I do not envy the judges of the Supreme Court of Canada. Quebec\u2019s Bill 21, enshrining the secular nature of the province, will soon land on their desks. The bill bans the wearing of visible religious symbols by public servants in positions of authority including, most controversially, school teachers.<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court will, in essence, be asked to choose between two opposing views of the place of religion in society. Freedom of religion is guaranteed in the Canadian<\/em> Charter of Rights and Freedoms<\/em>. However, is that freedom without limits? Does the state have the right to set limits on religious practices where they collide with other values held dear by society \u2500 the interdiction of polygamy being an example? The answer is not always obvious. Taking an example nearer to Bill 21, does asking a female Muslim school teacher to remove her hijab in school violate her charter<\/em> right to religious freedom?<\/p>\n The radicalism of Quebec\u2019s Bill 21<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n For most non-francophone Canadians, the answer to the last question is most probably \u201cyes,\u201d but the opposing answer is equally conceivable. I am not a lawyer. My focus as a social scientist is not on legal arguments, but on understanding why societies view religion differently. On this \u2500 perhaps more so than any other cultural attribute \u2500 French Quebec has evolved along a different path from the rest of North America.<\/p>\n Fran\u00e7ois Legault\u2019s I-win-you-lose gambit <\/strong><\/p>\n At stake is not only the court\u2019s interpretation of religious freedom, but also the use of the notwithstanding clause (section 33 of the charter<\/em>), which limits the power of the courts to strike down provincial legislation, with only limited exceptions. This section was invoked by Quebec, precisely to shield Bill 21 from negative court rulings.<\/p>\n To my knowledge, no major political figure or opinion-maker outside Quebec has come to the defence of Bill 21. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association<\/a> has unambiguously declared it to be an attack on religious freedom. The bill continues to be denounced as discriminatory, even racist, and proof yet again of French Quebec\u2019s ingrained xenophobia. This is not to say that the divide is purely linguistic, but support for Quebec\u2019s secularism law has come almost exclusively from francophone circles.<\/p>\n Bill 21 has so far survived in the courts, protected by the notwithstanding clause. In his April 2021 ruling<\/a>, Justice Marc-Andr\u00e9 Blanchard of Quebec\u2019s Superior Court openly expressed his displeasure with the bill\u2019s intent and Quebec\u2019s invocation of section 33, but ruled he had little choice but to uphold it. In a bizarre aside \u2500 bizarre to me at least \u2500 he also ruled that Bill 21 violated minority-language educational rights (where section 33 cannot be invoked), and was consequently inoperative for Quebec\u2019s English schools.<\/p>\n Before I proceed, let me make one thing clear. I think Bill 21 is a mistake, unnecessary, petty and needlessly confrontational. Quebec is already a profoundly secular society. Going into battle with the rest of Canada over a bill that, in reality, affects only a fairly small number of individuals (which does not make it a lesser moral issue) is a wasteful use of political capital and goodwill.<\/p>\n But the bill is about Quebec politics. One does not a need a degree in political science to understand that it is a savvy political manoeuvre by Premier Fran\u00e7ois Legault, allowing him to consolidate his nationalist credentials and pull yet another rug from under the Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois. Whichever way the court rules, Legault wins. If the court expresses its displeasure with both the bill and the use of the notwithstanding clause, Legault will predictably respond: \u201cI told you so. English Canada doesn\u2019t understand Quebec. We were right to invoke the notwithstanding clause.\u201d If the court rules that Bill 21 is in fact compatible with the charter<\/em>, well then, it\u2019s total absolution. Legault wins again.<\/p>\n The latter ruling (or rather written opinion, because the bill remains shielded by section 33) is highly unlikely. However, if that were to happen, the outcry outside Quebec would be deafening. One can already see the editorials: shame, treason, a betrayal of Canadian values.<\/p>\n That won\u2019t happen. A critical ruling, generally disapproving of Bill 21, is the likely scenario. This is a pity, not only because Quebec comes out yet again as the cultural villain, along with an indirect vindication of the notwithstanding clause, but also because it implicitly dismisses the possibility of more than one view of the place of religion in Canada.<\/p>\n The other view: A short history lesson<\/strong><\/p>\n Let us therefore try to understand why many opinion-makers in Quebec, including highly respected scholars, support Bill 21. It is chiefly on this social plane that the cultural divide plays out. The religious symbol ban does not lack popular support outside Quebec, where it is approved, according to a July 2019 poll<\/a>, by one-third of respondents. In Quebec, the approval rating is 65 per cent, with support strongest among less-educated cohorts. Support may indeed conceal racist sentiments, but this does not necessarily follow.<\/p>\n Why, then, might \u201cright-thinking\u201d Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois, who see themselves as tolerant, support the bill? A history lesson is in order. Until Quebec\u2019s Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, which took education out of the hands of the Catholic Church, French Quebec was for all practical purposes a theocracy, \u201cthat priest-ridden province.\u201d Almost every Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois of an older generation \u2500 especially women \u2500 has a horror story of how the church influenced their lives. For politically aware Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois, freeing the province from the grips of the church was a necessary step on the road to modernity, to building a secular, more egalitarian society, freed from the evils of superstition. Among the visible changes brought by the Quiet Revolution was the sartorial transformation of school teachers, as the good sisters of the old teaching orders traded in their religious habits for more modern attire.<\/p>\n Religion came to be viewed in a new light, at least by many. It was seen as a social construct, to use sociological jargon, that a society, and thus also individuals, can choose <\/em>to adopt or to discard. After all, did not the majority of Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois choose <\/em>to cease practising their ancestral religion after the Quiet Revolution? Studies<\/a> that measure religious practice suggest that the once priest-ridden province is now the most secular society in North America, a paradox that will undoubtedly not escape the reader.<\/p>\n Quebec\u2019s history has, in short, shaped a distinct perspective on religion: a more detached, less indulgent view than is the North American norm. If I may be forgiven a bad pun: religion in Quebec is less sacred. If Quebec were to print its own currency, the motto \u201cIn God We Trust\u201d that is inscribed on every U.S. greenback would be unthinkable.<\/p>\n Religion and race <\/strong><\/p>\n Which brings me back to Bill 21. If the state is to be truly secular, does it not follow that the state should ask its servants, notably those in situations of authority, to refrain from displaying religious convictions? Why is this different from asking them not to display political convictions? Is it not imperative that citizens be assured that civil servants are unprejudiced in their regard? Here, let me quote Boucar Diouf,<\/a> an astute observer of Quebec society who it would be difficult to accuse of racism or Islamophobia: \u201cHow would an immigrant of Palestinian origin, contesting a conviction, feel in front of a judge wearing a kippah? Inversely, how would a young driver wearing a kippah feel faced with a policewoman wearing a hijab who just gave him a ticket?\u201d (My translation). Clearly Diouf does not view Bill 21 as an abomination \u2500 not without fault, perhaps, but not intrinsically discriminatory or racist.<\/p>\n We are back to how society views religion: Is it an inalterable attribute of a person\u2019s essence, or is it a matter of choice, at least in part? Skin colour and facial traits \u2013 race \u2013 are not a matter of choice, nor are gender and sexual orientation. But clothing, hairstyles, etc.? That the wearer is sincere in his\/her convictions is not at issue. But, again, why should deeply held religious convictions be placed on a higher moral or legal plane than other deeply held convictions (say, political expression, environmentalism or pacifism) that an individual might feel compelled to publicly display at work?<\/p>\n Not all symbols are equal<\/strong><\/p>\n Finding the \u201cright\u201d answer is further complicated by the differing messages of different religious symbols. Some are less, some are more, at odds with the values of broader society. Religion exits the private domain and enters the public sphere when a visible religious symbol is worn. But all are not equal objects of public controversy. The kippah (a collateral victim in this saga) never aroused much public debate, to my knowledge, perhaps because it is difficult to associate with gender equality or other social issues.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not surprising that public debate in Western societies has focused almost exclusively on the Islamic headscarf (hijab), seen by its detractors as an affront to liberal values (I leave the niqab and burqa aside, because their ban for civil servants is less controversial). In Quebec, among the most vocal supporters of Bill 21 are Muslim women<\/a>, who understandably see parallels between their struggle and that of their Quebec sisters half a century earlier. Many originate from the Maghreb, where the battle between reformers and Islamists continues to rage unresolved.<\/p>\n