Decisive Action for Secular Schools

Nadia El-Mabrouk, President of Rassemblement pour la laïcité (RPL)

Publication date: 2024-11-11

Date of publication in L’AUT’JOURNAL : 2024-11-08

Honorable Premier of Quebec,

Allow us to express our deep concern at the numerous revelations of religious infiltration in Quebec schools and childcare centres as revealed in recent weeks.

We will not list the major violations of the four principles of the State secularism act (Bill 21) revealed by the damning report from the Bedford school and by other testimonies including those of parents from the Alphonse-Pesant School in Saint-Léonard. We know that you are also aware of the alarming testimony of Ms. Fatima Aboubakr concerning a subsidized private childcare centre in Laval which, rather than applying the educational program of the Ministère de la Famille, seems to inculcate children with a fundamentalist and retrograde version of Islam.

In addition to the serious failures of the school and educational institutions to provide quality education and service, what worries us is the indoctrination suffered by these children, but also their physical and mental safety. In this regard, we will simply mention the case of the Bedford school teacher who began to pray rather than come to the aid of a student in distress, or the case revealed by Ms. Aboubakr concerning the childcare centre in Laval where children are not allowed to eat with their left hand, even if that means not eating at all!

How many other schools, how many other childcare centres, are affected by such actions? The investigations ordered by the Ministère de l’Éducation into each of the suspected schools show us that the government has the taken full measure of the situation in schools. But what about public childcare centres and subsidized private childcare centres?

You have asked the Minister of Education, Bernard Drainville, and the Minister of Secularism, Jean-François Roberge, to consider how to strengthen controls and reinforce secularism in schools. We thank you for that. But in light of the recent revelations concerning childcare centres, we ask you, Mr. Premier, to include the Minister of Families, Suzanne Roy, in the discussion.

Faced with such a devastating observation, and faced with a flagrant lack of secular services in schools and childcare centres, we urge you, Mr. Premier, to act with force and determination to ensure that our children have an educational environment free from indoctrination and religious proselytism, one which promotes their development and their civic integration.

To this end, we recommend that you:

• promote Bill 21 and its principles in schools and declare students’ right to a secular educational service;
• take necessary steps to enforce Bill 21 and to stipulate disciplinary measures in cases of breach or insubordination;
• legislate in order to prohibit any religious influence in public schools, particularly by external groups;
• extend the application of Bill 21 to childcare centres, both public and subsidized private ones.

As we await decisive actions from you to strengthen State secularism in schools and childcare centres, please accept, Mr. Premier, our cordial salutations.