Quebec creates committee to analyze, strengthen secularism law Bill 21

The CAQ government announced Monday they will be forming a committee to determine whether Bill 21 is properly applied.

Quebec’s secularism legislation was passed in 2019 and prohibits the wearing of religious symbols in public-service roles including but not limited to teachers, Crown prosecutors, judges, and police officers.

It’s faced many court challenges. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) is one of the organizations appealing to the Supreme Court of Canada. Just last week, the federal government announced its intention to intervene in the case.

“We are concerned with the proposals by the Quebec government to expand the application of Bill 21,” said Harini Sivalingam, the director of the equality program at the CCLA.

“Any expansion of Bill 21, we would feel is equally unconstitutional.”

The committee will be set up by the province’s minister responsible for secularism, Jean-François Roberge, and will be co-chaired by two lawyers who defended Bill 21 in court.

Christiane Pelchat and Guillaume Rousseau will be tasked with determining how it is possible to strengthen the law on secularism while studying any cases of religious “infiltration” within Quebec institutions.

“The detrimental impact of Bill 21 have disproportionately affected Muslim women, Sikhs, Jewish community members, as well as racializing newcomer communities,” Sivalingam said. “Part of religious freedom actually means being free from religion. But that doesn’t mean that you curtail or prohibit people from expressing the religious identities or religious practices. So there is some balancing that needs to have take place. Secularism is possible while respecting religious freedoms.”

Roberge has stated the committee will assess the possibility of extending the law to sectors or institutions that it currently does not cover.

Concretely, their mandate will be to:

• to draw up a portrait of compliance with the principles of the Law on State Secularism and the Law on Neutrality within the State;
• analyze the phenomena presenting obstacles to the effective application of the Law on State Secularism and the Law on Neutrality, including that of religious influences; 
• analyze the measures that have been put in place elsewhere in the world in order to consolidate the application of the standards and principles on which the secularism of the State is based;
• formulate recommendations to counter these obstacles and strengthen the secularism of state institutions in addition to preserving the model of secularism chosen by Quebec. 

Members will have until August to submit their recommendations.

Premier François Legault has given Roberge and Education Minister Bernard Drainville the mandate to strengthen the law on secularism in Quebec.

Bedford & banning prayer in public spaces

Following the Bedford school saga, where teachers of Maghreb origin allegedly created a climate of intimidation, Drainville announced his intentions to strengthen the application of Bill 21 in schools. Roberge called that situation a “canary in the coal mine” that fuelled the need for the study into Bill 21.

“Boys were separated from girls. Girls couldn’t play soccer. Teachers made some religious religious expression within the classroom,” Roberge said.

Last December, Premier Legault even said that he was considering legislating to ban prayers in the streets.

“We’ve seen a lot of people blocking streets or taking the use of some public spaces like parks,” Roberge said at a press conference on Monday. “I think those things made us reflect about secularism. Should we go further or not?”

Sivalingam says banning prayer in public spaces “would definitely engage with an infringement of religious freedoms.”

“I think when we share our religious identities and values and practices with other communities, we actually build inclusion and tolerance.”

Roberge assured that the Pelchat-Rousseau committee will ensure that Drainville’s interventions in education are not duplicated. “We will act in a complementary manner,” he said.

“Five years after the adoption of the Law on State Secularism, the government wants to have a fair picture of its application in our institutions.”

This will then allow him to “take steps to counter religious influences and ensure that his societal choices are respected.”

“We are determined to go further to develop our model and protect our values,” added Roberge. 

This past January, the Supreme Court of Canada decided it would allow the constitutional challenge of Bill 21 to be heard.

Last week, the federal government announced that it intends to intervene in the Supreme Court appeal.

The CAQ is choosing not to wait for Canada’s highest court to decide on its constitutionality before looking into potentially strengthening it.

The prospect of a wider ban has raised concerns among those who consider the law discriminatory.

-With files from Erin Seize and The Canadian Press