New civility rules to promote respect in Quebec schools

Quebec Education Minister Bernard Drainville’s cellphone ban unveiled Thursday is just part of four components for new school rules – all to tackle what he described as violence in schools and to promote respect.

Drainville said this builds on a plan the province launched in October 2023 to address bullying and violence in schools.

By January 2026, schools need to update their codes of conduct to include explicit expectations around respectful behaviour – including students addressing staff with formal terms like “Sir” or “Madam” instead of by their first names and using French words “vous” instead of “tu”.

“To say, Sir, to say, Mrs. is a way for the student to show respect for the authority of the teacher, the authority of the teaching assistant, the authority of the director of the school,” said Drainville. “This is what we want and it will be up to the school to decide precisely how this will translate into these sanctions, for example.”

Executive Director of Federation of Parents’ committee in Quebec, Corinne Payne, supports the minister’s push to promote respect in schools, but says parent involvement in shaping each school’s code of conduct is key to its success.

“We know that children, by nature, when we were all teenagers at one point in time, we all have that little rebellious streak,” said Payne. “And anything that you tell us that we have to do, we’re going to try not to do. That’s just human nature. It’s been going on for millions of years.”

“I think it’s involving everybody in the discussion and finding the right balance for each school and what’s best,” Payne added. “Because maybe in some schools, using sir and madam will be two archaic, two authoritative. It’s not by calling somebody ‘sir’ that you’re necessarily going to respect them. It’s the other actions that you’re going to take and what we’re going to include in those codes of conducts that are going to get there, going to make the changes in the schools.”

Respect for Quebec values such as gender equality must also be codified. The third measure focuses on the role of parents. “Respect and civility begins at home,” he said.

“That’s going to be the key and making this happen to be ready for January 2026 is to have that baseline that the ministry wants to put in place,” said Payne. “And that’s an excellent idea because then in every school, there’s going to be a baseline and then we’re going to adapt it for our specific schools.”

CityNews spoke with locals to see what they thought about the new civility rules.

“I support it,” said one Montreal mother. “I’m all for discipline for kids in schools. Even me when I was in school, we used to respect teachers a lot more than I see these days. I’m all for this direction of disciplining the kids and give making sure they respect their teachers them and give them the credit they deserve.”

“At the school where I teach, the use of formal ‘you’ is already the norm, and it works quite well,” said one Montreal teacher. “But I can understand that in some settings, some teachers may prefer to use informal ‘you’. I believe that rather than being a measure imposed by the ministry, it should be left to the discretion of professionals and teachers, because building a connection actually requires a certain level of spontaneity.”