Minister of higher education Pascale Déry insists she has the right to intervene directly in course contents, which she has done recently at Vanier and at Dawson colleges. Both incidents involved course contents bearing on Palestine.
Updates from February, 2025 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
-
Kate
-
Kate
Soraya Martinez Ferrada has been crowned as leader of Ensemble Montréal.
Steve Faguy on Bluesky: “Projet Montréal’s opponent in the next municipal election will be led by a former Liberal MP. Again.”
Ian
It’s kind of interesting, there used to be a kind of implied parallel between QS and Projet / Ensemble and PLQ … but since QS has gone openly ethnonationalist, not so much.
Joey
@Ian I think it’s more, why would Projet attach its successful image to QS, which, like the federal NDP, can’t help but stagnate.
Nicholas
Is Ensemble a real party? It was just a shell for Coderre, and it is so listless that none of its borough mayors or anyone else related to it, or literally anyone, even people who didn’t live in Montreal (remember that guy?) wanted to lead it, such that they needed a second round to get even one candidate.
What do they believe? Is it just *not* Projet? I went to their Program page to find out, where I found an excerpt from Coderre’s book, repeated references to what the “Coderre-Gelly administration” will do, and this (emphasis mine):
Ensemble Montréal knows that the full development of the city depends on its mayor’s understanding of what makes the city vibrate. He must embody it, as well as his administration, in order to allow the city to use all the levers that are accessible to it in its role as the driving force of the entire Quebec region.
The election is 8 months from tomorrow. Is this a party that looks ready to do anything? If you were the federal or provincial Liberals, would you tie your party to it?
Kate
Thanks for digging up that quotation, Nicholas! It’s such an admission that Ensemble doesn’t have even the most basic principles that unify the party or give it any cohesion.
In practice, it’s basically anti-Projet, as you point out. So it has hopes of getting votes from anyone displeased with Projet’s actions – and who also votes. Most Montrealers don’t vote in municipal elections.
Orr
Outremont dead last in snow clearing from the big blizzard. Ensemble mayor Laurent Desbiens can take credit for that exceptional result.
Nicholas
Orr, to be fair, Outremont is now done, while Ville Saint-Laurent is last at around 80%; they even have some streets that aren’t even scheduled for clearing yet. In the past I’ve noticed that MHM is often last, but this time it’s not even close. I don’t think which party controls each borough has much correlation with who finishes first, but I agree that this time the worst borough by far is an EM stronghold, who’s only ever had a single person as borough mayor.
Kate, I completely agree with you, it’s basically anti-Projet. I should just add that I don’t think that is good: parties govern best when there is competition, when they have to show results. Even if you like Projet, having a competent opposition helps Projet stay on their game. And to be fair to Soraya, she was “elected” one day ago, the website won’t be updated with her plan and ideas. But it’s clear that since Coderre left they have been rudderless, their news page is sad, and the only thing unifying them is opposing Projet, especially on anything they do that hurts cars or raises taxes. I’m not sure that’s a sustainable coalition, for an election or governing.
Kate
I agree that it would be better for Projet if they had real opposition – some form of constructive criticism at least. But journalists never pose the questions they should ask when an Ensemble person carps at something Projet is proposing to do: “What would your party do differently, and why?” or “Where would your party get the money, if Projet can’t?”
There’s still time for an entirely new party to arise before the November election, although I don’t know what setting it would come from. I haven’t seen any online noise from people keen on making a play, but I’ve seen too many pieces about how so few are interested in holding municipal office in Quebec these days, given the torrent of abuse politicians attract via social media.
-
Kate
Le Devoir’s Jeanne Corriveau went along with a snowblower operator to see what the job is like and happened on a philosophical driver.
-
Kate
Bernard Drainville is vowing to strengthen and enlarge Quebec’s secularism laws, after a report on “uneven” obedience to existing secularism rules in some schools. Horrors, “students were allowed to pray on school grounds” and teachers converse among themselves in languages other than French, even in front of students!! (What the latter claim has to do with secularism isn’t made clear.)
Daycare supervisors and other school staff may soon be subject to Drainville’s ukase.
H. John
@Kate “teachers converse among themselves in languages other than French”
This is a clear reference to the original Bedford Report from last June. In that school, 80% of their students do not have French as a first language, and don’t speak French at home. The report covered the issue of providing a French atmosphere for their students in common areas like hallways. On a broader scale, the issue had already been raised by management as an inclusion issue effecting not only students but other professors who didn’t speak Arab. This lead to a petition on employees right of expression, and the union was clear that the language used by teachers in their break-room, or in any common area was none of the employers business.
This morning on 98.5FM Patrick Lagacé interviewed Bernard Drainville about the latest report and his concerns:
jeather
Wouldn’t want to see prayer in a secular school like École Saint-Enfant-Jésus.
DavidH
My first thoughts about the language thing was they forgot laïcité is supposed to be the cautionnable front for their xenophobia and they are just exposing it for what it is.
BUT, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe, those teachers were reciting latin religious texts in a pre-Vatican II manner? Could it be?
mare
I was surprised to see a large 3-metre tall cross on the outside wall of a neighbourhood primary school. Impossible to miss, slightly above eye level. The school doesn’t even have a religious name (École Madeleine-de-Verchères) and as far as I can tell from their web pages on the CSSDM website aren’t a Catholic school. But apparently the cross isn’t a religious symbol, just tradition. Laïcité is just other-ism.
Nicholas
mare, the school down the street from me has a cross above the entrance too, and doesn’t have a religious name either. But maybe the rule is you can’t have religion in the school, but it’s fine outside of it.
walkerp
The name is a historical artifact. Saint-enfant Jesus (or “Baby Jesus” as we anglophone parents call it) is definitely secular on the inside.
jeather
I thought we cared very deeply about visible religion in schools, like veils and jewelry, and not what they meant in the hearts of the teachers or if it actually had an effect on their teaching.
Kate
The school crosses would be left over from when it was the Montreal Catholic School Commission. Confessional public schools ended here in 1998 on which the CSSDM took over most of the Catholic commission’s buildings, crosses and all. I doubt there are any crucifixes left inside the buildings, as there certainly were when I went to school.
jeather
Some of the school crosses are carved into the building which — fine, whatever, I see the argument to leave it be. But some are removable, and school names could be changed, but neither happen, because it’s not laicite at all, it’s hiding only non-Catholic religions.
JP
Whatever school is now housed at 1995 rue Victor Dore also has crosses at the door…
Having said that, I do find the idea of teachers speaking other languages in classrooms or hallways, a little off putting. I don’t think it has to be malicious but it can feel like maybe your teachers might be talking about you or your classmates.Andrew Aitken
I still believe the most egregiously non-secular school in the CSSDM is the Petit Chanters de Mont-Royal. Every single student is learning catholic hymns in school and singing them every Sunday in the Oratory.
Meezly
Laicité had its place in the separation of Church and State in France, but many human rights orgs have observed over the past decades how laicité has been weaponized against Muslim communities. It’s a thing. I believe in secularism but laicité has been co-opted and often seems like code for xenophobia though well-meaning intellectuals would deny this. Quebec is merely taking its cues from France.
Kate
JP, looking at that school on Streeview, it’s obvious that those crosses are not part of the structure or the façade, and could very easily be removed.
Meezly, I think you’re onto something. And Quebec was dominated by the Catholic church more recently than France, which adds an extra twist.
Uatu
I’d rather QC take it’s cues from France regarding access to the medical system especially GPs.
Ian
Well, careful what you wish for – France may have ditched the rule of the Church but their secularism is largely informed by a hatred for Jews and more recently, Muslims, even more intense than that on display here – the Vichy government & Algerian war of Independence come to mind.
Kevin
Of course the crosses should come down, just like how an earlier generation forced schools to mortar over engraved words like ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ /s
Meezly
It’s not me who’s onto something, I’m just reading stuff put forth by sociologists, historians, human rights activists and the like.
-
Kate
Weekend notes – in addition to spring break notes below, it’s Nuit Blanche weekend and the metro will be open all night – from CultMTL, CityCrunch, La Presse, CTV.
Also the road closures as usual.
jeather 19:24 on 2025-02-28 Permalink
Freedom for professors to say the n word in class but no further?
Ian 10:10 on 2025-03-01 Permalink
Interesting that most of these complaints about course content are
coming via CIJA, … and Déry used to work for them. Even the FNEEQ (the
CEGEP union, one step below the CSN) has called that relationship out.
As the linked article says, “On indique également que le Centre
consultatif des relations juives et israéliennes (CIJA) – sur lequel
la ministre a siégé de 2016 à 2022 – avait tenté d’intervenir dans le
contenu du même cours.”
Here’s some more detailed explanation –
“An article in Le Devoir reveals that Quebec Minister of Higher
Education (ministre de l’Enseignement supérieur du Québec) Pascale
Déry, conducted an investigation into Montreal’s Dawson and Vanier
CEGEPs under the influence of pro-Israel groups, CIJA and CIJA (Centre
for Israel and Jewish Affairs). According to the article, the CIJA
website claims to have influenced Ms. Déry, with the help of CIJA, to
launch the investigation. The article in Le Devoir quotes the CIJA
website: “We are pleased with this decision and will continue to
engage directly with the Minister and the institutions throughout the
process,” CIJA also wrote on its Facebook page in an English-language
post.
The article in Le Devoir further states: “A member of the Sephardic
community, Minister Déry sat on the CIJA board of directors from
2016 to 2022”. On February 4, the Fédération nationale des
enseignantes et des enseignants du Québec (FNEEQ-CSN) sent her a
letter in which it denounced the “political instrumentalization of the
administrative investigation process” that the minister is allegedly
using at Dawson and Vanier colleges, as well as the “appearance of a
conflict of interest” in which she places herself because of her past
involvement with CIJA.”
(my bold)
https://paju.org/paju-demands-the-resignation-of-quebec-minister-pascale-dery/