Those in position of authority are pointing fingers at everyone and everything — except, it seems, at themselves.
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The press release announcing the suspension of 11 teachers at Bedford elementary school — after an investigation revealed a “toxic climate” of fear and intimidation by a “dominant clan” of teachers — was sent out on the eve of Education Minister Bernard Drainville’s appearance on the popular TV talk show Tout le monde en parle.
The timing left little doubt about the government’s attempt at damage control.
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Drainville had launched the investigation after journalist Valérie Lebeuf blew the whistle on this disturbing case at the primary school in Côte-des-Neiges and following the dogged persistence of Liberal education critic Marwah Rizqy. Long-overdue consequences finally arrived.
The case has understandably caused unease among Quebecers, yet the rhetoric is alarming. The case is apparently the fault of “multiculturalism,” of “anti-Bill 21 militancy” and of “insufficient diversity in schools,” which Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon says encourages “the invasion of religion.”
It’s apparently everyone’s fault but the people in charge who had the power to stop the problem.
Based on the ministerial report, it seems clear that Isabelle Gélinas, general director of the Centre de services scolaire de Montréal, dropped the ball.
Gélinas has said official complaints must be made before the system can act on them, but as Rizqy indicated on X, the investigation revealed that staff members had repeatedly denounced the situation. You’d think, with the well-being of children at stake, that action would have been taken whether the complaints were deemed official or not.
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When Lebeuf’s article was published in 2023, Gélinas, who arrived at her post at the helm of the service centre the year before, said the story “was no longer relevant” because “the situation had been resolved,” according to the ministerial report. Rizqy believes Gélinas was “more interested in protecting her reputation than the children,” and justifiably wants her gone.
Meanwhile, Drainville has blamed the teachers’ union, even though it redirected teachers to the school administration to file complaints. The union’s position is that only the employer can take disciplinary action — that it’s ultimately “the school administrator’s responsibility to protect staff and students from harassment.”
Why did the adults fail these children for so long? Apathy? Wilful blindness? A lack of resources? An underfunded educational system overwhelmed by teacher shortages?
Some point to the replacement of school boards in the French sector with service centres. English Montreal School Board chairman Joe Ortona tells me a case like Bedford’s would not have been allowed to happen in a school board like his “because we’re accountable to the people. Commissioners would have demanded an investigation and corrective measures. In service centres, complaints fall on deaf ears and no action is taken.”
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Others say the Bedford case proves the necessity of legislation like Bill 21 in enforcing secularism. I say, if anything, it proves the contrary.
Bill 21 didn’t prevent or remedy any religious connection in this controversy. That’s because the bill doesn’t target religious extremism in any concrete way — it merely placates people who equate religious symbols with extremism, allowing dangerous cases of “invisible” extremism to fester.
I’m reminded of the case a few years ago of Vincent Ouellette. The high school teacher in Montreal North spent years hurling Islamophobic and racist vitriol at students — until they took the situation in their own hands with video that went viral. In the end, he was fired.
We’ve seen the Education Ministry let down students in other ways, such as its persistent failure to address sexual violence in schools. All of this reveals extensive and chronic issues with the complaints process and a categorical failure of those directly responsible to act quickly and decisively.
All students deserve a quality education protected from the zealotry of extremism (religious or otherwise) — without rhetoric from politicians that ramps up xenophobic sentiments.
The Education Ministry is supposed to enforce the provisions of the Education Act, which governs the rights and obligations of students, teachers, schools and school centres and boards. So those in charge already have the tools to ensure something like this never happens again. All they have to do is use them.
Toula Drimonis is a Montreal journalist and the author of We, the Others: Allophones, Immigrants, and Belonging in Canada.
toulastake@gmail.com
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