Enacted by the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government in June 2019, the Secularism Act, also popularly known as Bill 21, prohibits public school teachers, police officers, government lawyers and a host of other public servants — even some politicians — to wear religious symbols at work. Once it was passed, civil liberties groups, including the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) and the Canadian Civil Liberties Union (CCLA), began filing legal challenges. “Imagine having to tell your daughter that she can never be a judge because of the way she looks. Imagine telling your son that he can never be a teacher because of the way he looks,” said Stephen Brown, NCCM’s CEO. , during a press conference. Monday on the steps of the Montreal courthouse minutes before arguments began. “It is baseless.” In April 2021, Supreme Court Justice Marc-André Blanchard ruled that the law violates the basic rights of religious minorities in the province, but is legal because of Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, also known as the Constitution’s extension clause. The CAQ government preemptively invoked the clause to protect its law from constitutional challenges. The clause allows provinces to exempt laws from certain parts of the charter. Its application to laws is subject to renewal every five years. However, in his ruling, Blanchard exempted English schools from the ban on religious symbols. It also ruled that members of the provincial National Assembly are allowed to wear religious symbols that cover their faces, such as the niqab, in accordance with the section of the charter that guarantees the right of every citizen to vote and be a member of the legislature. Shortly after the ruling was issued, Quebec Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette, the architect of Bill 21, said the province plans to appeal the ruling’s two conclusions about English schools and lawmakers. NCCM and CCLA then also appealed, saying the law banning religious symbols in many public sector jobs is unconstitutional and should be struck down.
Opposing views
Throughout the hearings — which will run Monday through Thursday and then continue on Nov. 16 — the Court of Appeals will hear from multiple parties arguing for either repealing or strengthening the law. Furheen Ahmed, a hijab-wearing teacher at Westmount High School in Montreal, hopes the law will be repealed. “It’s absurd,” he said. “There is no evidence that anything negative comes out of people in the classroom teaching wearing kippahs, turbans, hijabs.” More than two years after Bill 21 came into force, he said he has seen stories of people who have lost their jobs or who have chosen to pursue careers outside of Quebec because they cannot work in the public sector and wear the symbols of the religion that is important to them . Ahmed said the issue is people’s perception of religion or certain religions, “and that perception is thrown at my freedom, my choices. [It’s] not fair.” At the other end of the spectrum, a pro-secular group, the Mouvement laïque québécois (MLQ), will argue not only that Bill 21 does not encroach on the rights of minorities but that it does not go far enough to protect the rights of parents to have their children have a secular education . “Schools are not there to ensure the freedom of religious practice of the teachers. The school is there to educate the students, to ensure their freedom of religion, to ensure the equality of all religions of the students,” said Daniel Baril , president of MLQ, in an interview with CBC News. Baril said his group would ideally like the ban on religious symbols to apply to all staff in schools — not just teachers — as well as CEGEPs and childcare centers. Laura Berger, a CCLA staff attorney, said her group will find innovative ways to get around the clause that doesn’t apply to support forcing people to “choose between their faith and their careers.” He said Quebec must find a balance between the right to a secular province and the rights of individuals. “We firmly believe that freedom of religion means getting religion out of the state. It doesn’t mean getting people out of the workplace,” he said. Berger said the Court of Appeals could take six to 18 months to issue a decision. It is widely expected that the law will eventually be challenged in the Supreme Court of Canada.
