A Quebec law that critics say unjustly targets Muslim, Jewish and Sikh people will be challenged at Canada’s Supreme Court, reigniting a sweeping debate over the province’s brand of secularism.
The law, known in Quebec as Bill 21, bars civil servants like teachers, prosecutors and police officers from wearing, while at work, the garments or accessories associated with their faith, such as skullcaps, turbans, head scarves and crosses.
Freedom of expression and religion are enshrined in Canada’s constitution. But governments at all levels, including federal, can set aside certain rights in favor of their own policy objectives, through the rarely used “notwithstanding clause.” The clause was adopted in 1981 as something of an override button after provincial leaders expressed concern that they would have to cede authority to the courts to interpret some rights.
Quebec’s secular policies are stricter than those of other Canadian provinces, where for many years the Roman Catholic Church exerted an influence over education, health care and public welfare. A Liberal government won in Quebec in 1960 with a promise to reflect the changing needs of Quebec society. That ushered in a period of transformation remembered as the “quiet revolution,” in which the state moved toward secularization. Quebec enacted its ban on religious symbols in 2019 using the notwithstanding clause, with support from residents.
“We will fight to the end to defend our values and who we are,” Premier François Legault said Thursday on X.
Critics say the ban on religious symbols is a reaction to an increase in Muslim immigrants. A study published in the Canadian Review of Sociology in 2018 found a greater prevalence of Islamophobia in Quebec than in other Canadian provinces.
There have been legal challenges by religious groups, school boards and individuals who have argued that the law violates their fundamental freedoms.
Last year, three judges from Quebec’s Court of Appeal unanimously upheld the law in a case involving the English Montreal School Board, which argued that the law also had the effect of promoting gender discrimination, predominantly against female teachers.
It is rare for the Supreme Court to take on cases when a lower court of appeal has come to a unanimous decision, said Pearl Eliadis, a law professor at McGill University.
The Supreme Court does not give reasons for taking on specific cases, so it’s unclear which issues — the notwithstanding clause, gender discrimination, freedom of expression — the court will adjudicate.
Rulings from the Supreme Court in the last two decades have underscored that Canada is fundamentally a secularist society. Canada’s legal tradition likens the constitution to a living tree, Professor Eliadis said, able to evolve to meet society’s changing needs.
Professor Eliadis said she thought the case was about “the way in which secularism is being deployed to suppress the rights of religious minorities.”
[Published in 2020: A Quebec Ban on Religious Symbols Upends Lives]
Harini Sivalingam, a director at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, one of the organizations that challenged the law in court, said at a news conference on Thursday that the law disproportionately affected minority populations, including Muslim, Sikh and Jewish communities.
Arif Virani, the federal justice minister, told reporters at Parliament Hill on Thursday that the government planned to argue its viewpoint because the issue was of national importance. The Liberal Party’s uncertain future in leadership, however, could hamper that effort.
In response to Mr. Virani’s comments, Simon Jolin-Barrette, Quebec’s justice minister, said in a statement that the province would “fight to the end” to protect its secular values, adding that the federal government was showing a lack of respect for Quebec’s autonomy by weighing in on the case.
Professor Eliadis said that while one of the main tenets of Quebec’s secularism was the idea that the state should be a neutral actor, she thought the law had imposed the government’s viewpoint of what nonreligion ought to look like in the public service.
“Now the state is no longer really neutral,” she said.
Vjosa Isai is a reporter and researcher for The New York Times in Toronto.
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