Louise Laurin

Louise Laurin (1935 – 7 January 2013) was an educator and activist in Quebec. She was a prominent supporter of both secular education and Quebec sovereignty.[1]

Educator

Laurin was an elementary school principal for a number of years and is credited with starting the first in-school daycare in the Montreal Catholic School Commission.[2] In 1989, she worked on behalf of a Turkish immigrant family that was threatened with deportation.[3]

In 1990, Laurin co-authored a public letter with Francine Lalonde and two other Quebec nationalist figures. They argued that many children of immigrants were intimidating francophone students into speaking English at francophone schools and charged that school administrations were deliberately ignoring the situation. They called for a renewed promotion of French in public schools, in a way that would recognize also the legitimate concerns of immigrant communities.[4]

During the 1990s and 2000s, Laurin led a coalition of educational and cultural groups calling for the secularization of Quebec's school system, in which denominational schools would be replaced by linguistic schools.[5] She supported a bill introduced by Jean Charest's government to this end in 2005.[6]

Sovereigntist

Laurin ran as a candidate of the Parti Québécois in the 1989 provincial election and lost a close contest in the Montreal division of Anjou to Liberal candidate René Serge Larouche.

She succeeded Sylvain Simard as president of the Mouvement national des Québécoises et des Québécois in 1994. Shortly after taking this position, she made a public statement against both bilingualism and multiculturalism. She argued that a future independent Quebec would have French as its only official language and further recommended that it refuse citizenship to any immigrant who does not learn French in a set number of years. She said that her group opposed multiculturalism because "it means we pay for people to conserve their culture and then they live in ghettos. We want integration in society, the sharing of common values, like language and our institutions."[7] In the 1995 Quebec referendum on sovereignty, she was vice-president of the Conseil de la souverainete du Quebec.[2]

Associated with the left-wing of the Parti Québécois, Laurin was openly skeptical of Andre Boisclair's leadership in 2005.[8] In 2009, she appeared at the fifth congress of the Québec solidaire party.[9]

She was chosen as Patriote of the year by the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal in 2005.[10]

References
  1. "Laïcisation des écoles: Louise Laurin s'éteint | Gabrielle Duchaine | Éducation". Lapresse.ca. 10 January 2013. Retrieved 2013-01-15.
  2. "SSJB honours former principal," Montreal Gazette, 18 November 2005, A6.
  3. Patricia Poirier, "Turkish family lives in fear of being compelled to leave Canada," Globe and Mail, 29 December 1998, A10.
  4. "It's time to make French schools French," Globe and Mail, 14 May 1990, A7.
  5. Karen Unland, "Ottawa pressed on school boards," Globe and Mail, 12 April 1997, A7; "La Coalition pour la déconfessionnalisation du système scolaire demande au ministre de l'Education ..." Canada Newswire, 3 June 2004, 01:16 pm.
  6. Kevin Dougherty, "Religious teaching to be phased out: PQ, parents groups favour Liberal plan for non-religious public education," Globe and Mail, 1 June 2005, A10.
  7. Linda Drouin, "Committee regarded as threat to Quebec," Winnipeg Free Press, 3 June 1994.
  8. Les Perreaux, "Hardliners appear cool to new Parti Quebecois Leader Andre Boisclair," Canadian Press, 17 November 2005, 05:47 pm.
  9. "5e congrès de Québec solidaire: le cahier synthèse des propositions maintenant public," Canada Newswire, 20 November 2009, 10:30 am.
  10. "Louise Laurin est nommée Patriote de l'année 2005-2006 par la SSJB," Nouvelles Tele-Radio, 17 November 2005, 03:06 pm.
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