Guy Rocher, at the heart of Quebec’s major reforms

This text is part of the special notebook The 100 years of Guy Rocher

“Guy Rocher was a major architect of three major projects that brought Quebec into modernity. He lived three lives in one,” summarizes Julie Latour, lawyer and former president of the Montreal Bar. The sociologist was not content to study the reforms; he dove in with both feet.

“Guy Rocher has always supported Quebec society by showing it a reflection of what it is,” believes Pierre Lucier, professor in the Department of Religious Sciences at UQAM. From the Parent commission to his position for secularism, including the drafting of Bill 101, his social commitment was relentless during his long career.

Laying the Foundation for Education

In 1961, when he had recently been appointed director of the Department of Sociology at the University of Montreal, Guy Rocher was asked by Minister Paul Gérin-Lajoie to be part of the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Teaching in the province of Quebec (better known as the Parent Commission). Even if he was reluctant at first, this involvement was major in the work of Guy Rocher, but also for all of Quebec society. “Of all the royal commissions of inquiry of the time, the Parent commission was the most significant,” maintains Yvan Perrier, professor in the Department of History, Geography and Social Sciences at Cégep du Vieux Montréal. The Parent report (in several volumes) gave Quebec “a true public education system, a real democratization of education, and the development of secondary and post-secondary education. It’s phenomenal,” summarizes Claude Lessard, professor emeritus in the Department of Administration and Foundations of Education at the University of Montreal.

The Parent commission marks the entry of the Quebec state into the world of education, previously controlled by the Church. In the midst of the post-war period, Quebec, changing, needs to modernize. “Our education system was completely out of step,” observes Mr. Lessard. The baby boom, urbanization and industrialization are changing the socio-economic reality in Quebec as elsewhere in the world. “We are entering the knowledge society, and the school system must be adapted to the new market challenges,” explains Mr. Perrier.

Creation of school boards, deconfessionalization, establishment of a network of CEGEPs and that of the University of Quebec; the repercussions of the Parent commission have shaped the Quebec of today. Active in several committees of the commission, Guy Rocher plays an important role as mediator, ideator and positive leader, and will be, with Jeanne Lapointe, the main writer of the numerous reports.

Democratizing access to education

The Parent commission will leave as its main legacy the complete reconfiguration of the school system, so as to allow as many people as possible to be educated. “The Parent report, largely inspired by sociodemographic ideals, was the founding document of the modern education system in Quebec,” raises Pierre Doray, professor in the Department of Sociology at UQAM. Quebec then performed poorly, the province having the lowest schooling rate in Canada. In the province, only a very small percentage of French-speaking Quebecers finished grade 11^e year (13%), and barely 4% were studying at university (compared to 11% among English speakers).

The father of four daughters also notes the extent to which the school system discriminates against girls. “He didn’t accept that. The big winners from this reform are girls and women,” says Mr. Perrier. For example, if traditional colleges for boys had been subsidized since 1922, those for girls would not be subsidized until 1961.

Guy Rocher will tackle the issue of secularization of the school system. The abolition of normal schools and traditional colleges, diversity and free education up to CEGEP open the door of the education system wide to young people and adults, boys and girls. “There is no chapter on girls in the commission’s report, but it is obvious: there is one and the same education. It pushed the schooling of girls and made it irreversible,” argues Mr. Lessard.

Bill 101: completing the work of the Parent commission

In 1977, Guy Rocher allowed himself to be convinced by his former friend from the Collège de l’Assomption, Camille Laurin, to become his deputy minister. Laurin was entrusted by René Lévesque with the responsibility of drawing up Quebec’s linguistic policy. “Guy Rocher excelled in this type of role. He was a high-level advisor,” says Pierre Lucier.

For Guy Rocher, this is an opportunity to continue the work on language started with the Parent commission, but which was not completed. At the time, the attendance of English schools by new arrivals had destabilized the sociologist. “The Parent report did not resolve that,” notes Mr. Lucier.

When Camille Laurin called on him, it was the opportunity to continue this work to ensure that the school did not anglicize immigrants. “We had to find a criterion for attending English schools,” remembers Mr. Lucier. It was Guy Rocher, inspired by one of his daughters, who came up with the key criterion: granting the right to attend an English school to children whose parents themselves went to English school.

From deconfessionalization to secularism

Guy Rocher, who was interested in the relations between Church and State in New France in the 17th^e century in his doctoral thesis, continued throughout his career to be a great defender of secularism. The Parent commission, even if it laid the foundations for the separation between Church and State, had not succeeded in establishing true secularism. “It is extremely important for him to distance education from religious authoritarianism, both [sur le] plan of substance than in its organization”, raises M^e Tower. “It is not a positional anticlericalism; he has great spirituality, knowledge of religion, and he campaigned with the Christian Student Youth,” she explains.

Over the years, he will speak out many times in the public sphere. “For Mr. Rocher as for myself, it is important to affirm the secularism of the Quebec state and to make it a founding principle of Quebec in the 21st century.^e century”, testifies M^e Tower. In 2010, they, with Daniel Baril and others, co-signed the Declaration of Intellectuals for Secularism and submit a memorandum to a parliamentary committee. Conferences, publications, consultations by the government will follow one another.

“One of Guy Rocher’s contributions to the work of state secularism is his depth of vision,” underlines Mr.^e Tower. “He brought a crucial element into societal thinking and into the definition of secularism, namely the importance of education and autonomy of thought,” she adds. This tireless and voluntary work will be crowned by the adoption, in 2019, of the Law on State Secularism (Bill 21).

All his life, Guy Rocher worked to move Quebec forward in modernity, while protecting its language and culture. “Guy Rocher played the role of guide in our company; he was critical, inspiring, constant, and had the ability to bring people together,” concludes Mr. Lucier.

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