Today we learn that certain CPEs, subsidized with your money, practice scandalous discrimination in the reception of children. Yes, early childhood centers, supposed to embody equality and openness, select their clientele not according to the order of the waiting list, but according to the origin and religion of the parents. Shocking, isn’t it?
But let’s go further. This practice is infiltrating the education system. Why would the state continue to subsidize private schools that choose their students based on religious, and not just academic, criteria? These primary and secondary schools, financed by our money, accept children on the basis not of their merit, but of their faith. Have you ever seen a Jehovah’s Witness in a Muslim school? A Buddhist in a Jewish school? Certainly not. These schools are not Quebecois, they are above all Jewish, Muslim, Christian. They carry confessional labels, rather than that of the common good.
Duty
However, the Ministers of Education and Families have the means and the duty to ensure that the selection criteria for these subsidized establishments respect the Canadian and Quebec charters, which prohibit discrimination based on religion or origin. But by turning a blind eye, these ministers allow state-funded establishments to function as confessional enclaves, veritable foreign embassies, where Quebec laws seem to have little weight.
This issue inevitably revives the debate on the real application of the principle of secularism, so often put forward by this government. Is secularism only a theoretical ideal, or is the State ready to make it a reality by ensuring that its money is never used to finance religious discrimination?
Endless lists
Even as thousands of Quebec families struggle to find places in childcare, often forcing mothers to stay at home, the State allows certain communities to escape the collective effort, to favor religious groups or cultural to the detriment of the common good. This complacency, conscious and assumed, symbolizes a two-speed secularism. This is unacceptable, and it is an affront to the values of equality and justice on which our society is supposed to be founded.
