In 2008 Paul Donovan, the principal of a Jesuit catholic high school in Quebec, objected to a government mandated course on religion and ethics.

Begun in September 2008,[1] the Ethics and religious culture course (ERC as it is called) is a provincially mandated course that requires schools to teach the basic traditions and symbolisms of a variety of religions.

[2][3] Donovan argued on behalf of Loyola High School that the ERC forbids teachers from teaching, in detail, the reasons why a given religious faith believes what it does believe; any form of instruction that could be perceived as an endorsement of a particular religion or proclaiming it as truth is prohibited and therefore seen by Donovan as a violation of religious freedom, as outlined in the Quebec Charter of Values.

Dugré J wrote in his 63-page decision that:[6][7][8] The obligation imposed on Loyola to teach the ethics and religious culture course in a lay fashion assumes a totalitarian character essentially equivalent to Galileo's being ordered by the Inquisition to deny the Copernican universe.In 2012 the Quebec Court of Appeal sided with the government.

In a stunning departure from the majority, the dissenters wrote that "the only constitutional response to Loyola’s application for an exemption would be to grant it.