No niqab, no kirpan, no problems, says chair of largest Quebec school board
Last Updated: Tuesday, November 27, 2007 | 4:15 PM ET
CBC News
Quebec's biggest school board is successfully accommodating the religious and cultural differences of its diverse student population — unless a student wants to wear a ceremonial dagger or a face-covering niqab, the head of the board told the Bouchard-Taylor commission Tuesday.
These are simply not allowed, the chair of the Commission Scolaire de Montréal, Diane de Courcy, told the Quebec commission on reasonable accommodation of ethnic and religious minorities, which returned to Montreal Monday for its final hearings.
De Courcy also said there is no crisis or clash of values within the school system, and the occasional problems that arise are being worked out.
There are students from 193 different countries in the board's schools. For more than 50 per cent of the students, French — the language of education in the board — is their second or third language.
But, contrary to the experience reported by union leaders in other boards, de Courcy said there are no huge problems accommodating the vast majority of requests by students and their parents.
Of 853 requests the commission received last year, only 126 were refused outright, she said.
De Courcy said wearing the kirpan (the ceremonial dagger worn by some Skih men) and the niqab (the veil worn by some Muslim women) have never been issues.
She said the CSDM has seen an increase in requests from students who want to wear the niqab, but those requests have been refused.
That's where the school board has drawn the line, de Courcy said: at anything that might obscure a student's identity — such as the niqab — or anything that would prevent a student from fully participating in the curriculum, such as not taking swimming lessons or skipping moral education.
De Courcy asked the government to support the board's approach.
She also wants clarification from the government on the issue of employee requests for religious holidays off, and on the question of whether schools must be obliged to provide prayer rooms.
Philosopher Charles Taylor and sociologist Gérard Bouchard were appointed by Premier Jean Charest last winter to hold a series of hearings across the province on accommodation of immigrants after an often bitter public debate on their religious practices.
