The Sixties

A Milestone for Catholic Schools

Until 1965, there was no public tax support for Separate high schools in Saskatchewan. In Saskatoon, three school boards existed, and were publicly funded: the Elementary Separate Board, the Elementary Public Board, and the Collegiate Public Board. Students who attended St. Paul’s High School and Sion Academy had to pay tuition and the nuns and priests worked for reduced salaries to keep school fees down.

Bishop Klein, an ardent advocate for education, was instrumental in establishing legislation that provided public funding for Separate high schools. “An Act to Amend the Secondary Education Act,” which provided taxation money for Separate schools was passed in 1965, but the Public Collegiate Board was still in charge of collecting all the taxes. The Separate School Board relied on the good will of the Public Collegiate Board for its share of the taxes. In 1978, legislation was reworked, and the separate school boards were given jurisdiction over tax support for both elementary and high school education. In 1982, when Pierre Trudeau repatriated the Canadian Constitution, Phil Hammel of Saskatoon made a trip to Ottawa and worked diligently to ensure that the Saskatchewan Education Act of 1978 was protected in the new Constitution.

The Change of Habit Begins

In the sixties, several big events occurred in the Catholic community of Saskatoon. First of all, Vatican II occurred and the teaching orders were no longer required to wear their habits. New Catholic high schools, namely Holy Cross and E.D. Feehan (named after the first principal of St. Mary’s) opened their doors, and for the first time Catholic Education was publicly funded. Students were still required to wear uniforms, and the nuns still advocated modesty; apparently, some girls liked to roll up their skirts, but urban legend has it that the nuns still had a way of making sure they “measured up”. Bishop Klein, the man who fought so hard to change legislation to provide tax support for Catholic high schools, also advocated for paying the Sisters of the various orders the same salary that all other teachers were getting.

The Grey Nuns and Medicare

In May of 1957, the Catholic Hospital Association of Canada met in the Bessborough Hotel to advocate for a national hospital insurance plan, and despite opposition from people like Emmett Hall and some of the clergy, Mother Berthe Dorais, a Grey Nun, apparently took the lead in writing out general principles for a national plan; these were immediately passed on to the Minister of Health at the time, Paul Martin, Sr., who was waiting for them outside in the hall. At the provincial level, when the CCF proposed a universal medical insurance plan for Saskatchewan in the 1960s, the Grey Nuns supported it even though many of the clergy spoke publicly against it. When universal health care came into effect, Mother Berthe Dorais is reputed to have said, “Finally, social justice took the place of social charity.”

We'll Have "Nun" of That

Just as Bishop Klein had advocated for equal wages for the teaching orders in the 1960s, his predecessor, Bishop Pocock advocated for the Grey Nun nurses at St. Paul’s Hospital a decade earlier. When Tommy Douglas, the premier at the time, argued against paying the nuns equal wages to the other nurses, he reportedly said to Bishop Pocock, “I thought the nuns took a vow of poverty!” Bishop Pocock reportedly answered, “Yes, but to God, not to the CCF government!” But the Grey Nuns and the government were not always on opposing sides. In fact, in the early 1960s when the CCF introduced government health care and a hospital insurance plans, the Grey Nun nurses did not share the fears that many of the clergy had about Medicare; in fact, they were all for it, provided it did not infringe upon Catholic moral standards.  The provincial medical insurance plan was not without its downfalls, however. One day in 1963, a fellow came in to the Grey Nun superior’s office with a complaint that the quality of the soup and sandwiches had gone downhill. When she asked what floor he was on, he replied, “Oh, I’m not a patient, but I pay my medical insurance, so I’m entitled to get something for it. I’ve been eating my lunch here for 10 years.” Needless to say, an investigation followed!