JuridicsCanada: Supreme Court: Quebec's totalitarian educational bureaucracy under provincial Liberal govt seeks religious formative control over children, alienates parents from their authority, responsiblity and r+ts

Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (May19,2k11)

The Supreme Court of Canada heard a vitally important case, the Drummondville Case, that pits the atheism-driven Quebec educational establishment -- with its entrenched bureaucracy, tax revenues, and provincial Liberal govt backup, ultimately the police power -- against numerous Quebec families, both francophone and anglophone, both Catholic Christians and Protestant Christians (perhaps some Jews too, perhaps some Muslims),  who want sufficient religious freedom to determine the spiritual quality of their children's teachers,  schools convenient to their homes and guided by the same norms of integral faith, life, and education for their children.  A curriculum appropriate to the children of such parents, not the normless secularist dehumanization proferred by the one-religion-serves-all, the statist-religion without God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which clone-factory approach of the educational bureaucrats the govt ministry has put in place.  An integral philosophy of education to articulate an alternative option to pseudo-democratic state-sponsored thawt which is a monopoly in Quebec's teacher training institutions.

In Quebec, the main historical religious background has been Roman Catholicism, but Catholics are divided and many of them extensively secularistic in that sociocultural environment so that, for some, God matters very little to life and well-being, and other Catholics stand for a better lifeview and approach to the education of their children -- as a r+t !.



In Quebec, these are the main parameters of a contest of the spirits in which the established religion of secularism wants to take control of how children of faithful Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, and other God-professing parents, how such children can be appropriately educated, also, at the public expense.  These committed parents are reduced to second-class citizens becawz only secularism is permitted a formative influence, and plurality of different basic educational principles in accord with various life-commitments is shut-down and made non-functional. When it comes to public education, Quebec is a prison state.

The most grievous instance of the repression of alternative values in education occured when the provincial  Ministry responsible for funding daycares tried to take control of Jewish daycares, witholding money from well-established well-run Jewish daycares becawz they had too much kosher food, too many symbols and cultural activities and artifacts such as a people who had survived the Holocaust and their descendants may feel necessary and healthy for their youngsters.  Even the socialization of these kids with one another was put in jeopardy by the inquitous secularists of Quebec's early childhood authorities.  See:  refWrite (March24,2k11)

However, in the case before the court, entitled S.L et D.J. (appelants) VS. Commission Scholarie des Che^nes and Procureur Général du Québec (respondents) there were a number of intervenors:  Christian Legal Fellowship, Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Coalition pour la Liberté en Éducation, Evangelical Fellowhip of Canada, Regroupement Chrétien pour le Droit Parental en Éducation, Canadian Council of Christian Charities, Fédération des Commissions Scholaraires du Québec and Canadian Catholic School Trustees' Association.

The above bolded intervenor, EFC, has produced a brilliant thoro constitutional defense of the rights of parents to determine the religious quality of their child/ren's integral education, especially religious education and moral worldview.  If the other intervenors do only half as well, the Supreme Court of Canada will put aside the claims of the statist claimants to control the religious/areligious and moral/amoral framework of the education of other people's children.  Atheism, agnosticism, secularism, and amorality are not more equal than others.  The hippopotamus with the pea brain, Quebec Minister of Family, Tony Tomassi, to the contrary notwithstanding.

-- Lawt

-- below I've posted an out-take from the EFC FAQ Sheet on "the Drummondville Case" heard by the Supreme Court of Canada yesterday.

Ethics and Religious Culture Program

1. What is the ERC program and why is it so controversial?

The course is mandatory in the sense that it is required to be taught to all students. However, oddly, the successful completion of the course is not required for graduation.

The program was mandated at the beginning of the 2008-2009 school year for students from grades 1 to 11, whether they are attending private or public schools or if they are homeschooled. It addresses morality and various world religions including Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Hinduism.

Parents in the evangelical Christian community are split on the ERC program. Some welcome the opportunity for children to learn about the contribution of religious communities to the culture of Quebec. Others are concerned that the format used for teaching young children about a variety of religions, as required by the course, will convey to them that all religious beliefs and all moral codes are relative or of equal merit, i.e. they are all the same.

However, most agree that parents should have the right to choose whether or not their children participate in the program. Unfortunately, every parent who has requested that their children be exempted from the classroom has been refused.

2. What are the positive and negative aspects of the ERC?

The course offers the positive aspect of reflecting on the contribution of religious communities to the culture of Quebec. Unfortunately, the interpretation and context of the government designed curriculum is an interpretation of history, current events and religious belief that is very selective and does not recognize the legitimacy of the sincerely held religious beliefs concerned.

3. How does the ERC program affect the parent-teacher-child relationship?

The ERC program puts parents, teachers and students in a difficult position, notably for those families that have sincerely held religious beliefs.

Parents have expressed concern about how their children will be affected by being taught one understanding of religion, morality and ethics at school and another at home. The child is put in the unenviable position of having to determine, at some point, which authority to trust and/or which to be untruthful with. Parents do not wish to have their child’s trust in their educators undermined, nor do they want their children to lie to educators about their religious beliefs or religiously informed position on ethics and morality in order to pass a course at school. Children should not be required to engage in this type of cognitive dissonance.