CAQ not ending public funding for religious schools

François Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) is refusing to end public funding for religious schools.

All CAQ MNAs present in the National Assembly on Thursday voted against a Parti Québécois (PQ) motion calling for, among other things, consistency with the principles of secularism and the withdrawal of funding from such schools.

The motion also called for a strengthening of Quebec’s secularism law, commonly known as Bill 21.

RELATED: How a Montreal school reignited a debate over secularism and Bill 21 in Quebec

In a surprising move, Québec solidaire (QS) chose to vote with the CAQ, while members of the Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ) and the PQ voted in favour of the motion.

It’s a dramatic change of course for the Liberals, but “that’s where we’re at” said interim leader Marc Tanguay at a press briefing, who said it was normal for the party to “evolve.”

In Quebec, some 50 private schools – Catholic, Evangelical Protestant, Muslim, Jewish and Orthodox – receive around $160 million a year in public funding.

On Wednesday, QS MNA Ruba Ghazal tabled a motion calling on the “Quebec government to consider ending public funding for private denominational schools,” but it was rejected by the CAQ.

The debate on religious schools was revived this week in the wake of a report on Montreal’s Bedford School. The report mentions “certain religious practices, such as prayers in classrooms or ablutions in shared toilets.”

Quebec Premier François Legault mandated Minister of Education Bernard Drainville, and Jean-François Roberge, the minister responsible for secularism, “to examine all options” to “reinforce controls and secularism in schools.”