MNAs vote down a motion calling for an end to government funding for them.
QUEBEC — With Premier François Legault rising to the defence of private religious schools, the Coalition Avenir Québec government Thursday defeated a joint Parti Québécois-Liberal effort to end public financing of such schools in the name of secularism.
Included in the opposition motion was a specific clause to “put an end to the public financing of religious schools.”
The vote took on a historic dimension because it garnered the support of the Liberals who, a day earlier, broke with their long tradition of supporting public financing of such schools.
There are 50 private religious schools in Quebec, which are supported by a total of $160 million a year from the state. Twenty-seven of them are Catholic, 14 Jewish, four Muslim, two Protestant Evangelical, two are Armenian and one Greek Orthodox.
The irony of the Liberals supporting the PQ in a vote on secularism did not escape the PQ, which said it was delighted to learn the Liberals had seen the light. The Liberals voted against Bill 21 when it was adopted in June 2019.
“It is an immensely positive surprise for us,” the Parti Québécois MNA responsible for laicity, Pascal Bérubé, told reporters early in the day.
But the process was not so simple for the Liberals, who draw a significant level of support from minority communities, many of whom are very attached to their faith and support such schools financially.
Interim Liberal leader Marc Tanguay scrambled to explain the shift at his morning news conference. He could not say whether any of the schools that could be affected by such a loss of funding had been consulted.
He argued Quebec has evolved and now so too the Liberals will be guided in the future by new principles.
“Schools are not there to teach religion,” Tanguay said, confirming the Liberal’s new line. “Public money cannot be used to teach religion.”
Asked if every member of the 19-member Liberal caucus agreed with the shift, Tanguay repeated several times that a “caucus position is a caucus position.”
He said it is not up to the caucus alone to change the party’s standing position, and such a policy shift has to be discussed first by the whole Liberal membership at a policy convention.
In the end the vote was 19 Liberal and PQ MNAs in favour and 83 CAQ and Québec solidaire MNAs against. QS, which opposes the funding of religious schools, explained it had issues with other wording in the motion.
And the vote followed a passionate pitch by Legault himself to not cut the funding of private religious schools established, he noted, by such groups as the Catholic Church.
He argued that since such schools use the 60 per cent of public funding they get to teach the regular Quebec curriculum, and raise the other 40 per cent privately to teach religion, there are no savings to be had.
“For us there is no problem with these schools,” Legault said in a heated exchange with QS co-spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois.
Nadeau-Dubois reminded Legault that he was minister of education 25 years ago when Quebec started the deconfessionalization process.
“Why does the premier refuse to complete his own work?” Nadeau-Dubois shot across the floor during question period.
Legault, however, accused the opposition parties of wanting to cut funding for historic educational institutions such as Brébeuf and Notre-Dame in Montreal, Jésus-Marie and François de Laval in Quebec City.
That includes private religious schools, Legault noted.
“Our conviction is that there’s not a problem with the vast majority of these schools,” Drainville told reporters later. “But if there are some who do not respect the curriculum, well obviously this is not acceptable, they’re not respecting the law, and such cases we will apply sanctions on behalf of the kids.
“We’re doing this for the students. We’re going to look at do they respect the curriculum, yes or no.”