Excerpts
Groups representing publicly funded daycares and daycare workers in Quebec say the province’s new expanded secularism law would create numerous challenges for the daycare network and likely weaken services to young children.
If passed, Bill 9 would prohibit workers in public daycares, known as CPEs, from wearing religious symbols while at work. It would also ban them from serving exclusively kosher or halal food.
“We’re concerned that the problem raised and the means adopted by Bill 9 are not in line with the challenges and emergencies identified on the ground in the early childhood sector,” the association representing public daycares said Thursday in its memoir to a National Assembly committee holding consultations on the bill.
...
Solving problem that doesn’t exist
Pascal Coté, vice-president of the CSQ labour federation, which represents workers at CPEs, told CBC in an interview Wednesday the government has failed to provide a clear justification for the new bill.
“There are no studies that show that wearing a religious symbol transmits any religion at all to a child,” Coté said.
The AQCPE surveyed its members to see how many complaints they’d received about staff attire. Out of 705 respondents, more than 90 per cent said they had never received a complaint.
...
Report on secularism says hijabs not neutral
Bill 9 is based largely on the recommendations of a government-commissioned report released last August from a committee that studied secularism, led by lawyers Guillaume Rousseau and Christiane Pelchat.
In that report, Pelchat and Rousseau said daycare staff wearing hijabs was not neutral.
...
Staffing shortages
Perhaps the biggest potential effect of Bill 9 on the daycare network would be to exacerbate an existing shortage of workers.
The AQCPE says daycares already face a “severe shortage” of qualified staff. That means sometimes ideal ratios of staff to children aren’t met, the number of available spaces is reduced, replacements aren’t available, and shutdowns during summer and holiday periods become longer, the group said.
It says reducing the pool of potential staff even further by introducing a new restriction won’t help.
“This decline in qualified staff directly threatens educational quality throughout the network and risks worsening if Bill 9 reduces the number of future graduates eligible to work,” the association said.
...
Parents with face coverings
Another problem area identified by the AQCPE deals with Bill 9’s requirement that anyone who receives services from a child-care provider must do so with their face uncovered.
“We have several questions regarding the application of this requirement, particularly for mothers whose religion requires them to cover their faces in public,” the association said.
...
More data needed
Both the AQCPE and the CSQ are asking the government to go back to the drawing board and gather more data about the necessity of such a law and its potential consequences.
“Put on the brakes, take the time to get some better analysis of the numbers of workers that could be affected, how the services could be affected,” Coté said.
...