Alberta's human rights board has agreed to weigh in on Morinville's secular school situation, a move one former resident hopes will mean an end to compulsory religious education in the town.
The Alberta Human Rights Commission announced last week that it would investigate the complaints filed by four current and former Morinville residents under Section 4 of the Alberta Human Rights Act. Copies of the complaints have been sent to Notre Dame Elementary, Greater St. Albert Catholic Schools and Alberta Education, who now have 21 days to issue a written response to the commission.
David Keohane, superintendant of the St. Albert Catholic board and spokesperson for Notre Dame, says the board had received a letter from the commission about the complaint and would respond before the deadline.
Alberta Education confirmed that it had also received the letter. Education Minister Thomas Lukaszuk was expected to table a bill in the legislature on Feb. 22 that would address the issue.
Donna Hunter, a former Morinville resident and one of the complainants, says she hopes the commission will get the Catholic board to make religious education optional in Morinville.
"Those who opt into it, fine, but it should not be compulsory."
School scuffle
Morinville falls under the jurisdiction of the St. Albert Catholic board, which, until recently, ran all the schools in town. The Sturgeon School Division opened the secular Morinville public elementary last year. The board's curriculum is permeated with religious education.
The secular school debate in Morinville dates back to December 2010 when Hunter and several other parents with students at Notre Dame elementary asked for their children to be excluded from religious education under Sect. 11.1 of the Alberta Human Rights Act. That section requires teachers to give parents notice before teaching students about subjects like religion and requires them to let students avoid those teachings upon written request.
When the school and the school board refused, Hunter and the parents launched two separate complaints under the act. The first, made under Sect. 11.1 by Hunter and town resident Marjorie Kirsop, was rejected in late January.
The second deals with Sect. 4 of the act, Hunter says, and was made by herself, Rayann Menard, Tannis Caverly and Carol Sparks. "Section 4 [says] you cannot deny services customarily available to the public based on religion," she says — secular public education, in this case — "and, of course, we were."
Because the board did not let their kids opt out of religious education, Hunter and the parents say their rights were violated.
Caverly says she made her Sect. 4 complaint after her non-Catholic son spat out some pancakes during Lent. When she asked him why, he said if he ate them "somebody from Heaven [was] going to come down and hurt me."
Caverly says she had assumed that the Catholic board would give her son a secular education, as it was the public board in town, and had been told that her son could opt out of religious instruction.
"It is your right in Canada to have the choice to have an education that's free from religious education," she says. "Unfortunately, our public board in Morinville is not following that law."
Caverly has since moved her child to Morinville public — a temporary school attached to école Georges P. Vanier.
Caverly says she launched her complaint out of frustration with the province, which has said that the situation in Morinville was not acceptable but has done nothing to stop it.
"We would like to know why [the board's actions] are continuing and when it's going to stop."
The commission will now wait for a reply from the respondents in this case, Hunter says, at which point it will either reject the case or broker a settlement. Should that fail, the commission would take further steps that could lead to a binding hearing before a human rights tribunal.
"We expect this to probably go on for some time."
These complaints would not be affected by any legislative changes brought in by the province after 2010, she adds.
Caverly says she was excited to hear that the commission had taken on their case.
"It felt really good to finally have that reinforcement that, yeah, this isn't really okay what's happening."
