The Western Quebec School Board should not have offered a class to a Chelsea teacher who wears the hijab given the principles of Law on the secularism of the State, Prime Minister François Legault said on Friday.
“When we adopt a law, we must ensure that it is respected, so the school board should not have hired that person,” he told reporters.
Fatemeh Anvari was already teaching as a substitute at Chelsea Elementary School, located about 15 kilometers north of Ottawa. She had to give up a post as a third grade teacher because of her hijab. She was reassigned to other tasks within the school board.
“School boards are there to enforce the law. So when they hired the teacher, Law 21 was clear. They should have informed the teacher and that should not have been something new, ”argued the Prime Minister. “Yes, they can put it in another department, but they should have been clearer when hiring. “
Mr. Legault recalled that the law on secularism was a “democratic” choice. “I live well with the choice we made. France has done it, as other countries have done, the choice of secularism, to say: there is a separation, when people are in authority, they cannot wear religious symbols ”, a he said.
Earlier today, Liberal MP André Fortin said he was “sad” about the situation in Chelsea. “I understand the children of Chelsea parents who wanted to show their love for their teacher yesterday. This is exactly the type of situation that we feared with Bill 21. That a child could have his teacher torn off in the middle of the year, it is a situation which is incredibly distressing ”, he declared. .
Manon Massé, from Québec solidaire, expressed the same feeling of sadness. “We are in such a shortage of teachers. It’s sad that this is it. I also hear the other people who work in the school environment, who find that the load is enormous. So it’s a great sadness to lose qualified human resources like that, ”she said.
As for the leader of the Parti Québécois, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, he recalled that “the law applies”. “The person knew, with full knowledge of the facts, that this is the law. And, at that time, the law must apply, quite simply, ”he dropped.