Victoria Cunningham's thorough but biased Justice Achieved recounts the seven-decade struggle to dilute the province's egalitarian school system. Since joining Confederation in 1871, British Columbia alone among the provinces did not use public monies to help fund private schools (for Catholics, rich folks, moon worshippers, etc.). Among the staunch defenders of this anti-elitist, anti-sectarian policy were Amor de Cosmos and W.A.C. Bennett. After Socred Education Minister Pat McGeer introduced the Independent Schools Support Act in 1977, it was revised in 1989 to make the existing Independent School Act that allows for public subsidization of private schools. Justice Achieved was commissioned and published by the Federation of Independent School Associations of B.C., a lobby group formed in 1966. 0-9730649-0-0

[BCBW 2003]