Normally back-to-school is a time of excitement and new beginnings. But Bill 21 is putting a damper on enthusiasm for many this year.
A new school year has dawned, with the last Montreal students heading back to class Tuesday.
It’s typically a time of new beginnings: new teachers, new friends, new grades, new subjects, new books, binders and backpacks; a time tinged with excitement, hope and possibility.
But this year there is a dark cloud hanging over the school year in the form of a new law that discriminates against a small number of teachers who wear religious dress.
Bill 21, Quebec’s secularism law, was adopted as the last school year drew to a close, so now is the first time its chilling measures will be felt. Based on the flawed premise that people of faith can’t be neutral in a secular state, the law bars public authority figures like police officers and judges from donning kippahs, turbans or hijabs in executing their duties. But the teaching profession is most heavily affected.
No new teachers who wear these articles of their faith can be hired. There is a grandfather clause to prevent teachers already in the classroom from losing their jobs. But they are henceforth denied the ability to change positions or promotion up career ladder. They have thus been stigmatized, condemned to a precarious kind of limbo, made to feel as if they are being begrudgingly tolerated.
Imagine returning to your job from summer vacation to find you have fewer rights, opportunities and options than the rest of your colleagues?
Nadia Naqvi is a science teacher at St. Thomas High School in the West Island. Her five-year plan had been to move into administration. And she had hoped to do a sabbatical year teaching abroad. But now she doesn’t even know if she will ever be able to change what subjects she teaches or transfer schools under the strictest interpretations of the law.
“I know I have a lot of leadership qualities,” said Naqvi, who is on medical leave. “I know I have a lot to offer my school board … but I’m stuck.
“If that’s not the definition of second-class citizen, I don’t know what is.”
Imagine coming to work and finding your employer has given up on defending you. School boards that initially denounced Bill 21 as divisive and unnecessary and refused to implement such draconian provisions are now caving. The Commission scolaire de Montréal had vowed to suspend the policy pending a review, but is now complying. The English Montreal School Board put off a vote last week on defying Bill 21, meaning they will respect it by default. The Lester B. Pearson School Board has quietly abandoned its resistance.
The Coalition Avenir Québec government seems to have cracked its whip, threatening top administrators with discipline for failing to obey. And with the looming threat of abolition, democratically elected school board commissioners are falling dutifully in line.
At Westmount High School, where staff have protested against Bill 21, teachers expressed disappointment last week that boards have ceded the moral high ground.
Imagine trying to impart values of acceptance and respect when you are subjected to despicable attacks. Teacher Dalila Matoub told the CSDM council of commissioners that as the only hijab-wearing instructor at her Rosemont school, she has been targeted by parents on social media.
Imagine trying to teach students whose parents don’t want their kids in your class. Schools have already been hit with demands from parents who want to yank their children from the supervision of teachers covered by the grandfather clause.
Education Minister Jean-François Roberge has said parents don’t get to choose their children’s teachers. But this is the kind of ugly monster a law as hateful as Bill 21 unleashes, the kind of nastiness a legislation that panders to unfounded fears and suspicions emboldens.
Imagine a province with a teacher shortage turning down competent professionals because of their identity, culture and beliefs. Roberge is calling for patience as some Quebec children start the school year without a permanent instructor and struggle to access support services. But his government’s own rules are making the problem worse.
Amrit Kaur just graduated from teacher’s college, but instead of staying in Quebec to work, she is taking her services elsewhere. What a waste of a promising young teacher. It’s children who will bear the consequences of a pointlessly cruel law.
Teaching is hard enough without the state undermining the respect and thanks those in this crucial profession deserve. Judging teachers on what they wear instead of what they have to offer is a sad lesson to send students and all of society.
