The long-awaited second and last volume of the magnificent biography of Guy Rocher by Pierre Duchesne was published a few months ago.
People working in education or interested in it—which ultimately includes almost everyone—will read with delight the chapters that Duchesne devotes to the Parent commission.
To read them, but that goes for the whole book, is to immerse yourself, through the journey of this giant, in the more or less recent history of Quebec, which is necessary to better understand what has been accomplished, the challenges we face today and to measure how much we owe Mr. Rocher.
This is clearly seen on the question of secularism, to which Duchesne devotes two chapters.
The Parent Commission and secularism
The first (chapter 6) takes us back to 1965.
The Parent Commission is due to submit its final report, but is going from delay to delay. One of the main reasons is the thorny question of what would today be called secularism, but which will be dealt with in the report (volume III, section V) under the name of “school confessionality”.
Three years earlier, Mr. Rocher had been entrusted with the drafting of a text on this delicate question. With great humour, he had titled it: “Preliminary introductory essay to an attempt at a first approach with a view to the beginning of an approximate solution to what may seem to be the method for avoiding the problem less and less confessionality!
To understand, you have to refer to the Quebec of the time, with a population that largely wanted the maintenance of a denominational school system, with accusations of atheism easily launched against the supporters of neutral schools, with a nascent secular movement and with, as a backdrop, a world in full transformation, Vatican II and a profound secularization of society and its institutions, especially education.
Look at all of this with the keen eye of a sociologist who thinks of religion as an individual practice, but also as a social institution, and you understand the title of Mr. Rocher’s text and, as a bonus, why the members of the commission are deeply divided. on the issue of denomination.
We will nevertheless arrive at a kind of compromise, guaranteeing the denominational nature of the schools, but not that of the administrative and state structures. It is a first step, imposed by the circumstances, towards the secularism of the school.
The secularism of Quebec schools today
Forty years passed during which other steps were taken in this direction, while Quebec society changed profoundly, in particular through what the Parent commission accomplished.
This is then the era of what will be called the “reasonable accommodation crisis”. Mr. Rocher is present in the public debates that they arouse and will not cease to be in all those which will follow on the question of secularism. For him, and in my opinion he is quite right, what this crisis and the others to come will reveal (Bouchard-Taylor report, charter of values, debates on the nature of secularism – open or not -, multiculturalism and interculturalism, in particular) , is that “political, philosophical, sociological, historical and legal reflection on the neutrality of the State has not followed. […] We haven’t studied it much, haven’t delved into it enough”.
Mr. Rocher will do this work, will be in the public square, will debate with opponents, will write.
For example, he will remind us again of the importance of thinking of religions as being (also) institutions, against a certain individualism so present today. In a thesis presented in 2013, he will write that “this individualistic and individualizing approach to respect for religious beliefs in public institutions not only breaks with the principle that inspired our religious neutrality, but above all, it settles nothing for the future”.
He will defend, against the concept of open secularism, which he judges to be a secularism of convenience, a republican secularism. And he will recall, alongside Daniel Baril, with whom he signs a text, that “the idea that secularism is imposed on institutions and not on the individuals who work there is a red herring leading to the denial of the principle of secularism” .
Then comes the Legault government and its law on secularism. Rocher considers it moderate and is sorry that it excludes private schools, even subsidized ones, and CPEs. He who has this rich and informed historical perspective will write that “the secularization of Quebec society, from the Quiet Revolution until today […]is one of the most important historical and sociological phenomena in our history in Quebec”.
But this secularization is not complete, especially in education. Mr. Rocher will read, for example, “with great anger” the Blanchard judgment, which exempts English-language school boards from the ban on the wearing of religious symbols in the name of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And he will recall the danger that there is, for secularism, in giving priority to the religious convictions of teachers rather than those of pupils and parents.
We can be sure: controversies and debates will still arise on these questions. We can bet that Mr. Rocher will continue to fuel the democratic conversation with the great wisdom he has consistently demonstrated.
Thanks again, Mr. Rocher.
A lecture
Guy Rocher, volume 2 (1963-2021).
Quebec sociologist Pierre
Duchesne, Quebec America,
Montreal, 2021, 624 pages