This is not diversity. This is an excuse for the state to regulate and indoctrinate, and generally stick itself into the minds of small children.
In its indifference to objective knowledge, in its crusade to hallow cultural relativism and a strictly Charter-of-rights based identity, ÉCR stimulates heritage students’ detachment from their own cultural touchstones, and chills critical thinking in all students.
(I)n one instance students were invited to redesign the Quebec flag, replacing the cross with a more “inclusive” symbol, and another, an activity called “Youpi! Ma religion à moi!” (my own religion!) in which religions actually invented by students are accorded the same esteem as real ones. Such subversive pedagogical impulses dismissively mock Quebec’s unique culture, based, like all others, in a shared language, religion and collective values formed over time.
In the ÉCR scheme, teachers do not actually convey knowledge, but rather “plan, organize activities, advise, accompany, encourage, support … make suggestions, but never impose.”
But they must and do “impose” sometimes. The program harps relentlessly on “dialogue” as the principal vehicle for learning to “vivre ensemble.” But if, according to an editing team spokesman, the dialogue does not follow a politically correct script — that is, if students of independent mind or critical point of view diverge in behaviour or words from the prescribed “recognition” mantra: all cultural traditions are equal; all beliefs are good — “The teacher must intervene immediately to stop it on the spot. Any attack in class on the dignity of the person or the common good must be immediately denounced, because it is not tolerated in our society. In that [respect], the program of Ethical and Religious Culture is not neutral.”
