Quebec Court Of Appeal Finds That Private Catholic High School Cannot Teach Ethics And Religious Culture Course From A Catholic Perspective

On December 4, 2012, the Quebec Court of Appeal ruled in Québec (Procureur général) c. Loyola High School,1 that Loyola High School, a private Catholic high school in Montreal, was required to teach a secular Ethics and Religious Culture Course (the "Course"), and could not substitute an international religions course taught from a Catholic perspective. The decision will be of particular interest to private religious educational institutions across Canada, as the Court accepted an unprecedented degree of Government interference with the content of religious instruction in a private school.

The Facts The Québec Ministry of Education developed the Course as part of a deliberate effort to replace existing Catholic and Protestant programs of religious and moral instruction in Québec's public schools with non-denominational ethical instruction and the presentation of various religions in a manner intended to be "cultural" rather than "religious", and "neutral" rather than "partisan". While students were previously allowed to choose between Catholic instruction, Protestant instruction or a non-confessional morality and ethics course, from 2005 to 2008, the Québec Government gradually moved to replace this system with the single, mandatory Course. The Québec Minister of Education has stated that the change was intended to better reflect the increasingly pluralistic reality of Québec. Under the applicable legislation, the Course is mandatory for all Grade 1 to Grade 11 students in Québec, regardless of whether they attend public or private schools or are homeschooled. Parents are not given the option of exempting their children from the course.

In S.L. v. Commission scolaire des Chênes,2 the Course was challenged by the Roman Catholic parents of students attending a public school in Drumondville, Québec. The parents asked the school board to exempt their children from participating in the Course. The parents argued that the course imposed a normative pluralism, trivialized religion, and promoted relativism. Furthermore, they argued that the mandatory nature of the course undermined parental choice with regard to their children's religious education. In a decision released on February 17, 2012, the Supreme Court of Canada upheld the validity of the Course, finding that exposing children to the views of various religions did not constitute an indoctrination of students that would infringe their parents' freedom of religion.3

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