MONTREAL, CANADA, September 5, 2008: Quebec schools won’t be marking the arrival of just Christmas any more — now they will be required to note the passage of holidays like Hanukkah and Eid al-Adha, Dipavali and the birth of the Sikh guru Nanak. The dates on the school calendar are part of a controversial new course on ethics and religious culture that makes its debut in classrooms across Quebec this year. It’s a historic shift in a province defined by Catholic and Protestant education for nearly two centuries. But there’s disagreement over whether the classes are a confusing buffet of moral choices, or a model of diversity for the rest of Canada.
At least one school isn’t happy with it, and is considering going to court in protest. Loyola High School in Montreal has been teaching boys for 112 years, among them former governor-general Georges Vanier and Conservative Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. Now, more than 600 parents at the private Catholic school have asked for exemptions to allow their children to opt out of the course. Principal Paul Donovan says the Jesuit institution doesn’t have a problem with teaching world religions, which it already does; it’s the “moral relativism” in the ethics curriculum. “Secular schools make sense in our culture. However, if you’re going to allow Catholic schools to exist, then you have to allow them to be Catholic,” Mr. Donovan said. “And you can’t tell us that we have to teach something that is contrary to that.” The position has placed the school at loggerheads with the Quebec Education Department, which says the course must be given at all schools, public and private alike. Quebec has also received requests for 600 exemptions, which do not include Loyola’s, and they have all been refused.
The Liberal government says the new course merely reflects the reality of immigration in the province, which has radically transformed Montreal’s classrooms. At the city’s largest school board, more than 56 per cent of students are foreign-born or have one immigrant parent. “This is historic,” said Jean-Pierre Proulx, a University of Montreal education professor who advised the government on the new course. “We’re not aiming to form good Catholics or good Protestants or good Jews. We want to form good cultivated citizens, who are tolerant and able to enter into dialogue with others.” Prof. Proulx said. “Because ignorance often leads to intolerance.”