Prayer rooms in universities made headlines recently when Quebec introduced a bill to ban their existence. Banning prayer rooms in public universities and banning communal prayers in public spaces are two measures in Quebec’s Bill 9 on Laïcité (Secularism), introduced in November. The bill also extends an earlier ban on religious symbols into daycare settings,…
Western University’s French immersion homestay program, founded in 1933 in Trois-Pistoles, Quebec, is the oldest in Canada. Yet it’s in trouble. Western has started a review of their French immersion program after it was paused in 2024 due to a decline in homestay families. Many households involved before 2020 are approaching retirement and, when the…
Born and raised in Baie Commeau, Québec, a mill town five hours northeast of Quebec City, former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney seemed to embody the diversity of Canada in his own person. His parents were Irish Canadians but he grew up speaking both French and English. In his youth he was inspired to work within…
A few weeks ago I made a telephone call to a courthouse here in Quebec. It was an important matter, involving questions I rarely have to think about in English, let alone in French. I asked the Clerk whether we could speak in English. This led to a series of questions since, with the recent…
A short statement by Coroner Gehane Kamel pierces through long debates within Quebec and in church circles of CC readers. “It’s all ‘us’ – no ‘them,’” she said on CBC radio in response to a question about what needs to change to end discrimination in Quebec’s health care system. The occasion was release of the…
Dear Mister Prime Minister, As a fellow Québécois and Montréalais, I want to congratulate you on your election. I want to assure you that our church will be praying for you. You are well aware that “all politics are local” and no more so than in this recent election. There was no impact from Premier…
What’s getting me through is Harmonize the Moon, a new album from Montreal songwriter Michael Feuerstack. Feuerstack has refined his trade through a catalogue of excellent albums with an expanding set of musical tools (even two records’ worth of other people singing his songs), but the pandemic has reduced his sonic palette to the essentials:…
The human voice is a powerful instrument. Through speaking, singing, whispering and shouting, our voices express much of the human experience. Our voices are also basic to our sharing meaningfully with others. Through verbal communication we express a range of emotions and experiences: anger, desire, sympathy, fear and amusement, among others. I became particularly attuned…
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It was supposed to be all about language. After the Parti Québécois formed its first provincial government in late 1976, it enacted Bill 101, the Charter of the French Language, which abolished Québec’s previous bilingual status and guaranteed the priority of the majority tongue.
It wasn’t too long ago that the government of Pauline Marois introduced the Charter of Values in the legislature (Bill 60), which would have prevented public employees from wearing conspicuous religious symbols.
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