More than 100 support staff leave Montreal school board due to
secularism law
Montreal’s biggest school board, the Centre de services scolaire de Montréal (CSSDM), has lost more than 100 support staff after they refused to comply with the province’s new secularism law, CBC News reported. Known as Bill 94, the law builds on previous secularization legislation, Bill 21, that bans teachers and other public workers in positions of authority from wearing religious symbols on the job. The new legislation expands the scope to include school support staff and parent volunteers. A spokesperson for the board said that many staff decided to comply with the law by removing their religious attire, but around 150 did not. The bill has a grandfather clause for those who were already hired before Mar. 2025, when the bill was first tabled. The province has since passed yet another secularization bill, Bill 9, which extends the ban on religious symbols to daycare workers and bans group prayers in public without a municipal permit.
Milliard says he’ll use notwithstanding clause to uphold Bill 96
Last week newly elected Quebec Liberal leader Charles Milliard announced that he would renew the notwithstanding clause for Bill 96, the province’s language law, CBC News reported. The clause allows provincial governments to pass laws inconsistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, though the clause must be renewed every five years.
Milliard said that given the chance, he would modify certain aspects of the legislation, such as extending the six-month deadline for new immigrants to learn French, but would largely keep the bill intact.
CBC’s report notes that the remarks “caught members of his own party by surprise, particularly those representing large English-speaking constituencies.”
“I recognize that some people might be surprised, but it’s the same thing that I’ve been saying for a year or more,” he told reporters on Friday.
Milliard also said that he would not renew the clause for the province’s secularization laws, Bill 21 and Bill 9.
CISSSO using less private agency staff as phase-out deadline approaches
With six months to go until regional health authority CISSSO is mandated to end the use of private staffing agencies, Le Droit reported that the organization’s spending on contractors has decreased significantly.
According to data provided by the CISSSO, the organization spent $28,314,104 on private contractors during the fiscal year between Apr. 1,2025 and Mar. 31 this year, a decrease of 44 per cent compared to the previous year ($50,701,000). The government has given the CISSSO until Oct. 18 to phase out the use of private staffing agencies, which has already been mandated in other regions.
Despite these reductions, the organization said that it will be difficult to end private staffing in several areas, such as the ERs at the Gatineau, Hull and Wakefield hospital, the operating block at the Gatineau Hospital as well as the care units of the Maniwaki, Buckingham, Pontiac and Wakefield hospitals.
“Certain specialized sectors … are in a more precarious situation, and for which the complete withdrawal of independent workers represents a more complex challenge in the short term,” the CISSSO stated.
