In her editorial of April 11, Marie-Andrée Chouinard is quite right to be upset that it is still necessary today, and perhaps even more than yesterday, to be extremely vigilant in the defense of secularism in the system school.
She is also right to point out that the debate goes back to the 1960s and the Parent report. Moreover, it is to this commission of inquiry that we owe the creation of CEGEPs and this is where the shoe pinches in the current debate on prayer rooms in our schools.
The CEGEPs were established in particular from the classical colleges and the normal schools which were denominational, but the new colleges which were to emerge from them were to be French- or English-speaking and entirely secular in order to ensure equal access to all. .
It is therefore quite staggering to observe the attitude of the current Minister of Higher Education, Pascale Déry, who refuses to ensure compliance with the Act respecting the secularism of the State in the CEGEPs and universities that are under his responsibility. The minister has no intention, for the moment, of putting an end to the use of premises used for prayers in CEGEPs.
However, articles 2 and 3 of this law stipulate that the principles of secularism must be respected “in fact and in appearance” in governmental institutions; CEGEPs and universities are explicitly named in the list of institutions targeted by these articles.
This same law grants everyone “the right to secular government institutions and secular public services”. In addition, the judgment of the Supreme Court of Canada Mouvement laïque québécois v. Saguenay prohibits the State, in the name of religious neutrality, from favoring the exercise of a religion in the functioning of its institutions.
If, as Minister of Education Bernard Drainville finally agreed, the fact of reserving or arranging rooms used for prayers in primary and secondary schools is incompatible with secularism “in fact and in appearance” and violates the law, the same logic applies to other levels of education.
Secular CEGEPs were created long before the adoption of the State Secularism Act. Now that Quebec has adopted such a law, it is unacceptable to give free rein to the current regression of secularism in these establishments.
Minister Pascale Déry must therefore intervene as quickly as possible to enforce the law in these establishments in order to prevent this regression from becoming uncontrollable and rendering the law inapplicable. Otherwise, it will be up to Prime Minister François Legault to call his minister to order.
The only provision of the law on secularism that does not apply to CEGEPs and universities is the one relating to the prohibition of the wearing of religious symbols by teachers. We also believe that this is a major and difficult to defend against the principle of secularism and to which we will have to come back one day.