Thanks Again Mr. Charest

Well, Quebeckers like to keep things interesting, non?

NP:

A new religion course taught in schools across Quebec was intended to improve inter-cultural understanding, but so far it is generating deep division as hundreds of parents pull their children out of class....

....Stéphanie Tremblay, a spokeswoman for Quebec's Education Department, said school boards across the province have received and rejected more than 1,400 requests from public-school parents seeking to have their children exempted from taking the course. The dissenters represent a small minority of the one million children enrolled in public schools.....

"The course was designed with an eye to respecting the freedom of conscience and religion of all students," she said. "It is not a religious instruction course. It is religious culture. We introduce young people to religious culture like we introduce them to musical culture. The goal is to better know and understand others."....

Meanwhile...

The new course is also mandatory in private schools, and Montreal's Loyola High School has initiated its own court challenge. Parents of more than 600 of the Jesuit school's students asked to have their children exempted from the course, and all were refused by the province.

Paul Donovan, the school's principal, said much of the curriculum is already taught at Loyola, but not in the "relativistic" way favoured by the Education Department.

He said the course does not ask children to distinguish between right and wrong. "What it essentially says is that religion is just, ‘You like tomato soup and I like pea soup, so don't be all offended because someone likes tomato soup. It's really just a matter of preference,' " he said. "Religion could be Wiccan or Raelian or any of the new movements or atheism or agnosticism."

So far Loyola has refused to teach the Ethics and Religious Culture class. "I can't tell my teachers to teach that course in conscience. I can't," Mr. Donovan said.

I don't think Ms. Stephanie really understands the concepts of 'parental perogative' and 'freedom of religion' - or for that matter, 'culture'!

How many more self immolating 'reforms' will Quebec endure under the rule of Monsieur Charest?

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