For a real debate on the place of religion in Quebec society

By Marc Gold
Chair, Advocacy Summit

Someone once quipped that all publicity is good publicity. However true that may be in certain contexts, the amount of publicity that the Jewish community has received in the Quebec media over the past number of years has been neither good nor, at the risk of appearing parochial, good for the Jews. First, we had the firestorm over the government’s plan to extend full funding to Jewish day schools. This was followed by all the events giving rise to the Bouchard-Taylor Commission, the ongoing controversy surrounding the government’s Ethics and Religious Culture program, the crisis provoked by the legalization of certain orthodox Jewish day schools, the questioning of financing for certain day care centres within the Jewish community, and most recently, the tabling of Bill 94 concerning access to, and the provision of, government funded services. (more…)