education supports and dual-credit programs; and a ministerial commission on independent schools. It did NOT propose an operating-funding formula, education savings accounts, or vouchers.
Argues Ontario parents have less school choice than parents in other provinces and comparable jurisdictions, and makes the case for publicly supported choice in Ontario. We have not been able to retrieve the full report text, so its specific funding recommendations and cost estimate are not reproduced here.
Funding All Students: A Comparative Economic Analysis of the Fiscal Cost to Support Students in Ontario Independent Schools
David Hunt, Anointing Momoh and Deani Van Pelt
Models seven funding approaches for Ontario independent schools - full funding plus the Alberta, Saskatchewan (two variants), British Columbia, Manitoba and Quebec models - producing 21 cost estimates across three enrolment scenarios.
Costed at: Net annual cost of $535.2 million to $1.539 billion, which the report frames as roughly 0.3% to 0.8% of Ontario’s then-$186 billion budget.
On a communication brought by Arieh Hollis Waldman, whose children attended a Jewish day school, the Committee found that Ontario’s funding of Roman Catholic schools while denying comparable funding to other religious schools was discriminatory under Article 26 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, holding that funding one religious group and not another must rest on reasonable and objective criteria. The Committee’s views are not binding in Canadian law, and Ontario did not change its funding. A domestic Charter challenge had already failed in Adler v. Ontario, [1996] 3 S.C.R. 609.
Faith-based school funding collapses as an election issue
Progressive Conservative leader John Tory
The PC leader campaigned on extending public funding to faith-based schools. The proposal dominated and sank the campaign; the party’s vote share fell and Tory lost his own seat. He later acknowledged the mistake publicly. Advocacy since has been framed largely in equity and fairness terms rather than religious ones.
Naturally Diverse: The Landscape of Independent Schools in Ontario
David Hunt, Joanna DeJong VanHof and Jenisa Los
A typology of Ontario’s independent-school sector, published by an organization that supports funding it. It counts the schools, and in doing so establishes who the sector actually consists of.
Alberta Schools: Two-thirds say education system is ailing
Angus Reid Institute
Survey of 516 Alberta adults, fielded January 27-30, 2026. Found 64% support public funding for children with special needs attending an independent school, against 39% support (and 46% opposition) for expanding education outside the public system generally.
We went looking for hidden lobbying, political money, and a government commitment. We did not find them. Publishing that is the reason you can trust the rest of this page.
Is any of this being lobbied for behind closed doors?
Searched: Ontario’s Lobbyist Registry and the federal Registry of Lobbyists, for sixteen named organizations and individuals.
No registration was found for any of them on independent-school funding. One federal registration lists a Cardus executive as a client representative for an unrelated organization, and Edvance appears as a coalition organization on a separate federal filing - neither concerns Ontario school funding.
Recorded as “not found”, not as “did not happen”. These registries do not return reliable null results, so absence of a record is not proof of absence.
Is money flowing to political parties?
Searched: Elections Ontario and Elections Canada contribution databases, nine named individuals, 2014 to 2026.
No publicly displayed political contribution was found for any of them. Ontario law has also barred corporate and organizational contributions to parties and candidates since 2017, so even a personal donation could not be attributed to an organization without separate proof.
Recorded as “not found”, not as “did not happen”. These registries do not return reliable null results, so absence of a record is not proof of absence.
Has any governing party committed to this?
Searched: Ontario PC election platforms for 2018, 2022 and 2025.
No mention of independent-school funding, education savings accounts, vouchers, or "funding follows the student" in any of the three. A 2022 pledge to fund students regardless of school type came from the Ontario Party, a different party.
Has anyone tried to legislate it?
Searched: Ontario government bills and private members’ bills, 2018 to August 2026.
No bill was found that would create independent-school operating grants, vouchers, or education savings accounts.
Recorded as “not found”, not as “did not happen”. These registries do not return reliable null results, so absence of a record is not proof of absence.
Are advocates meeting ministers about this?
Searched: Public records of ministerial meetings, Hansard, and pre-budget consultation appearances, 2018 to 2026.
One ministerial meeting was documented - Cardus with then-Education Minister Stephen Lecce in December 2021 - and its published subject was a child-care agreement, not school funding. One meeting with a backbench MPP was recorded in Hansard in April 2024. No pre-budget appearance about independent-school funding was found.
What is Ontario’s actual policy?
Searched: Published Ontario government policy on private schools.
Unchanged. Private schools in Ontario operate as independent businesses or non-profits and receive no direct provincial funding. That has been the position throughout the period examined.
Against ourselves
What cuts against our own reading
There is an obvious theory here — that special education is a deliberate opening wedge for something broader. We tested it. It does not hold up, and here is why.
In every funded province, the sequence runs the other way.
If special-education funding were the natural opening wedge for broader independent-school funding, we would expect to see it come first somewhere. It does not. In Manitoba, Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan, general or religious funding was established first and special-education designations were added afterwards, on top of an existing framework. The historical analogy that makes the wedge theory intuitive actually runs backwards.
The broader goal is stated openly, in the same documents.
Cardus’s 2021 costing report says the equity reasoning that applies to students with special needs "rightly extends to students in religious communities." An organization running a concealed sequencing strategy would not publish the destination alongside the first step. Openness is weak evidence of concealment.
No document states a sequencing strategy.
Two rounds of searching found no primary document - from these organizations or their critics - describing special-education funding as a first step toward universal funding. Given how much of this advocacy is published, that absence carries some weight. It is not merely a failure to confirm.
A simpler explanation fits the same facts.
Advocates generally lead with their most winnable proposal. That is ordinary incremental politics, and it explains the publication record without anyone needing a covert plan. The equity argument for need-based rather than school-based funding also stands on its own terms, whatever one makes of it.
The chronology, province by province
If special education were the wedge, it would have come first somewhere. It did not.
Manitoba
General funding: Limited aid from 1965 (textbooks, transportation, shared facilities), rising to operating grants worth 50% of public per-pupil expenditure by 1997-98.
Special education: Special-needs support is an add-on grant to schools already funded.
Alberta
General funding: Public funding of private schools from 1967, beginning at $100 per student.
Special education: Designated Special Education Private Schools are a later designation layered on the existing framework.
British Columbia
General funding: Independent Schools Support Act, 1977 - initial grants of 9% or 30% of the per-student operating grant.
Special education: Private schools serving only special-education students were designated as Special Education Services beginning in 1991.
Saskatchewan
General funding: Associate schools and historical high schools funded from the mid-1990s; Qualified Independent Schools added in 2012.
Special education: Funding categories are defined by religion, history or general status - not by special education.
None of this makes the 57-of-1,445 figure less true. It means the right conclusion to draw from it is about who a policy would actually serve — not about what anyone secretly intends.
Corrections
Claims that did not survive checking
These circulate publicly. Some of them would have been useful to us. They are wrong, and saying so is cheaper than being corrected later.
Our own earlier reading: that special-education funding is being used deliberately as a sequenced entry point toward broader private-school funding.
We tested it. It does not hold up, and we are withdrawing it.
The rhetorical pattern is real - the special-education ask is smaller, earlier and harder to oppose than the universal one. But the causal story it implies is contradicted by the legislative history of all four funded provinces, where general funding came first. No primary document states such a strategy, and the broader goal is published openly rather than concealed. We had a version of this page that leaned on that reading. This is the correction.
The Ford government’s 2018 EY line-by-line spending review recommended funnelling public money to private schools.
Does not survive checking.
The report does not mention private schools, independent schools, vouchers or education savings accounts anywhere. Its actual language - that government should "consider alternate approaches to funding, including direct funding to individuals" - is generic, whole-of-government wording. The claim originated in a 2018 opposition news release interpreting that language.
A 2021 meeting between Cardus and the Education Minister concerned school funding.
Does not survive checking.
The meeting is real and documented, but its published subject was a flexible child-care agreement. We found nothing indicating school funding was discussed.
A March 2026 story about a 4-billion-dollar fund relates to private school funding.
Does not survive checking.
It concerns the Protect Ontario Account Investment Fund, an economic-development vehicle with no connection to education funding. The similarity was in headline phrasing only.
Catholic school trustees oppose independent-school funding.
Does not survive checking.
The Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association has no documented position on independent-school funding. Catholic boards are publicly governed statutory boards with constitutional protection, not private schools - a different issue entirely.
The Cardus special-education funding paper and its companion sector report are recent, and both address Ontario.
Partly wrong, corrected here.
The special-education funding paper is dated March 20, 2019, not 2023. The companion report "Toward a More Diverse and Resilient Education Sector" is dated March 2, 2020 and addresses Alberta, not Ontario. We corrected both before publishing.
The open question
The thing worth arguing about
Strip away the parts that did not check out, and a real question remains — one that deserves a better answer than either side has given it.
If public money followed a disabled child to a private school, would that child actually be better served? Private schools in Ontario are not bound by the Education Act’s identification and placement process, are not required to write an Individual Education Plan, have no Special Education Advisory Committee, and are not obliged to admit a child whose needs they decide they cannot meet. A funding entitlement that arrives without an admission right is not a placement.
That is the question we intend to keep asking, of anyone proposing this: not what it costs, but what a disabled child would actually be owed at the other end of it — and who they could complain to when it was not delivered.
We are still gathering comparative evidence on how funded independent schools in other jurisdictions serve students with disabilities relative to their public systems. We are not publishing figures we have not verified at source. When we have them, they will appear here.
No. Private schools in Ontario operate as independent businesses or non-profits and receive no direct provincial funding. Ontario briefly had an Equity in Education Tax Credit, enacted in 2001 and repealed retroactively to January 1, 2003. There has been no direct public funding before or since.
We found no evidence of that. No Ontario PC platform in 2018, 2022 or 2025 mentioned independent-school funding, vouchers or education savings accounts. We found no government or private member’s bill that would create them, and Ontario’s published policy remains no direct funding.
A proposal covering only students with special education needs costs far less than one covering all independent-school students — Cardus costed the special-education version at $78 million to $195 million a year, against $535.2 million to $1.539 billion for broader models. Polling published in January 2026 also found markedly higher public support when funding is framed around children with special needs (64%, against 39% for expanding education outside the public system generally). We tested whether this reflects a deliberate sequencing strategy and concluded it does not hold up: in every province that funds independent schools, general funding came first and special-education designations were added later.
57, as of July 2022, out of roughly 1,445 independent schools in Ontario — about 3.9% of the sector. That count comes from Cardus’s own 2022 typology, published by an organization that supports funding independent schools. By comparison, 545 schools are religious and 155 are Montessori.
A funding entitlement is not a placement. Ontario private schools do not run the Identification, Placement and Review Committee process, are not required to write an Individual Education Plan, do not have a Special Education Advisory Committee, and are under no obligation to admit a child whose needs they decide they cannot meet. Money that follows a child to a school that need not accept them, and need not accommodate them once there, is not an entitlement the family can enforce.
Fraser Institute · 2020-09-08 · Community source · Tier 3 · Advocacy Organization
Author Derek J. Allison. Report text was not retrievable at time of writing; its specific recommendations and costings are deliberately not reproduced.
Authors David Hunt, Joanna DeJong VanHof and Jenisa Los. Source for the composition of Ontario’s independent-school sector, including the count of schools emphasizing special education as of July 2022.
Angus Reid Institute, in partnership with Cardus · 2026-01-30 · Research source · Tier 2 · Parent Survey
Last verified: 2026-08-04
Citable facts from this page(3)
What did the 2026 Ontario Auditor General find about special education?
Verified
Tabled May 12, 2026, the Auditor General's Special Report on Special Education Needs found 65% of placement decisions had no written rationale, 90%+ of IEP goals lacked measurable criteria, education assistants absent on 18% of school days (49-72% unfilled), and only 21% of inclusive-classroom teachers could meet most students' needs. It made 15 recommendations; the Ministry disagreed with 2.
Source: Auditor General of Ontario, Special Report on Special Education Needs (May 12, 2026) · Open source record
How often are education-assistant absences left unfilled in Ontario schools?
Verified
Education assistants were absent on an average of 18% of school days across the three audited boards, and 49-72% of those absences went unfilled by a qualified replacement. EAs handle day-to-day behaviour support, personal care, and IEP implementation; when an absence is not filled, that support disappears for the day.
Source: Auditor General of Ontario, Special Report on Special Education Needs (May 12, 2026) · Open source record
What rights do autistic students have in Ontario schools?
Verified
In Ontario, students with autism have the right to an Individual Education Plan (IEP) and reasonable accommodations without a formal diagnosis, based on need. Parents can request an IPRC meeting to identify their child as 'exceptional', guaranteeing specific rights to support services.