TORONTO - Some educators in Ontario are so desperate to find work they are taking up Catholicism to secure a coveted teaching position.
A Toronto-area woman, who doesn't want to be identified, says she and other teachers who are non-religious are attending mass every Sunday in hopes of getting hired by a Catholic school board.
The oversupply of qualified, unemployed teachers in Ontario has been a well-documented problem with about 12-thousand new teachers in the province in 2009, but only about 5-thousand positions.
Non-practising Catholics and non-Catholics have been performing the sacraments and attending church, hoping to get a pastoral letter.
One teacher says she even had to lie in confession about having pre-marital sex.
Currently, the Toronto Catholic District School board only hires Catholic teachers and it is in its right to do so.
A subsection of the Ontario Human Rights Code states the act doesn't affect the rights and privileges of separate school boards under the Constitution Act of 1867.
