Secular fundamentalists undo Quebec schools.

On November 17, 1997, the House of Commons voted on the amendment to the Constitution Act, 1867, removing the guarantees for Quebec confessional schools, Protestant or Catholic. For background, see the December 1997 article "Quebec scuttles Section 93," p. 25.

The vote of 204 to 59 ended 150 years of history but barely raised a whisper in the English Canadian press and this for a good reason. With a few exceptions such as Catholic trustees, the Catholic Civil Rights League, Catholic Insight and Real Women, the English-speaking Catholic community outside Quebec took little interest in the matter. Its spiritual leaders were checkmated by the Quebec bishops, who washed their hands of institutional Catholic education years ago. This left a small band of 59 MPs to oppose the Liberal juggernaut in its assault on parental rights.

The bulk of the opposition consisted of 41 Reformers (out of 60), among whom two should be mentioned by name because they were two MPs who spoke most eloquently and knowledgably on the issue: Jason Kenney (Calgary) and John Cummins (Delta-Richmond, B.C.). These two pinpointed the real issues: coercion rather than consultation; secularism over confessionalism; individualism over community interests.

Out of 158 Liberals only 15 gallant men and women--most of them Catholics from Ontario--dared to oppose the measure: Bellemare, Ottawa; Bonin, Northern Ontario; Carroll, Barrie; Comuzzi, Thunder Bay; Iftody, Steinbach (MN); Jordan, Brockville; Karygiannis, Scarborough; Lincoln, Dorval, PQ; McCormick, Napanee; McKay, Scarborough; McTeague, Ajax; O'Brien, London; Peric, Cambridge; Ur, Strathroy; Wappel, Scarborough.

It was - presumably - a "free" vote, but as one can see from the above, not a single cabinet minister or parliamentary secretary or anyone who holds any office among the Liberals (some 60 or more people) dared vote against.

The real reason

The relevant question to be asked is, why was it voted through? Officially, it was to secure linguistic schools for Quebec. But the MPs who spoke in favour of the amendment--the debate lasted less than a day--almost all revealed the real reason for the changes to be secularism or, if you wish, anti-Catholicsm.

Said Mr. Stephane Dion, the government minister who led the attack: "the objective of the government of Quebec is not to make the Quebec school system a lay system but rather to make school structures non-denominational."!! Bloc MP Real Menard of Montreal called confessional schools a "form of favouritism." MP Yvon Godin, NDP--from the French-speaking Bathurst, N.B. riding--held that religion has no place in the schools. "I even spoke with several priests in my riding," he said, "and they think that religious education should be the responsibility of parents and not that of the schools."

MP David Price, PC, Stanstead, Que., recalled that when he "was young, the priests used to rule people's lives" and "kept the anglophones and the francophones, the Protestants and the Catholics apart" But the people moved "away from the Church" and, therefore, "fortunately, things have progressed." (After that he launched into a derogatory attack on the Reform Party.)

Ecumenical courtesy too fell by the wayside at once. As Mr. Dion pointed out, "Other groups told the [Joint Commons-Senate] Committee that the guarantees accorded under Section 93 to Catholics and Protestants are at odds with Quebec's modern pluralistic society. Representatives of the Jewish and Arab communities in particular have pointed out that this section contains a form of discrimination." (My emphasis)

His words were still echoing through the chambers when Jahim Raffer, Reform member from Edmonton and a Muslim, asked and answered the question, "In a pluralistic society like ours should the government collect money from Muslims, for instance, in support of Catholic religious teaching? I think not."

MP Paul DeVillers, parliamentary secretary for the Hon. Stephane Dion, brought further proof of how little ecumenism means when it comes to suppressing Catholics: "I draw the attention of the House particularly to the support of the Anglican bishops and the Canadian Jewish Congress for the amendment."

The Anglican bishop of Montreal, Andrew Hutchinson, in his letter to the Committee, DeVillers pointed out, called for Parliament to "uphold the principle of equality before the law." The bishop also stated that "religious education of children [is] primarily a family responsibility" (and, therefore presumably, does not belong in schools).

The same idea of unjust discrimination was also taken up by Bloc MP Christine Gagnon, who, after quoting the already mentioned Anglican bishop Hutchinson, recalled that the Jewish Congress (for the Quebec City region) had stated that it was the responsibility of the Quebec government to "apply the principle of equality of religions in its policies." We must, she herself added, "adjust to the modern and pluralistic society."

Gagnon gave another variant on the same theme of why confessional schools are wrong by quoting the chairwoman of the Centrale de l'enseignement du Quebec, Lorraine Page, who had said: "A true pluralistic society is a society where people of different denominations learn to live together . . . by sending their children to the same school . . . but with separate administrative systems for [English and French]." In other words, what is agreeable for language is not acceptable for religion.

By voting time, the picture was crystal clear: Pierre Trudeau's 1967 notion that pluralism means secularism was dominant. For intellectual liberals and socialists pluralism means conformity rather than variety. In short, confessional schools are passe because religion is passe! Three weeks later--on December 9--the same rule was applied to the confessional schools in Newfoundland.

At the end of the day MP Godin of Bathurst, perhaps getting somewhat disturbed by all the talk about separatists doing away with the religious rights of minorities, asked--rhetorically--"Does this mean the bishops of Quebec are separatists?" There was no one to answer that question. But we do know that Catholic schools are not on the Quebec bishops' priority list--and have not been so for a long time. From speaking out on every issue before the Quiet Revolution of 1960, the bishops have retrenched to speaking out on none today other than the poor, except in the most hesitant tones. As the group of ordinary fathers and mothers who faithfully go to Sunday Mass dwindles (to 8% in Montreal, 7% in the Hull Gatineau region), even the support structures which have protected them for hundreds of years are allowed to be taken from them.

The vote's consequence

What is the consequence of this vote? Mr. John Cummins (Reform-Delta, B.C.) pointed out that "the Supreme Court of Canada, in the Ontario Bill 30 case back in 1988, clearly indicated that denominational or confessional rights are grounded solely in section 93 (1)." Section 93 is, and has been, the guarantee for Catholic schooling in Canada, he said. Its undermining by Quebec has set a very dangerous precedent.

In Quebec itself, Cummins pointed out, "prior court decisions under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms clearly show that such confessional schools will collapse under the first Charter challenge brought against them." In other words, you may have 300 Catholics in a school district and two agnostics, and the agnostics will succeed in having the school declared non-confessional by appealing to the equality clause in the Charter.

Anthony Hawkins comments on political affairs for Catholic Insight.