A new religion course taught in schools across Quebec was intended to improve inter-cultural understanding, but so far it is generating deep division as hundreds of parents pull their children out of class.
A high school in Granby, Que., has in the past week handed one-day suspensions to seven students boycotting the Ethics and Religious Culture course on the grounds that it violates their freedom of conscience. In nearby Drummondville, a couple will be going to court next spring with a constitutional challenge to the mandatory course.
The course “is forcing children to learn the content of other religions,” Jean Morse-Chevrier, president of the Quebec Association of Catholic Parents, said yesterday. “Therefore it is the state deciding what religious content will be learned, at what age, and that is totally overriding the parents’ authority and role.”
I lived in Quebec from 1978 to 1991. This is the province where for many years the government could close your business if you said something against them. This is the province where (within the last decade) police raided grocery stores in the middle of Passover and removed all kosher foods that were not labelled predominantly in French. I could go on at great length with additional examples.
The heavy hand surprises me not in the least. Authorities in Quebec absolutely detest evangelical Christians.
[blockquote]Authorities in Quebec absolutely detest evangelical Christians.[/blockquote]
It’s not only that kind that they detest. Québec is more anti-clerical than France. That fact, and the preponderance in federal government of nominal RCs in rebellion against their Church, goes far to explain such nonsense as legal same-sex marriage here in Canada: if the Pope says “No”, they all fall over themselves to do the other thing.