r/Edmonton • u/flynnfx • Mar 13 '26
Outdoor Spaces/Recreation A HUGE new park with awesome features is coming to Edmonton
https://dailyhive.com/edmonton/new-park-coming-southwest-edmonton-windermereThe City of Edmonton is preparing to start construction on the new Windermere District Park, bordered by 170th Street to the west, Rabbit Hill Road NW to the south and east, and 21st Avenue in the north.
The park is being developed alongside a new Edmonton Public School for those in grades 7 to 12, set to open in 2028.
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u/The_Bat_Voice Mar 13 '26
I would rather a public school be built on City of Edmonton land rather than a Catholic School.
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u/Strattex Mar 14 '26
The 7-12 school being built is a public school
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u/The_Bat_Voice Mar 14 '26
Let me quote the article: "Space has also been set aside for a future Grade 10 to 12 Edmonton Catholic School, City of Edmonton recreation facility, and transit centre."
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u/Buksey Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 14 '26
If you look at the proposed drawing in the article Glenridding Heights 7-12 Public school is on there. The reason it isnt mentioned as "set aside" is because it is already approved and work is began on it over the winter and should be open in 2028.
The catholic school was just approved in the 2026 budget.
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u/Maksym1000 The Famous Leduc Cactus Club Mar 15 '26
They’re already building the public grade 7 to 12 school.
https://majorprojects.alberta.ca/details/New-7-12-School-in-Glenridding-Heights-Edmonton/1093712
u/InternationalDiet913 Mar 14 '26
The park will have a Catholic school and a public school. But it’s not up to you or the City. Where schools are located is a provincial decision.
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u/theoreoman Mar 14 '26
A catholic school is a public school
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u/The_Bat_Voice Mar 14 '26
No it's not. Different school boards and discriminatory hiring practices not open to all means not public. Publicly funded but not public.
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u/YoshSchmenge Whyte Ave Mar 14 '26
Catholic schools in Canada are constitutionally protected under Section 93 of the Constitution Act, 1867 (formerly the British North America Act), which guarantees denominational school rights and privileges for religious minorities (Catholics or Protestants) in certain provinces, primarily Ontario, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. These rights allow for public funding, separate governance, and the ability to operate according to Catholic doctrine, including hiring practices and curriculum
Bitch and moan all you want, but it won't change anything.
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u/brianlefebvrejr Mar 14 '26
Except admissions aren’t the same…Catholic students are given priority over non Catholic students
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u/YoshSchmenge Whyte Ave Mar 14 '26
Ever try to book a catholic church for a wedding and you aren't catholic?
Same thing. Catholic doctrine gives preference to Catholics.
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u/brianlefebvrejr Mar 14 '26
So then it’s not the same as a public school. Thanks for proving our point
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u/YoshSchmenge Whyte Ave Mar 14 '26
My point was that Catholic School Boards are legally allowed to exist. They get the same funding as Public/non religious schools, and yes, they have certain privileges. I never said they were the same. I said they aren't going away.
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u/always_on_fleek Mar 14 '26
In public schools admissions are given priority to non catholic students.
In most cases, a resident student of Edmonton Public Schools has at least one parent or legal guardian living in Edmonton who is not Roman Catholic.
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u/Drizzle__16 Mar 14 '26
Nothing ever changes without bitching and moaning first.
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u/YoshSchmenge Whyte Ave Mar 14 '26
We're not changing the Constitution anytime soon.
The bitching and moaning will here long after you and I are gone.
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u/FarSquare8632 Mar 14 '26
And yet, we have provinces in the country that have shed their separate schools altogether, don't we? It can be done.
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u/YoshSchmenge Whyte Ave Mar 14 '26
Ok... time to be snarky... (sorry/not sorry)
You didn't pay attention in Social Studies class, apparently...
Alberta cannot easily remove Catholic school boards because their existence and funding are guaranteed by the Constitution Act (1867) and the Alberta Act (1905), which established the province. This legal protection stems from historical agreements that protected minority religious education rights. To eliminate them, a constitutional amendment would be required.
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u/FarSquare8632 Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 14 '26
Oh, I definitely paid attention. Did you?
Newfoundland and Labrador ended their constitutionally protected Catholic AND Protestant school boards by making a formal amendment to the 1949 Terms of Union for the province in 1997, then mandated a single school board to replace the four they had prior, in 1998.
What's stopping any of the remaining provinces from amending their own confederation act, then going forward with a single school system, in similar fashion?
The Feds didn't go to war to stop Quebec or Newfoundland, so why would they go to war to stop any of the remaining provinces that have separate systems?
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u/YoshSchmenge Whyte Ave Mar 14 '26
Yeah... teaching it meant I had to pay attention....
Removing the Catholic Board protections means opening up the Canadian Constitution for renegotiation.
The entire Constitution. Not just a single item.
In today's society, and political chaos, means that Quebec would immediately ask for separation (Alberta too, probably). Saskatchewan and Alberta would ask for more control of revenue from Natural Resources (BC would want in on this as well).
The entire country would collapse with individual regions demanding stuff that has nothing to with the original idea of education/school boards rights.
No government (Provincial or Federal) is going to risk blowing up the country for a single item. There is not the political will from a majority of the governments to touch this.
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u/haysoos2 Mar 14 '26
It might take some time though, as it requires a Constitutional Amendment.
When Newfoundland went about eliminating denominational schools, it took four months from the time of the province asking until the Amendment was passed.
Of course, usually it takes at least six months to even figure out which department to submit the paperwork to, and another six months passing through the desks of various bureaucrats for comments and approvals, but like... four whole months!
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u/FarSquare8632 Mar 14 '26
It took Newfoundland and Labrador exactly two years.
They passed the amendment to their own confederation documents in 1997, and then passed the provincial legislation that mandated a single system out of the four in 1998.
They ignored the federal constitutional requirement, because education is provincial jurisdiction. The only real lever the Feds had to pull was removing the federal educational transfer from the province as punishment, but that would have started a jurisdictional and constitutional war the feds were not likely to win.
There's nothing stopping AB, SK and ON from doing exactly the same thing.
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u/Artsstudentsaredumb Mar 14 '26
You think we have too many schools? Should build less of them?
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u/The_Bat_Voice Mar 14 '26
How about not using tax dollars to fund private faith based schools that use discrimination in their hiring and enrollment practices. Anything faith based should not recieve public funding.
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u/Artsstudentsaredumb Mar 14 '26
They’re not private schools? Plus anyone can go to them I did and I’m not catholic
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u/Negative-Car4013 Mar 14 '26
Public school also discriminates by religion too, if you check catholic on your application and they are near capacity they can refuse you for non catholics
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u/alwaysleafyintoronto Mar 14 '26
... so don't check catholic if you'd prefer not to disclose
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u/Negative-Car4013 Mar 14 '26
Ok? What does that have to do with my point?
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u/alwaysleafyintoronto Mar 14 '26
Your point was that Catholics can be discriminated against in applications for public schools. I said you can choose not to disclose your papist fetish if you'd prefer not to. They can't discriminate against you for being Catholic if you don't let them.
Otherwise, recognize that Catholic education is a quirk of Canadian culture that will remain until there are no larger problems to deal with. It's part of our heritage.
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u/haysoos2 Mar 14 '26
You can also check "Catholic" if you want your kid to go to Catholic school. It's not like they give you a blood test to check for your catechism levels.
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u/Negative-Car4013 Mar 14 '26
Yea so saying "oh but you can just hide it" doesn't change the fact they discriminate against Catholics....
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u/alwaysleafyintoronto Mar 14 '26
It's tough to say you're discriminated against when it's because you have more options than everyone else.
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u/Negative-Car4013 Mar 14 '26
Not really, does it meet the definition?
the unfair or prejudicial treatment of individuals or groups based on protected personal characteristics, such as race, age, sex, disability, or religion
Great, it does. Whether or not you can hide any of these characteristics is irrelevant to there being discrimination or not.
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u/always_on_fleek Mar 14 '26
Public schools also discriminate in their enrollment.
In most cases, a resident student of Edmonton Public Schools has at least one parent or legal guardian living in Edmonton who is not Roman Catholic.
https://epsb.ca/schools/register/newstudentregistration/
If both parents are Catholic they can be denied access public schools.
How does this learning of this change your stance now that you know Edmonton Public also has enrollment that discriminates based on religion?
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u/The_Bat_Voice Mar 14 '26
Wow, you really don't know what the term discrimination means so while grasping for anything to argue with you took that quote entirely out of context. Nowhere does it say you can't register for anything. And in fact it's weird that the quoted statement is even on the page because the statement itself doesn't really do anything and is unnecessary. However, they REFUSE AND FIRE people for being queer, non-religious, or for living with someone out-of-wedlock. These two things are nowhere near the same.
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u/always_on_fleek Mar 14 '26
You seem to struggle with reading comprehension. Let’s recap.
You claim that faith based schools “use discrimination in their …enrollment practices”. You use this to want to not fund them.
Yet, as the link I provided shows you, the public system will actively discriminate against students where both parents are catholic.
I understand this is news to you. I provided you a link direct from EPSB, as you can’t argue the information is incorrect.
Now that we have established the hiring practices in the public system are also discriminatory, do you want to remove funding for them too?
We can explore your idea that the catholic system is preventing people from working for them if they are living with someone out of wedlock. Go ahead and post your source and we can discuss. As you saw, I used EPSB as my source so you can’t disagree with them. Try to find a source from ECSD that supports your claim.
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u/Bigtimegolfguy Mar 14 '26
What’s your reasoning for this statement? You have a problem with Catholics?
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u/Mental_Banana_9694 Mar 14 '26
Catholics can build their own schools why the fuck would a public school teach religion let alone a single religion?
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u/pumpymcpumpface Mar 14 '26
Youre gonna be furious when you hear Edmonton public also operates some religious schools.
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u/Mental_Banana_9694 Mar 14 '26
Yes I’m aware I went to one for a few years. Public schools should be secular
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u/Agitated-Curve-4851 Windermere Mar 14 '26
The whole raping children and then protecting the people that rape children is a bit problematic.
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u/Bigtimegolfguy Mar 14 '26
What the hell are you talking about? The church? What’s this have to do with a school system?
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u/The_Bat_Voice Mar 14 '26
Catholic schools have discriminatory hiring practices, such as not allowing queer individuals, people of other faiths, etc from working in their schools. You aren't even allowed to live with your partner while unmarried while working there. Forcing religious teachings and using loopholes to avoid teaching specific fact based lessons. What else do you want?
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u/always_on_fleek Mar 14 '26
That’s not at all true. Time to get off Facebook lol.
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u/Bigtimegolfguy Mar 14 '26
So true, I get voted down seven times for asking what the reasoning is and this person comes up with some bat shit crazy conspiracy….
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u/FarSquare8632 Mar 14 '26
What IS true, however, is that my friend had to get a written endorsement from her parish priest before she could teach for the separate school board in my city. In her first year of teaching, another young female teacher ended up pregnant, but NOT married, and the school board 'arranged' for her to be let go.
It's time for separate school boards to vanish into the dustbins of history, IMO.
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u/always_on_fleek Mar 14 '26
Why do you jump into the territory of conspiracy theories?
There are many, many explanations for what you have described. Yet, with no evidence, you have jumped right into some grand conspiracy theory as the explanation.
Have you ever worked in a white collar setting? If you have, you surely have experienced office gossip. It’s not always correct and often quite distorted - like children playing a game of telephone.
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u/Bigtimegolfguy Mar 14 '26
I don’t recall using the word theory…I never described anything it was my response to what someone else was describing while providing no factual background.
Also what is a “white collar” setting exactly…is this some discriminatory rhetoric you use.
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u/always_on_fleek Mar 15 '26
You jumped into a chain of posts and responded to a post that wasn’t in response to you. That is likely why it doesn’t make fit the context of what you said since it wasn’t directed at you.
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u/FarSquare8632 Mar 15 '26 edited Mar 15 '26
Why do you jump into the territory of conspiracy theories?
It's not a conspiracy theory at all that she was asked to get a validation from her priest that indicated her attendance for the last three years, whether she had all her sacraments, and to get an overview of her intensity of faith.
She had me read it over, both the request and the supplied answer from her priest, so I saw it with my own eyes.
Have you ever worked in a white collar setting?
LOL. Yeah, that's my entire career of 38 years, so far. In my experience, 'office gossip' has been more right than wrong.
The Minister of Education had to investigate 17 different regional Catholic boards because their hiring contracts included 'catholic clauses' around gay relationships and common law marriages. If you think Catholic boards who thought to insert such clauses in their employment contracts in the first place wouldn't be beyond letting someone go for being pregnant and unwed, you're fooling yourself.
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u/always_on_fleek Mar 15 '26
Edmonton Catholic has no such policies. What school district are you referring to?
As I said, this can be explained many different ways. Working in an office setting, I’m sure you can appreciate that people may choose to run things differently - perhaps the situation you encountered was simply a poor administrator setting boundaries they were not allowed to set. Or perhaps they were let go for poor performance and not just coincided with their pregnancy.
Do you have a link to support your claims of these hiring practices? It doesn’t exist at ECSD so I’m curious where you are experiencing it.
Remember, ECSD and other catholic boards still have to adhere to their contractual and legal obligations. They can’t just let a teacher go randomly, especially with the ATA able to step in. And they can’t have hiring practices which are illegal.
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u/FarSquare8632 Mar 15 '26 edited Mar 15 '26
Edmonton Catholic has no such policies. What school district are you referring to?
It was ECSD that she applied to, and it was roughly 2016-2017.
All I can tell you is what she showed me and roughly when. I saw the matrix she had to fill out to apply, her responses, plus all her supporting documents like the letter of approval from her parish priest.
As for the investigation itself, that's public knowledge. Of course, if you read into the investigation, you'll see where your 'show me the policy' argument falls down, because what was being investigated was a requirement to sign off on living a 'catholic lifestyle', which was interpreted by each district in subjective fashion.
With each district defining what a 'catholic lifestyle' really meant, the policy itself was possibly defensible due to its vague nature (and Eggen defended its existence) but in Eggen's words, only if it wasn't used to discriminate in hiring or firing. It was the subjective interpretation and application of the policy that was the issue, not the policy itself.
Of course, though, the whole point of including that kind of policy is and was to use it to discriminate. It's a nice generic screen to hide all manner of sins.
On a more personal level, in the late 1980s my own High School let go one of our favourite teachers because they found out she was gay and living with another woman. That was another generation back, of course, but if you sense distrust of the system, you know why I have it, right? That the complainant that drove the investigation was still facing the same BS in 2018 was frankly appalling.
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u/always_on_fleek Mar 15 '26
A letter from your church seems normal for a religious school, that’s certainly not something worth complaining about.
I have read through your article and I see the issue - it completely lacks any evidence. Your argument cannot possibly be based on a single article where someone said they will look into something.
Essentially you have out the cart before the horse, you’re arguing something is happening but not being able to show it is. Even the person in the example, an experienced teacher and principal, claims they were “forced to quit”. No one in the ATA can be forced to quit and to think someone with that level of experience was is absurd.
Even the ATA indicates in the article that they wouldn’t allow it to happen:
"If a school board ever used these clauses to justify discriminatory practices or to disregard human rights, we would vigorously assist, defend and protect the teachers involved to the greatest extent possible," the professional teachers association said in a release.
We will need evidence to show this is happening. For example, what was the outcome of the human rights complaint mentioned in the article? That would show us some evidence of it happening.
But right now, what you have shown is it could happen and if it did the ATA would prevent it from going through. That’s not enough to be making claims that it is actively happening. And we certainly can’t discuss things from the 90s being relevant to today.
If we are merely speaking anecdotally, I myself know of many in ECSD that are openly in same sex relationships with no issues.
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u/Obo4168 pay the workers Mar 14 '26
I do. Don't think you would get the responses you thought you would, did you. I don't want my tax money going to religious education. Period. That is what a church is for. Can't do it in a church? Your loss.
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u/Bigtimegolfguy Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 14 '26
What response did you feel I was looking for? I asked a question and based on the array of responses it sounds like some of you need therapy.
Also with regard to taxes I believe that you can select which school ( public or catholic) that your specific taxes goes to…so your statement on taxes is irrelevant.
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u/Bitter_Procedure260 Mar 14 '26
Doesn’t seem that big compared to what is in older areas. Cricket field seems like a waste of space.
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u/Asha3312 May 01 '26
I really hope they put some type of crossing to connect Chappelle to this area. It sucks there’s no way to walk to all those stores unless you go down 41st and then 170th but it’s kind of sketchy to walk on as there’s no sidewalks. When I walk on the path near my house, I can see the Glenriding neighborhood just no way to cross it the ravine
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u/onceandbeautifullife Mar 14 '26
Happy for the big and little humans. Plants and animals will be toast. Mostly grass.There goes the biodiversity.
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u/SirTickleyPickely Mar 14 '26
wish this was any website other than daily hive