Quebec promises new legislation to strengthen secularism in schools – Montreal [Video]

The Quebec government says it will table legislation to strengthen secularism in schools, following the latest in a series of reports about Muslim religious practices appearing in some of the province’s public schools.

Premier François Legault says there are teachers introducing “Islamist religious concepts” into Quebec schools, in violation of the principle of secularism.

His comments follow a report in La Presse that documented students praying in classrooms and hallways and disrupting a play focused on sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy prevention at a high school in Laval, north of Montreal.

With the provincial legislature set to rise for the holidays, Education Minister Bernard Drainville told reporters in Quebec City that the behaviour does not represent “our Quebec” and is “completely intolerable and unacceptable.”

The …