Quebec education minister suggests expanding religious symbol ban to some school support staff

Quebec's education minister said Friday the government is considering expanding its ban on religious symbols to include daycare supervisors and other school aides. 

Bernard Drainville told Radio-Canada's Tout un matin he was concerned that there are some school staff members who are in positions of authority but are not currently subject to the government's religious symbols ban.

"We're thinking about it," Drainville said. He declined to offer details, however. 

In the wake of a report that found teachers at Bedford Elementary school in Montreal's Côte-des-Neiges brought religious ideas into the classroom and contributed to a toxic environment, Drainville promised to introduce new legislation to strengthen secularism in the province's schools. 

The Bedford report sparked other investigations. Staff at the Education Ministry looked into 17 other schools where Drainville said similar allegations had occurred. 

The Education Ministry released the results of those investigations on Friday and Drainville said he was concerned by their findings. 

"There are aspects of the report that resemble what we saw with Bedford," he said. 

Drainville explained that the investigators had found instances of students wearing full veils inside the classroom — something he said was unacceptable. 

He also said that in some schools, teachers were failing to teach some aspects of sexual education, or avoiding topics like homosexuality, because they ran counter to their own religious beliefs or the religious beliefs of their students. There were also instances of students praying in school, something the government has already banned. 

Frédéric Brun, the president of the Fédération des employées et employés de services publics, the union that represents the majority of support staff who work in Quebec schools, said in a statement that Drainville's suggestion that more staff should be subject to the religious symbols ban would "aggravate a hiring crisis."

"Rather than further complicating access to these jobs essential to schools running smoothly," he said, "the government should focus on improving working conditions and recognizing these workers."

Opposition parties at the National Assembly accused Drainville of coming out with his statement about religious symbols to deflect from the government's mishandling of the SAAQclic fiasco. 

"Today, as if by chance, the minister of education is using a report he's had in hand for a month to talk to us about religious symbols in schools," said Ruba Ghazal, spokesperson for Québec solidaire.  

"This won't make us forget the $500 million in cost overruns and the whole IT mess you're responsible for. I won't give up until you call a public inquiry."