Quebec Education Minister Bernard Drainville tables amendments to enforce Bill 94

Posted June 5, 2025 5:46 pm.
A child receiving homeschooling will lose services if they or their parent refuse to uncover their face in the presence of a school or service centre representative.
Quebec Education Minister Bernard Drainville tabled several amendments on Thursday to strengthen his Bill 94 on secularism in schools.
This legislation extends the requirement to have faces uncovered at all times to all public and private schools, subsidized or not, for both students and staff.
It also imposes this requirement on children receiving homeschooling and their parents during the provision of any service by the school service centre.
On Thursday, Drainville indicated that he was adding a penalty: refusal by a student or parent to comply will result in the loss of services.
For example, a child requiring the services of a special education teacher would be deprived of them, as long as they or their parent refuse to completely uncover their face, Drainville’s office explained.
In its brief, the Association québécoise des cadres scolaires (AQCS) expressed its opinion on this type of consequence. It saw it as a “contradiction with the obligation to allow students to receive the services to which they are entitled.”
“The risks that this type of sanction would entail in terms of the feeling of exclusion experienced by students or parents should not be overlooked,” it wrote.
Drainville proposed other amendments that add obligations to students and their parents.
The bill already required students to respect gender equality and avoid all forms of bullying or violence motivated by “racism, sexual orientation, sexual or gender identity, homophobia, a disability, or a physical characteristic.”
Drainville also added “manifestations of hatred and discrimination” to the prohibited actions for students.
During the special consultations, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs had notably asked the minister to be more stringent in dealing with these manifestations of “hatred.”
“Hateful behavior (…) is indeed serious and unacceptable, which merits clarification in the law to specifically target it,” the minister’s press secretary, Antoine de la Durantaye, told The Canadian Press.
A third amendment would make parental involvement mandatory in enforcing the student code of conduct.
A bill with a broad scope
Bill 94 has a broad scope: it extends the ban on wearing religious symbols to all public school staff.
Accommodations would be tightened: schools would no longer be able to adapt their teaching methods, teaching materials, or programs for religious reasons. Absences for religious reasons would also be more strictly regulated. Requests for kosher or halal food, for example, would no longer be accepted.
The government also proposes to enshrine its directive on prohibiting prayer and other religious practices in schools into the law.
Members of school boards would be subject to a code of ethics; their conduct would be expected to be free from religious considerations and guided by democratic and secular values.
If the bill is passed, teachers would have to submit their annual plans to the school, which would ensure that they comply with the pedagogical regime. An annual teacher evaluation is also provided for.
Bill 94 uses the notwithstanding clause, which protects it from legal challenges.
When he introduced his bill on March 20, Drainville said he was “shaken” by the case of Bedford School in Montreal, where it was discovered in 2024 that a clique of teachers were creating a toxic environment.
Girls were banned from playing soccer, children on the autism spectrum received no specialized services, and science and sex education were rarely taught, if at all.
11 teachers at Bedford School have been suspended since then
Following the events in Bedford, Drainville dispatched investigators to 17 schools where violations of the secularism law were reported. The report mentions that in one school, students were wearing a religious symbol covering their entire faces.
As the detailed study of Bill 94 began on Thursday, Quebec Solidaire MNA Sol Zanetti accused the CAQ government of “dividing society.” “It’s a bill of social exclusion,” he declared.
The minister acknowledged that he will not be able to pass his bill by the end of the parliamentary session. The detailed study will therefore continue in the fall, he said in a press conference.
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews