By Canadian Press

Quebec promises new legislation to strengthen secularism in schools

Dec 6, 2024 | 12:37 PM

QUÉBEC — The Quebec government says it will table legislation to strengthen secularism in schools, following the latest in a series of reports about Muslim religious practices appearing in some of the province’s public schools.

Premier François Legault says there are teachers introducing “Islamist religious concepts” into Quebec schools, in violation of the principle of secularism.

His comments follow a report in La Presse that documented students praying in classrooms and hallways and disrupting a play focused on sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy prevention at a high school in Laval, north of Montreal.

With the provincial legislature set to rise for the holidays, Education Minister Bernard Drainville told reporters in Quebec City that the behaviour does not represent “our Quebec” and is “completely intolerable and unacceptable.”

The Quebec government is already looking into 17 schools that may have breached the province’s secularism law, as part of a controversy sparked by a government investigation alleging a toxic climate at a Montreal primary school created by a group of teachers, many of North African descent.

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The report on those schools is expected in January, but Drainville says he can already confirm that the government is going to act.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 6, 2024.

The Canadian Press