The erosion of liberal education is a civic emergency in

The erosion of liberal education in Canada’s kindergarten to Grade 12 schools is no longer a matter for speculation — it is now undeniable. Thirty years ago, Peter Emberley and Waller Newell’s Bankrupt Education (1994) offered a prophetic warning. They diagnosed a “crisis of public confidence” in our schools, highlighting the rise of a “vague and value-laden” curriculum in which “substance” was giving way to “social experimentation.” Students and teachers, they claimed, were reduced to guinea pigs in a system steadily abandoning knowledge, intellectual rigour, and preparation for higher education.

That diagnosis has aged remarkably well. Liberal education, once at the core of Canadian schooling, has been pushed to the margins . Today’s curriculum is dominated less by the pursuit of kn