It didn’t take long for the pretence to be dropped.
Banning religious symbols isn’t really about enforcing the neutrality of the state in a secular society; it’s about restricting Muslim women out of discomfort with Islam.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, Quebec’s Minister of Immigration, Diversity and Inclusion, all but admitted it Wednesday in adding the chador to the list of religious garb that will be proscribed — and this for all government employees.
Since the election, Premier François Legault and his team have been talking about forbidding authority figures like police officers, judges and prison guards from wearing kippahs, turbans and hijabs for the sake of state neutrality. Not that there are many (or any) religious minorities doing those jobs, of course, but the move essentially hews to the popular understanding of the decade-old recommendations of the Bouchard-Taylor Commission on reasonable accommodation.
The CAQ, however, has said it will expand the restrictions to teachers, a profession that includes some members who wear religious clothing like the hijab. The CAQ is concerned children showing deference to people visibly of faith would send the wrong message. But out of concern for bad optics that might undermine its efforts, it is mulling a grandfather clause.
Now the government wants to single out one garment worn by members of one religion for a statewide prohibition. This move exposes the real intent of the forthcoming law — not that anyone should be surprised.
The chador is a rare sight on the streets of Quebec — rarer still in the public service. But the cloak-like garment is an old bugaboo of the CAQ’s. In the summer of 2016, the party released a fearmongering ad claiming former Premier Philippe Couillard and then Parti Québécois leader Jean-François Lisée wanted to put chador-clad women in the province’s classrooms.
In the run-up to and during this fall’s campaign, Legault and the CAQ played it cool. They certainly didn’t disavow their position, but to broaden their appeal they didn’t talk it up either. So now here we are. And as the CAQ settles into power, they are slowly showing their true colours again.
Legault says he is doing this because this is what a majority of Quebecers want, that there is a broad social consensus in favour of secular values. He’s not wrong that the idea is popular, but that doesn’t make it right.
If Legault is serious about secularism, he wouldn’t be insisting on the crucifix remaining in its vaunted perch in the National Assembly. He concedes the cross represents Christian values, but says it’s a symbol of Quebec’s history, not religion. Clinging to the crucifix chips away at the supposed principle of secularism, betraying a blatant double standard. It also suggests that some religions and its symbols are acceptable, while others are somehow a threat.
Commentators in favour of the CAQ’s secularism plans are voicing similar sentiments.
“Let’s be clear,” Josée Legault wrote in Le Journal de Montréal Tuesday. “The sight of a kippah, Sikh turban or small cross around the neck doesn’t bother anyone. In the West — and not only in Quebec — what upsets is the hijab.”
In this newspaper, Lise Ravary touted a tough stance on religious dress as a way to curb Islamism and political extremism.
Also writing in Le Journal, former Parti Québécois cabinet minister Joseph Facal imagined a fictional conversation between a female student and a teacher wearing not a kirpan, not a turban, not a kippah, but a hijab, to justify barring all religious symbols from schools. But if those religions get swept up, too, no one’s going to say boo.
Even writers who are more ambivalent about the CAQ’s ban on symbols of faith acknowledge this is about discomfort with Islam. Francine Pelletier, writing in Le Devoir Wednesday, noted: “We see a veiled woman and it’s not her the individual that we see but rather the man supposed at her side forcing her to submit and behind him, like a game of dominoes, a whole religion, a civilization that resists modernity as much as Quebec has fought for that modernity.”
Bill 62, the Liberal government’s attempt at legislating secularism, attempted to disguise the same nugget of truth. Though the ban on face-coverings purported to include balaclavas when boarding buses, or big sunglasses when purchasing wine at the Société des alcools du Québec, it was aimed at the tiny minority of Muslim women who wear a niqab. The court has since suspended its application, pending a Charter challenge.
Legault, on the other hand, hasn’t even introduced a bill yet and says he’s determined to use the notwithstanding clause.
