Loyola High School is giving up its provincial subsidy to maintain its Jesuit, Catholic mission, saying that Quebec’s secular law requires it to comply with its rules or forgo the funding, the school announced Friday.
Bill 9 expands and strengthens Quebec’s secularism rules across publicly funded sectors and public spaces and was passed into law in April. On Sept. 1, key rules from Bill 9 took effect, including a ban on individual and collective prayer and other religious practices in public agencies.
“For 130 years, Loyola has formed young people in mind, heart, and spirit as lived daily in our classrooms, our chapel, our fields, and our service to others. That is what this decision protects,” the subsidized Roman Catholic private school in the Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough wrote in a statement.