MONTREAL — The Quebec government should phase out public funding of religious private schools and extend the religious symbols ban to daycare workers, says a committee tasked with advising the province on how to strengthen secularism.

A nearly 300-page report published Tuesday sets out 50 recommendations to combat what its authors see as a growing presence of religion in some Quebec institutions, particularly schools in Montreal.

“It’s the whole religious atmosphere that is taking hold that has no place in a secular state,” Christiane Pelchat, a lawyer who co-chaired the committee, told a news conference.

Pelchat and co-chair Guillaume Rousseau, a lawyer and professor at Université de Sherbrooke, want the government to limit religious accommodations, force municipalities to regulate pub

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