Legault wants to tackle the Islamization of public schools as a priority

Photo: Francis Vachon Le Devoir François Legault’s inner circle has indicated that the prime minister is still willing to “debate […] in good faith” the abolition of public funding for private religious schools, but that it is not his priority.

Marco Bélair-Cirino in Quebec City

Published at 17:53

• Quebec City

Premier François Legault is more concerned about the Islamization of public schools than about the presence of religion in private schools that respect the educational system.

“All societies today [run] the risk that there will be Islamist religious concepts in our schools,” he declared Tuesday in the National Assembly. Quebec is part of the lot, Mr. Legault continued, while pointing to Montreal's Bedford elementary school, where 11 employees had their right to teach suspended last week after dictating their law and their faith for years in defiance of educational rules.

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The Prime Minister has difficulty understanding why the Parti Québécois proposed, in the wake of the tabling of an investigation report into the conduct of teachers propagating their “ideology” and “vision” within the Bedford school, to cut off public funding for so-called religious private schools, including schools “of the Catholic tradition.” “All the PQ could think of to say was to table a motion to abolish funding for private schools of the Catholic tradition, as if Islamism and the Catholic religion had to be lumped together in Quebec. It’s embarrassing, embarrassing to hear the PQ,” Mr. Legault said in an indignant tone.

PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon called on the CAQ government last week to block “religious and ideological infiltration” into Quebec schools, including those of the “three monotheistic religions.” “It's not just Islam,” he said, while specifying that he had “testimonies also concerning Christianity and Judaism.”

In “good faith”

Mr. Legault has instructed Education Minister Bernard Drainville and the minister responsible for secularism, Jean-François Roberge, to look for ways to “strengthen controls on secularism in Quebec schools.”

He indicated Friday that he was willing to “debate […] in good faith” the abolition of public funding for private religious schools. That is still the case, his inner circle indicated Tuesday, but it is not his priority.

It is not that of the Quebec Liberal Party either. The political party will establish its position on the issue by March 31 at the latest, after having drawn up “an inventory,” conducted “a broad consultation not only [with] activists, [but also] experts,” and then drafted “a report.”

Until then, the PLQ advocates that “public money cannot be used to teach a religion in educational institutions,” summarized the interim leader of the political party, Marc Tanguay, in a press briefing Tuesday. “The entire school curriculum must be taught,” he added.