(Canadian Press) The Quebec government should phase out public funding of religious private schools and extend the religious symbols ban to daycare workers, says a committee tasked with advising the province on how to strengthen secularism.
A nearly 300-page report published Tuesday sets out 50 recommendations to combat what its authors see as a growing presence of religion in some Quebec institutions, particularly schools in Montreal.
“It’s the whole religious atmosphere that is taking hold that has no place in a secular state,” Christiane Pelchat, a lawyer who co-chaired the committee, told a news conference.
Pelchat and co-chair Guillaume Rousseau, a lawyer and professor at Université de Sherbrooke, want the government to limit religious accommodations, force municipalities to regulate public prayer and create a national day for secularism.
