But according to certain tenors of integral secularism, the entire secular edifice is in the process of collapsing, the religious threat is at our doors, we could lose gains dating back to the Quiet Revolution. Watch out, God is back! And he waits for us around the corner, disguised as Allah.
We calm down.
Yes, the case of the Bedford school is serious, but nowhere in the report have I read that children had been indoctrinated in religion, that the Koran was taught during school hours, that they were forced to pray , in short that the school operated within a religious framework, like our Catholic schools of yesteryear when religion dictated everything that happened within their walls.
The report mainly talks about educational failures, intimidation, a toxic environment and a refusal to recognize that certain children have special needs. The attitude of the sanctioned teachers and the actions they may have taken are more at the cultural, or even ideological, level than religious, even if the cultural dimension of religion cannot be completely put aside.
When we learn that we have already used outdated school textbooks from North Africa in this school, we can wonder if this is not a case of “it was better in the country” (the original community) rather than a concerted effort to impose the practice of Islam on students.
In an interview with CTV, a student from another school under investigation, La Voie secondary school, said her teacher told the students that if she could, she would beat them so that they study more and do better at school, setting an example of the customs in their country of origin where things were like this. “But it’s forbidden,” she added.
We could speak of confessional communitarianism.
I hope that the investigation ordered by the Minister of Education Bernard Drainville will be able to differentiate between culture and religion, because it is significant.
We may put teeth of steel into Law 21, but it is not a strengthening of secularism that we need, but a more vigorous application of the law on public education. Law that dictates what must be taught according to the Ministry of Education’s curriculum, such as science and sexuality.
Whether the teacher has religious beliefs is his business — it was the State that was secular, not the individuals — the tools to intervene already exist if he chooses to share them or take them into account in his work. All that remains is to use it. The successive directors of the Bedford school must have known that little science was taught in certain classes! It had to end up looking good!
The Bedford School fell into an institutional void. This is why the fault of the authorities, the school service center in the first place, is so great.
Obviously, we should also not minimize the efforts of certain fundamentalist Muslim groups — I am thinking of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is very active in Canada — to prevent children of this faith from integrating into our society perceived, probably rightly, as being anti-religion. Were they at work at the Bedford School? In any case, there were links with a neighborhood mosque.
The case of the Bedford school has put subsidies for private religious schools back at the heart of the debate. Given the high level of public finance participation in these schools, would we be entitled to demand that they conform to the principle of secular schools like public schools? Excellent question for which there is no simple answer.
There are about 50 subsidized private religious schools in Quebec — and others that are not subsidized and fly under the radar. Half of them have a Catholic background although most no longer teach catechism and are run by secular boards of directors.
We no longer train soldiers of God at Brébeuf in Montreal any more than at the Saint-Cœur de Marie day school in Quebec.
Are we going to cut off their food because of their Catholic heritage? Or their name? Prove to me that just one of these ancient schools founded by the clergy is stuffing the heads of today’s students with wall-to-wall religious teaching and I will change my mind. But for once, I agree with François Legault. The existence of formerly religious private schools cannot be jeopardized because two or three subsidized evangelical Protestant schools put Jesus at the heart of their educational program. Or Allah in the case of private Muslim schools.
We live in a pluralistic society. We must stem community abuses like those at the Bedford school, a worrying situation, I repeat, but we must also recognize that in our system, parents have the right to pay to obtain a religious education. Even if it relaxes. Good luck changing that. By the way, the same thing exists in France, the cradle of secularism.
In the realm of the collective, Quebec, individual rights still exist.
