Quebec Education Department admits to surveying schools on religious symbols

Quebec's Education Department admitted Tuesday it began surveying schools months ago about how many employees wear religious symbols on the job.

The Canadian Press obtained a copy of a survey sent to schools across the province asking principals to count the number of teachers and other personnel who wear visible religious symbols.

Last week, the Coalition Avenir Quebec government was accused of religious profiling after Education Department officials called school boards seeking records of how many board employees wear religious symbols. The calls came as the government prepared legislation to prohibit public servants in positions of authority — including teachers — from wearing such symbols as the hijab, kippa or turban at work.

Education Minister Jean-Francois Roberge said last week's criticism was unfair because the same questions had been asked in a survey that was conceived last June, when the Liberals were in office. He said the survey was officially sent by the Education Department in November, without his knowledge.

"I think it was an enormous, enormous exaggeration from school boards who were screaming loudly at us last week simply for asking if they had this information," Roberge told reporters. "While a few months before, hundreds of school administrations answered (the same questions)."

The Canadian Press approached Roberge's office, the Education Department and the office of Premier Francois Legault for comment on the survey Tuesday, but received no response. Hours later, Roberge held a news conference giving details about the survey and denouncing the criticism he faced last week.

Roberge told reporters more than 1,100 school administrators responded to the survey, which was available on the Education Department's internal portal, accessible to school principals. The deadline to respond was Dec. 14.

Roberge said 84 per cent of the respondents said no one in their institution wears a religious symbol. And no school had more than five employees who wore a religious symbol.

"There are very, very, very, very few people who wear religious symbols in Quebec schools," the minister said.

Michael Cohen, spokesman for the English Montreal School Board, said some schools in his board received the survey while others did not. "We do not keep statistics on how many of our employees wear religious symbols," he said in an email.

Alain Perron, spokesman for Montreal's main French-language school board, the Commission scolaire de Montreal, said all of its schools received the survey. He wasn't able to say if each principal responded.

"The survey was administered directly by the department on its (web) portal," Perron said in an interview. "It didn't go through the board at all."

Sebastien Proulx, a Liberal member of the legislature who was education minister when the department began putting together the survey, told reporters Tuesday he wasn't aware it was happening under his watch.

"One thing is certain," Proulx said, "I wasn't education minister when it was sent. Whether it was created by one of the 1,000 people in the department is one thing. But the day it's sent, you have to assume responsibility .... I would not have authorized it."

Legault said Monday it doesn't matter how few teachers in Quebec wear religious symbols at work. He said governments need to have a "vision" and recognize that the practice will become more prevalent.

"We know there will be more and more in our society, and in other societies, and we should have legislated on this issue years ago," he told reporters.