Canada’s highest court has ruled that children in Quebec schools cannot opt out of a course on ethics and world religions.
The Supreme Court on Feb. 17 unanimously rejected an appeal from Catholic parents who sought to keep their children out of the course because they felt that exposing them to a variety of religions would confuse them.
The nine high court judges disagreed, saying that exposing children to beliefs and values that differ from their own is a fact of life in Canada’s multicultural society.
Depends entirely on the content. If the course consists of: “This is what Hindus believe, this is what Muslims believe, this is what Buddhists believe” (although frankly I think that could be extremely difficult to do correctly if only because of the difficulties in summing up on a high school level a world religion practiced by millions of people which no doubt has huge variations within it) then I think that’s OK. And this has nothing to do with the diversity of Canada itself. If it’s relevant to teach kids what the principal exports of Argentina are, then it’s relevant to tell them what the principle religions of Asia are and how those have affected that part of the world. (For example, how Confucianism has shaped the history of China in the past and even today.) Of course, if the approach is: “There are many ways to relate to God and they are all essentially equal and hence interchangeable” then this does a disservice to all the religions taught.
They seem to be laboring under the delusion that schools will teach a fair and balanced curriculum on world religions. Given Quebec’s extremely hostile secularism, I find that laughable.
Its a matter of power and control. The state commandeers children and teaches them state orthodoxy through state run schools. It nothing more than the trend we have seen in liberal/progressive states as they become more totalitarian.
I may be wrong, but don’t Quebec’s Catholic parents have the option of enrolling their children in parochial schools?
Cennydd13, the system of which you speak was replaced about 15 years ago. Regardless of what I, as a Canadian, might think of the ruling (and at this point I don’t have a strong opinion), informal surveys being conducted by the media suggest a significant majority of Canadians support it. I suspect the level of support would be even higher in Quebec – and education is a provincial responsibility.
[blockquote]because they felt that exposing them to a variety of religions would confuse them.[/blockquote]
I’m not sure I buy that this was the parents’ stated reason.
Don’t confuse the previous “faith-based” school boards — Catholic and Protestant, one or the other, no additional options — with private parochial schools. Faith-based school boards led to delightful situations like Buddhists, Hindus, and Sikhs being categorized as “Protestant.” All taxpayers could elect whether their property taxes would go to support Catholic schools or Protestant schools.
Unless it has changed recently, however, Quebec still has a full voucher system for private school choices, even parochial schools. If you enroll your child(ren) in a parochial school that school bills the province for the standard cost per pupil in government schools. Parents receive a bill for the difference.
The question that arises, though, is why might it be that militantly secular and very liberal Quebec (two-thirds of their members in the federal Parliament are Socialists) willingly maintains a full school voucher system, whilst in the States such an approach is considered utter anathema by what is essentially the same sector of the American political spectrum.
Bart Hall, as I understand things, private schools in Quebec are required to teach the ethics-religion course. You raise a good point in your final paragraph. If you use the common (and extremely loose) definitions that Americans tend to give to terms such as liberal and conservative, and then try to apply these terms to Quebec, you’ll almost certainly reach some very erroneous conclusions. I’ve lived in Quebec for short spells and have worked with countless francophones over the past 35 years, and I don’t claim to even begin to understand the societal dynamics in the province. Most of my relatives in western Canada, where I grew up, are totally clueless about Quebec (although that doesn’t stop them from offering strong opinions). The last federal election is particularly interesting. Anyone who thinks that, by electing a vast majority of NDP candidates, Quebec was taking a swing in a socialist direction, is badly out to lunch in my opinion.
For anyone who cares about legal matters, here is a link to the actual text of the Supreme Court ruling:
http://scc.lexum.org/en/2012/2012scc7/2012scc7.html
It will put to bed questions like those raised by Chris Molter.
To begin with, no one should be so bold as to assume that the “Amendments to the Constitution” that we Americans enjoy are somehow also applicable in Canada. The aren’t and never have been. By example, “Freedom of Speech” and “Freedom of Religion,” as we know them, do not exist in Canada. Nor does the fundamental right of a citizen to be “presumed innocent until proven guilty.” Do you find this surprising?
I’m sorry to say, given my lifelong proximity to Canada, this decision certainly doesn’t surprise me whatsoever.
Albeit, I’m not sure what you’re saying. In the early 90s, I lived three years in the US – about an hour and a half from the border (I spent a couple of years in the US more recently as well). Although it was a great experience, I rarely felt “understood”; nor did I expect to be.
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states: “Any person charged with an offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law in a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal”. (Section 11(d))
Deep Freeze: What you may not be aware of is the following (I copied just one relevant paragraph from a very lengthy post on the website of “Centre for Constitutional Studies”):
“Section 1 of the Charter reads as follows: “the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by laws as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society†[1].
While this section guarantees certain rights, it is often better characterized as a tool to limit those rights, “in pursuit of other legislative objectives†[2]. Essentially, where there are competing interests in respect of Charter-protected rights, section 1 serves as a means of determining whether it is permissible to allow a right to be infringed in pursuit of other collective goals. Therefore, the rights protected under the Charter are not absolute.”
Not to get too terribly complicated about it, you need to refer to something called “the Oakes Test,” which is used to weigh the value of legislation against need for individual rights and freedoms. By example, there are a host of “violations and infractions” enforced in Canada were presumption of innocence is not considered paramount, if even considered.
I noticed that you didn’t reference the other two “American Constitutional Amendments.” Like I stated, we should never assume that Canada has mirrored the U.S. “Bill of Rights” and “Constitution.”
I have also lived most of my 61 years only 1/2 mile from Canada and undertook advanced studies there.
Please pardon my typos. It’s rather late and my eyes, not to mention my fingers, are rather heavy.
Albeit, I don’t claim to be a constitutional expert, but at least we don’t have anything like the National Defense Authorization Act in Canada (at least not yet). I know that Canada did not mirror the US Bill of Rights and Constitution – and I’m okay with that.
By the way, do you have an opinion on the original post? And where did you do your advanced studies?
@Deep — I lived for thirteen years in Quebec and speak the language with near-native fluency. You are correct in that the NPD showing in Quebec at the recent elections was not a “swing in the socialist direction.” Quebec has been profoundly socialist for decades.
Government steel corporations. Taking over automobile insurance. Requiring all farmers to pay dues to the rather radical UPA farmers’ union. Using tax money to guarantee farmers the equivalent unionized industrial wage. Along with a government bureaucracy, regulatory environment, and permitting morasse that would have been quite familiar to my Hungarian father-in-law.
The Supreme Court decision doesn’t bother me at all. I remain deeply concerned, however, about the profound anti-Semitism which still flourishes in wide arcs of Quebec society, especially those who consider themselves the elite.
Bart Hall, if you’re not offended by the question, I’d be curious as to your age when you were in Quebec. I’ll be honest, if it was your first 13 years, I would dismiss it as mostly irrelevant in adding weight to your opinion. A much shorter time as an adult would be much more relevant. I spent my first 19 years in BC, and lived there again for four years in my 30s. My sister, son, daughter-in-law, mother, brothers/sisters-in-law, etc., still live there, my wife and I have a house on Vancouver Island that we plan to retire to in about three years – and we visit regularly. That said, I know I’m mostly unqualified to comment on the current political and social climate – especially in the Vancouver area where I never lived.
How do you keep up your French? I’m in a profession where ability in both official languages is a prerequisite to promotion to more senior levels, and maintaining proficiency is a never-ending struggle for almost all the anglophones.
I lived there from age 28 to age 42 and still maintain several close friendships from the overwhelmingly French area where I lived; we’re not talking West Island here. My sons speak French as a native language and we often slip into it without thinking, even though I didn’t speak a word of it when I arrived in Quebec. I continue to follow the politics there rather closely, and hockey is much better in French than English.
Besides, all my horticulture training and experience there was in French, so there’s a lot of hort vocabulary I simply do not know in English. Therefore I’m usually inclined to contact one of my colleagues in French, more than 20 years later.
As a result my one-year old daughter is now learning French along with English here at home
Bart, thank you for sharing. Although there is much I don’t understand about the province, there’s part of me that would very much like to live in Quebec for a couple of years – before we finally retire to BC. It’s a unique part of the Canadian experience. I’d have to ramp up my French, but I think I could do it.