Daycares slam Quebec’s new secularism bill, say it will have direct impact on services

Groups representing publicly funded daycares (known as CPEs) and daycare workers in Quebec say the province’s new enhanced secularism law would create numerous challenges for the daycare network and likely weaken services to young children.

“We’re concerned that the problem raised and the means adopted by Bill 9 are not in line with the challenges and emergencies identified on the ground in the early childhood sector,” the association representing CPEs said in its memoir released Thursday to a National Assembly committee holding consultations on the bill this week.

Bill 9 prohibits workers in CPEs from wearing religious symbols while at work and bans CPEs from serving exclusively kosher or halal food.

Jean-Francois Roberge, Quebec’s minister responsible for secularism, has justified the bill saying religious neutrality of the state ensures equality for all.

“The bill does not improve either the quality of educational services offered or access to a healthy and safe learning environment,” the Association québécoise des centres de la petite enfance (AQCPE) said in its memoir.

In fact, daycares say the secularism law will exacerbate existing staffing shortages, add financial burdens and weaken trust between CPEs and some parents.

Pascal Coté, vice-president of the CSQ labour federation, which represents workers at CPEs, told CBC in an interview Wednesday the government has failed to provide a clear justification for the new bill.

“There are no studies that show that wearing a religious symbol transmits any religion at all to a child,” Coté said.

The AQCPE surveyed its members to see how many complaints they’d received about staff attire. Out of 705 respondents, more than 90 per cent said they had never received a complaint.

Among the few complaints received, the association said only about half were related to religious symbols.

The other half related to other clothing or appearance concerns including dirty hair, clothing that is too low-cut, or an educator who refuses to dress up for Halloween. 

“This data demonstrates that, although the wearing of religious symbols is present in the network, it remains marginal and does not constitute a widespread problem or a source of recurring tensions for parents or educational teams,” the AQCPE said.

Bill 9 is based largely on the recommendations of a government-commissioned report released last August from a committee that studied secularism, led by lawyers Guillaume Rousseau and Christiane Pelchat.

In that report, Pelchat and Rousseau said daycare staff wearing hijabs was not neutral.