Many were flabbergasted when they learned that secondary schools were setting aside rooms to allow Muslim students to pray. Are public schools in Quebec not secular?
The right to secular public services as enshrined in Bill 21 requires respect for religious neutrality, not in the sense of representing all religions, but of representing none. Furthermore, the Education Act modifying the statute of the school boards put an end to the services of spiritual animation in the schools.
How is it then that school principals continue to comply with requests for places of prayer? This is because under the law aimed at providing a framework for requests for religious accommodation (better known as Bill 62), public institutions are required to grant religious accommodation under certain conditions, in particular respecting the principle of religious neutrality of the State, equality between men and women, and not harming the proper functioning of the establishment.
It is in this legislative context that school principals, such as Mont-De-La Salle secondary school in Laval, which was discussed this week, are trying to “buy peace” by acquiescing to the demands of Muslim students. on the basis of religious freedom, while respecting Law 21 and the obligations imposed by the law on religious accommodation. But no one is bound to the impossible.
Religious neutrality
In the case of the Laval school, the director general of the school service center (CSS), Yves-Michel Volcy, explains that it is not a place of prayer, but a place “not denominational” open to all. However, in fact, the only reason for which the local “resourcing” was made available is that about sixty Muslim students were praying in the stairwells, emergency exits and parking lots. It is therefore a place of prayer exclusive to Muslims, which contravenes the religious neutrality of the school.
Women’s equality
According to information obtained by Cogeco Nouvelles, the girls were refused entry to the prayer room.1. This information was contradicted by Mr. Volcy, who explains however that the boys and girls “did not mix”2. How to accept this situation and maintain, in the same breath, that it is a mixed room open to all? Whether it is a question of prohibiting access to girls, of alternately alternating between boys and girls or, as is customary in the Muslim religion, of letting the girls pray behind the boys, all of this contravenes the principle of gender equality and has no place in school.
Freedom of religion and living together
In 2016, as part of the departure of a dozen young people from Cégep Maisonneuve for the jihad in Syria, the Center for the Prevention of Radicalization Leading to Violence (CPRMV) produced a report3 very instructive on the climate of radicalization that had taken hold there. In order to respond to a request for a place of prayer, the Cégep management had made available to the students a place of renewal as well as a room for Friday prayers. Far from contributing to better living together, this only fueled a climate of radicalization, community withdrawal and mutual distrust within the CEGEP.
Although the current situation is different, religious pressures on young people in some communities continue. Many of us can testify to the stigmatization that Muslim children suffer if they refuse to comply with the precepts of Islam as imposed by certain students.
The pressure is particularly strong during the month of Ramadan, with those who do not fast exposing themselves to the accusation of being “bad Muslims”. This is how young schoolchildren spend the day without eating, to the detriment of their health and their studies.
The presence of places of prayer in schools only reinforces this control by giving the possibility to some to monitor who is praying and who is not.
Good functioning of the establishment
The information obtained by Cogeco Nouvelles for the Laval secondary school reveals a climate of fear. It is mentioned in particular that Muslim teachers who have fled Islamism in their country are worried about finding “the same thing” in their school.
The director general of the CSS de Laval also notes that the number of students praying in the hallways and other inappropriate places in the school is unprecedented. This information is correlated with other testimonies relating to an intensification, in recent months, of requests for places of prayer, as if a watchword had been launched4.
However, this excess of religiosity can only be accentuated if one yields to claims. Far from concluding that the granting of a prayer room has contributed to improving living together, the 2016 CPRLV report rather describes a situation that has only worsened.
As citizens of Muslim culture, we are concerned about the increase in such unreasonable religious claims, unjustified by the Muslim religion itself, damaging to the image of Muslims in the country and putting our young people at risk of radicalization.
For all these reasons, we welcome the decision of the Minister of Education, Bernard Drainville, to prohibit prayer rooms in schools, including those disguised as “resource rooms”. It is simply impossible to reconcile such religious accommodations with the requirement to ensure the right of the population to a secular public school.