Ethics and religious culture

A court case against the ERC curriculum was heard from the 11th to the 15th of May, 2009 in Quebec’s Superior Court in Drummondville. Two Catholic parents were challenging the school’s refusal of an exemption for both their first grader and their sixteen-year-old who was in last year of high school. They were arguing that the course’s contents put their children’s faith at risk by being premature, relativistic and polytheistic, and teaching ethics detached from the parents' moral framework. It was seen as a test case for Quebec parents.[1]

The parents lost their court case and decided to bring their cause to the Supreme Court of Canada.[2]

The Supreme Court granted the parents leave to appeal, but on hearing the merits determined that the appellants were unable to prove their case.

The case was heard on the 18th of May 2011 by the highest tribunal in Canada. A summary of the legal issues at stake[3] is listed on the Supreme Court's site. The parents' factum is to be found here.[4]

Apart from the original parties, 8 additional parties were granted the status of interveners (a pointer is supplied to the party's factum):

1. Christian Legal Fellowship;[5]
2. Canadian Civil Liberties Association;[6]
3. Coalition pour la liberté en éducation;[7] # Evangelical Fellowship of Canada;[8]
4. Regroupement chrétien pour le droit parental en éducation;[9]
5. Canadian Council of Christian Charities;[10]
6. Fédération des commissions scolaires du Québec[11] (did not present oral arguments);
7. Canadian Catholic School Trustees' Association.[12]

The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada wrote a FAQ in layman's terms explaining what it saw as the issues at stake and how this court case differs from the Loyola one. Two court reports were published, one in English by a writer of the Catholic register, another more detailed in French by a parent in favour of parents being exempt of this course if they so wish.

The Supreme Court heard the case and ruled that "... [the court] cannot conclude that the appellants have been able to prove their case." [13]

The parents were awarded the Catholics Civil Right League's yearly award[14] for their defense of parents' free choice in education.

A private Catholic high school, Loyola High School, also launched a court challenge. Loyola High was challenging the fact that the Ministry of Education has not allowed it to teach what it deems an equivalent ethics and religion course better fitting the Catholic outlook of the school. It alleged that the Ministry had done so despite provisions in the law that would allow such an equivalent course.[15]

Loyola High won its court case at the Supreme Court of Canada and is now exempt for the ERC course. It may teach its equivalent Catholic course. On 18 June 2010, Superior Court Justice Gerard Dugre compared the attempt of the education minister to impose a secular emphasis on Loyola High School's teaching of the course to the intolerance of the Spanish Inquisition: "The obligation imposed on Loyola to teach the ethics and religious culture course in a lay fashion assumes a totalitarian character essentially equivalent to Galileo's being ordered by the Inquisition to deny the Copernican universe," the judge wrote in his 63-page decision[16][17]