Mennonites beginning to pull up stakes

Montreal Gazette - September 3, 2007

CHERYL CORNACCHIA


Three Mennonite families have already moved and two more will leave Quebec this week as faith-based education remains the issue in Roxton Falls, a small hamlet in the Eastern Townships.

Keith Wedel, pastor of Roxton Falls Church of God in Christ, Mennonite said yesterday he and other Canadian Mennonite leaders met Saturday in Montreal with provincial Education Department officials. A settlement, however, was not reached during the 21/2-hour meeting, Wedel said. A second session, he added, is expected to take place this week.

The key issue is the Mennonites' desire to provide their children in Roxton Falls with a faith-based education, including a Biblical account of creation, in a Mennonite-run school and with Mennonite teachers. The Education Department, however, insists that all teachers working in Quebec be certified under provincial guidelines and that they follow provincial curriculum in the classroom.

At Saturday's meeting, Wedel said, the province suggested ways in which Mennonite teachers could obtain Quebec certification and follow the curriculum rules. "But we have no agreement yet," Wedel said.

As a result, about 30 members of the Mennonite community in Roxton Falls, a town of 1,300 people about 100 kilometres east of Montreal, are in various stages of relocating to Alexandria, an Ontario town just over the Quebec border.

Three families moved into rental accommodation over the past week and two more families with children will make the move this week.

Quebec has closed the Mennonite-run school in Roxton Falls.

"If something could be worked out, the families will move back," said Wedel, who along with his wife and four children, age one to eight, will move to Ontario this week. "We have not sold our places here."

ccornacchia@thegazette.canwest.com

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