We heard fr
om many people, and these were some of the comments we heard: Roman Catholic a
nd Pentecostals who want reform but have no v
oice as their church bodies reflect an official position, and do not allow opportunity for individual expression; teachers in the Roman Catholic system who signed a petition in favour of reform, and wanted to circulate it in their schools but were afraid to for fear of losing their jobs; Roman Catholic and Pentecostal
...[+++]parents who signed the petition and encouraged us to continue because they have no way of expressing their views through their schools; elderly people who went to the trouble of voting in the referendum because they considered this to be such an important issue, and who now feel that their rights are being violated because the " yes" vote they cast is not being acted upon; Roman Catholic parents who refused to ever send their children to a school in the Roman Catholic system; parents of the non-affiliated religions in this province whose rights under the current system are nonexistent; parents of children within the Roman Catholic system who have been asked to sign and send back to their schools forms stating whether or not they would prefer to stay in the Roman Catholic system, parents who have told us that they have felt intimidated by this and have signed agreement for fear their children might be adversely impacted if they did otherwise; people who, as children, were forced to attend schools many miles away while their neighbourhood friends attended the school across the road, which would not accept them because they were the wrong religion; parents who are now forced into the same segregationist situation with their own children, putting them on a school bus in the morning for a trip of perhaps 45 minutes or more because the school across the street, where all their neighbourhood friends go, will not accept them on religious grounds, and because there is no room left for them at the bottom of the ...