SJQS Committee Report

This Joint Committee’s mandate was to study the National Assembly’s request for a constitutional amendment whereby Section 93 of the Constitution Act, 1867 would no longer apply to the province of Quebec. Our role as a Committee was to establish the presence of a consensus within the population of the province of Quebec surrounding the removal of Section 93. This report aims to clarify the debate surrounding this Constitutional amendment and why a consensus on this issue cannot have been reached.

Our Committee has been repeatedly told that this constitutional amendment is not about language. It is about denominational education rights. However, the Committee’s study has focussed on the implementation of linguistic school boards, not on denominational education rights.

The implementation of linguistic school boards is a by-product of the constitutional amendment before us. The real effect of the requested amendment is the outright removal of denominational rights granted to Catholics and Protestants in the province of Quebec. This Committee has been told that the debate surrounding educational reforms in Quebec has been ongoing for over 30 years now and that there is a consensus surrounding the implementation of linguistic school boards. That may well be true. The evidence before this Committee suggests that there is consensus concerning linguistic school boards. However, the subject of this amendment, the repeal of constitutionally entrenched denominational rights and the place of religion within the public school system of Quebec, have not been discussed in that province. Quebec’s Minister of Education, Pauline Marois, stated in her brief submitted to this Committee that:

The debate on denominational education rights has not been held in the province of Quebec. There can therefore be no consensus regarding the removal of Section 93, the section dealing with denominational education rights. Quebec’s Minister of Education stated that denominational education would still be allowed in Quebec schools. I maintain that this is the reason why more opposition to this constitutional amendment has not surfaced. Even with these assurances, I have received close to 650 letters against the removal of Section 93 – and this, within a week and a half. The people of Quebec do not know what they are being asked to approve. Many if not all of the constitutional experts we have consulted have affirmed that once the protection found in Section 93 is removed, any type of denominational education within the public school system in Quebec will be subject to Charter challenge. The only way that the National Assembly could protect provisions of its Education Act, Bill 109, is by invoking the notwithstanding clause found in the Education Act, which is due for renewal in 1999. That is not what the people of Quebec have been led to believe.

This Committee asked the Minister of Education for assurances that the National Assembly would honour its promise to the people of Quebec to preserve the right to denominational education in the schools and invoke the notwithstanding clause. We got no such assurances. We were told that the debate on denominational rights would be held in 1999. I cannot in all good conscience recommend the removal of Section 93 of the Constitution Act, 1867 before the classes of people affected by Section 93 are properly consulted and informed of the consequences of their actions.