Muslim community leaders from across Quebec are up in arms over Education Minister Bernard Drainville’s move to ban public schools from setting up prayer rooms on their premises. “School is not a place of prayer. A person or a group should not be able to use a classroom as a prayer room,” said Drainville earlier this week, essentially turning a public school into a mosque.
CTV News In a joint press release sent Thursday evening, representatives of several mosques that are members of the Table de Concertation des Organismes Musulmans (TCOM) expressed their “indignation” at the minister’s decision. The group is now looking into legal options.
“We are also indignant that this decision is made in the middle of Ramadan, a month of blessings, fasting, meetings with all fellow citizens and prayers for Muslim citizens of Quebec,” they wrote.
The authors represent the Islamic Cultural Center of Quebec, the Islamic Association of Rimouski, the Islamic Cultural Association of the Eastern Townships, the Association of Muslims of Greater Levis, Mac-Quebec, the Socio-cultural Islamic Association Louperivoise and BelAgir-Quebec.
Their statement comes a day after Drainville announced that he will send a directive to all school service centres to ban prayer rooms in Quebec public schools.
The father of the Parti Québécois (PQ) Charter of Values, now a CAQ minister, said he had been presented with at least two cases of schools in Laval where students could gather in a room to pray, in violation, he said, of the spirit of the law on secularism. PQ MNA for Matane-Matapédia, Pascal Bérubé, also noted that a third school, in Vaudreuil, was added to the list.
Muslim leaders said they were “shocked and surprised by the allegations” of young people praying in schools. Students they describe as “clean in their minds and dedicated in their studies and especially far from the delinquency that we know.” “We are also outraged that the minister is attacking the young people who are the future of all of us,” they continued in the statement.
This is so typical of Muslims. They have the audacity to barge in another country and as Italians would say, Subito Presto they want to change the laws of the countries they invade. I say, if you’re not happy in Quebec, retourner chez votre sale pays. And Bless Quebec for their people.
And change the laws into those of the countries they allegedly fled.
Ok, seems to be working now.
Testing again. I cannot to get my comments posted.
Schools are not places of worship. The Muslimes refuse to comprehend this. Especially not for people who pray with their posteriors in the air. EWWW. Welcome to the West. If you don’t like it, please go back to your sh*thole countries. Hope this decision is not overturned.
Wow ! Someone with working brain cells . Breath of reality ;God Bless him many times over.
When it comes to Quebec-French secularism, there should be a fine line.
For example, public schools should be religiously neutral.
The secular state should be religiously neutral (i.e. not engaging in State enforced secularism, which is a violation separation of church and state).
Muslims have the options of choosing private Islamic schools.
If the secular state of Quebec wanted to outlaw private Islamic schools, then there is justified cause for outrage since that is a violation of church-state separation.
I’ve always said, as a Canadian, that giving the government authority to ban the Hijab or regulate privately funded Muslim schools is never the answer since it’s giving the government WAY too much power (and COVID scamdemic has shown the government can NEVER be trusted with that level of power).
Anyway, that’s my take.