Urges government to 'put on the brakes,' take time for better analysis of numbers of workers affected
Quebec’s publicly funded daycares and daycare workers’ unions say the provincial government’s proposed expansion of its secularism law, Bill 9, would deepen staffing shortages, increase costs and undermine relationships with families, according to a report.
Bill 9 would extend Quebec’s existing state secularism rules to the early childhood education network. The legislation would prohibit staff in public daycares, known as centres de la petite enfance (CPEs), from wearing religious symbols at work.
It would also ban CPEs from serving menus based exclusively on religious precepts, such as only halal or only kosher food, and require anyone receiving daycare services to have their face uncovered, CBC reported.
In a memoir submitted to a National Assembly committee studying the bill, the Association québécoise des centres de la petite enfance (AQCPE), which represents public CPEs, argued that the proposed law is misaligned with the sector’s real needs.
“We’re concerned that the problem raised and the means adopted by Bill 9 are not in line with the challenges and emergencies identified on the ground in the early childhood sector,” the association wrote, according to the report.
Quebec’s minister responsible for secularism, Jean‑François Roberge, has defended the bill by saying that religious neutrality of the state ensures equality for all. He has presented Bill 9 as a logical extension of the province’s secularism framework to additional public institutions.
Impact on services and workforce diversity
The AQCPE and the CSQ labour federation, which represents many daycare workers, say the measure would instead weaken services available to young children.
The AQCPE told the committee that CPEs are already facing what it called a “severe shortage” of qualified staff, according to the CBC report. The association said the shortage means ideal staff‑to‑child ratios are not always met, the number of available places is reduced, replacements are difficult to find and shutdowns during summer and holiday periods can be longer, according to the report.
The association warned that any new limits on who can work in public daycares would further shrink the talent pool. “This decline in qualified staff directly threatens educational quality throughout the network and risks worsening if Bill 9 reduces the number of future graduates eligible to work,” the AQCPE wrote.
Bill 9 contains an acquired‑rights clause allowing daycare staff who were already in their positions when the law was introduced, and who wear religious symbols, to keep their jobs. However, if they moved to another daycare or applied for a new role, they could be denied employment under the new rules, CBC reported.
Pascal Coté, vice‑president of the CSQ, told CBC the government has not offered a solid evidence base for the bill. “There are no studies that show that wearing a religious symbol transmits any religion at all to a child,” Coté said. He added that many workers routinely change jobs within the network and that the acquired‑rights provision would not protect them, which he warned could aggravate staffing shortages.
Both the AQCPE and the CSQ have urged the government to pause the process and collect more data on how many workers and services might be affected. “Put on the brakes, take the time to get some better analysis of the numbers of workers that could be affected, how the services could be affected,” Pascal Coté, vice‑president of the CSQ, told CBC.
In 2023, the Quebec Court of Appeal today decided that the secularism law is constitutional.
In October 2025, the Quebec government announced plans to ban religious symbols for daycare workers. The following month, Premier François Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government introduced Bill 9, titled An Act respecting the reinforcement of laicity in Quebec.
