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ABSTRACT
This article provides an overview of Quebec's new Ethics and Religious Culture Program. Given the social and historical importance of the program, and given that it is often the subject of gross misrepresentations, the aim of the paper is to provide a careful and substantiated reading of the program's content and orientations.
1. BACKGROUND AND CONTROVERSY
In 1995, the Quebec government began a major reform of its education system. Up until then, school boards in Quebec were divided along confessional lines, designated as either Catholic or Protestant. In 1997, school boards were deconfessionalized and divided along linguistic lines, designated as either English or French speaking. In 2005, the government announced that all confessional religious instruction would be abolished as of 2008. In the fall of 2008, the Ethics and Religious Culture (ERC) program became compulsory for all Quebec schools, elementary and secondary, public and private (Ministère de l'Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport 2005; MELS 2008, preamble).
The implementation of the program was followed by highly publicized pockets of resistance. A group of Evangelical Christian Parents withdrew their children from the course. A High School administration decided to suspend those students who did not attend the ERC classes. The Coalition for Freedom in Education, which is supported by several conservative Christian groups, organized demonstrations, protest marches, and various public events denouncing the program (Bouchard 2009; Educaloi 2008). The President of the Association of Catholic Parents, which supports the Coalition, rejected the program for what he sees as "the imposition of multiple religions." He also criticized the ethics component of the program for its purported moral relativism (Morse- Che vrier 2009). In a similar vein, a national Canadian newspaper published an article entitled "Quebec's Creepy New Curriculum" which also accuses the program of moral relativism and claims that the teaching material for this program "openly subverts Judeo-Christian values" (Kay 2008). The Coalition for Freedom in Education and the Catholic Civil Rights League use this article to support their argument against the program.1
Debates over the right to be exempted from the program found their way into the courts. Loyola, a private Catholic High School, petitioned the court and won the right to be exempted from teaching the program.2 Two Catholic parents had previously...