Bill 21: Quebec's undermining of religious freedom.

Bill 21, titled “An act respecting the laicity of the State” (Laïcité, French for ‘secularity’, or ‘separation of church and state’ in its officially accepted definition), will prohibit school-teachers, arms-carrying public sector workers (e.g. police officers), government lawyers and judges (among others) from wearing any form of religious symbol while on duty, not counting religious tattoos and Rastafarian dreadlocks. Dubbed the “Secularism Bill”, the bill passed on Monday (June 17th) by the government of Quebec, Canada’s second largest province, will prevent public sector workers in “positions of authority” from wearing religious symbols in the province. Notably, a ‘notwithstanding’ clause (initially devised to limit federal powers) was included in the text, allowing for the overrule of certain sections of the ‘Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms’ without the subsequent blocking of the bill (albeit, temporarily) by federal courts on the grounds that it undermines religious freedom. The ruling centre-right and Quebec-nationalist party, Coalition Avenir Québec, who originally promised to push passage of Bill 21 into law during their 2018 election campaign, were successful in securing a 73-35 vote majority from the Quebec National Assembly on Monday. The bill will not affect those who were in their positions prior to March 28th (as guaranteed by inclusion of a ‘Grandfather’ clause), stating that the previous laws will still apply to them, providing they remain at the same institution and do not seek promotion into a capacity where religious symbolism is prohibited. Last-minute changes to the bill saw the inclusion of provision to implement disciplinary measures if the law is not followed.  

As is clear from the title of Bill 21, it’s purported aim is the maintenance of a secular state, for Quebec to exist in a state of ‘secularity’ (that is, government as separate from religion). (Though, one should allow for the possibility of guise – and certainly, the opposing Liberal party will render this guise, hiding a more selective intolerance of religion, veracious). But, without getting into the pitfalls of semantics, briefly, a ‘secular state’ sees the separation of government institutions and representatives of that state from religious institutions and their leaders (thus, ensuring the prevention of religious considerations from influencing state policy and law). The Coalition Avenir Québec regard it as a continuation of the “Quiet Revolution” towards secularism, which has been ongoing since the 1960s (as opposed to France’s louder, more turbulent and bloodier revolutions toward a similar secular-end). Certainly, Bill 21 is conducive with this aim, but only when its conclusions are far more radical and extreme: involving not only the removal of ‘religious influence’, but the removal of ‘religious people’ altogether. Of course, it’s necessary to avoid hyperbole and abstraction, but it needs to be framed as it appears in reality. Bill 21 writes into law state-sanctioned religious segregation. It’s discriminatory. It’s an undermining of religious freedom, an impediment to self-expression, expression of one’s piety and religious conviction. It’s an undermining of the global drive towards religious equality. It will lead to the public sector being a religiously homogenous body, consisting of the non-religious and Christians alone. Because, despite its universal and all-encapsulating appearance, Bill 21 will affect religious groups differently. Some Muslim women (i.e. the niqab and hijab), Sikhs (the dastar), Orthodox Jews (the kippot) and Hindus (the turban), whose overt religious clothing is an integral part of their religious identity, will be unable to acquire public sector jobs without being forced to ditch their clothing and sacrifice a key aspect of their identity. Christians, who are less likely to don overt religious dress or symbolism, and who coincidently make up the majority of religious population in the province of Quebec, will be less affected by the bill. It’s one step closer to some-kind of warped uniformity, cold and spartan, of the kind you would find in an autocratic state reminiscent of North Korea or the dystopian hell of the Handmaids Tale, driven by a pseudo-religious ideology. Anyone can be a teacher, providing they’re not a Muslim women or Sikh. It’s here where secularism appears in zero-sum with religious freedom, and the direction has shifted towards a more ‘totalitarian’ end.

In accepting that religious influence should remain out of policy considerations, the inverse should additionally be accepted. The state should be discouraged from involving itself in personal religious affairs, and providing the individual is not proselytising while on duty (which should be the focus of “policing” and policy implementation), she should be able to don religious symbolism that is central to her faith. The most satisfactory system is one resembling the USA’s model, as opposed to the French model (perhaps a different guise, but Bill 21 closely resembles France’s 2010 “Burqa Ban”). This is the form of moderate secularism that one advocates, where ones civil and religious liberties are protected. A secularism that does not allow for an overstretch of state involvement into the personal lives of citizens, thereby preventing an obstruction to the affordance of their civil liberties.

Furthermore, in eliminating outward expressions of faith, one is only partially limiting its influence in government ideology. As before, the Christian majority, who are less likely to be affected by the bill will retain influence, while minority influence will diminish exponentially. Is it not the case then that you’ve merely homogenised the ideological influence, eradicated possible dissenting opinion, minimised heterodoxy, and allowed for a reduced number of ideologies to influence public sector practice? The benefits of a diverse work-force (whether in a School or the Police force) are vast and require no elucidation. One advocates profoundly for the stemming of religious influence in the education system (i.e. one objects to faith schools and compulsory prayer in assemblies), in medicine and health (i.e. one supports funding for only empirically validated means of treatment) and government, but solely eliminating overt expressions of religiousness is not an efficacious way of achieving it.

How should we respond? Thus far, the majority of the premiers from Canada’s nine other provinces have remained unanimously silent. Likewise, Justin Trudeau has remained disappointingly quiet, only subtly and indirectly condemning the undermining of religious freedoms (given his known support for religious freedom, it’s sad that he has failed to speak up). Old France, or new France, Europe, North America or the Middle East, it does not matter where it’s happening; it’s necessary to ask ourselves: should we tolerate intolerance, regardless of whether it’s coming from the secularists or the religionists?