By Lawrence Belanger
Local Journalism Initiative
Former students from two private religious schools in Quebec are organizing to lobby the Parliament of Canada to repeal Section 43 of the Canadian Criminal Code. Marc Levasseur and Josh Seanosky, alongside Alain Rayes, MP for Richmond-Arthabaska, held a press conference on Tuesday, Feb 7 to announce the launch of a parliamentary petition to repeal the section, which permits corporal punishment of children by teachers and parents.
Speaking at Cafe-Resto Le Gavroche in Victoriaville, not far from where he experienced childhood violence at l’Èglise Baptiste Évangélique de Victoriaville, Levasseur described how he and dozens of children grew up in a “context of violent educational methods.” During the 80s, he was a student of Pastor Claude Guillot, who was found guilty last year of 18 acts of abuse towards five students in his schools from across multiple decades.
However, the violence perpetrated against children in Guillot’s schools by the rest of the staff members was, and remains, legal under current Canadian law. Section 43 states that “every schoolteacher, parent or person standing in the place of a parent is justified in using force by way of correction toward a pupil or child, as the case may be, who is under his care, if the force does not exceed what is reasonable under the circumstances.”
