New Quebec culture course sparks concerns over cultural representation

A new course that replaced the ethics and religious culture program in elementary and high schools across the province has sparked concerns that not all Quebec cultural groups will be presented.

The course, called Citizenship and Culture Quebec (CCQ), aims to foster a better understanding of Quebec culture.

Anne-Marie De Silva was in charge of getting English Montreal School Board teachers ready to teach the new course.

"The old course focused a lot on ethics and on religion and religious culture. And so religious culture is still part of the new program, but it's under the larger umbrella of culture in general," De Silva said.

The course was first announced in 2021 as a replacement for the ethics and religious culture program, which faced its share of criticism and legal challenges.

"What is friendship? What is a good friend? What is not a good friend? Celebrating diversity. Why is diversity preferable to uniformity? All of these, touched on to the CCQ program," she said.

Sabrina Jafralie taught the ethics and religious culture course at Westmount High and is now responsible for the new program.

"Every time a political party comes in power, they have control over education because it's provincial. And that means that the values of that particular party get transferred into education," Jafralie said.

She added that each school will have the power to design the program the way that they want based on the curriculum.

Jafralie said she is worried about what will make it into the course material but, more critically, what won't.

"We are missing things like the history of Sikh folks who came here, or Muslim folks who came here, or the contribution of Afro Quebecers or Afro Canadians and so forth, Jewish communities," Jafralie explained.

"These are things if you want to talk about citizenship and culture in Quebec. It's not a homogeneous culture, but a number of cultures that make up the culture."

She noted that the roll-out of the program has been rushed and is concerned about the training the teachers have received.

"There's no set CCQ teacher. There's actually a handful of us in the province, so that every teacher that comes in September could be given CCQ, and we are guaranteed that they didn't get that training.

Jafralie said she hopes teachers across the province will use the course to teach critical thinking skills and recognize the many cultures that makeup Quebec.