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The Quebec government wants to place limits on praying in public and extend a ban on wearing religious symbols to subsidized daycare workers as part of a new bill tabled Thursday.
Bill 9, titled An Act respecting the reinforcement of laicity in Québec, sets out to strengthen previous securalism laws passed by Premier François Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec government.
Specific proposed changes include:
Banning subsized daycare and private school workers from wearing religious symbols, such as hijabs (with a clause exempting those already in their position).Prohibiting public institutions from exclusively offering food based on a religious tradition, such as halal or kosher meals.Phasing out public subsidies for religious private schools that select students or staff based on religious affiliation, or that teach religious content.Banning group prayers in public insitutions, as well as in public spaces like roads and parks, without municipal authorization.Prohibiting the use of religious symbols in communications by public institutions.Repealing the Freedom of Worship Act, which set out to preserve the “free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference.”
The bill also invokes the notwithstanding clause pre-emptively, shielding it from challenges under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Jean-François Roberge, Quebec’s minister responsible for secularism, is set to give more details at a noon news conference.
The legislation is the latest tabled by Premier François Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec government, which has been slumping in opinion polls ahead of next year’s provincial election.
In October, the government adopted a law banning religious symbols worn by any school employee who interacts with a student.
That law was itself an expansion of a 2019 law, known as Bill 21, that banned religious symbols worn by public employees deemed to be in positions of authority, including teachers, judges and police officers. The government also passed a bill earlier this year requiring immigrants to embrace the common culture of the province.
WATCH | CAQ takes secularism law a step further:
Ban on public prayer among measures in latest Quebec secularism bill
Six years after the CAQ government adopted its landmark secularism law, known as Bill 21, and only a month after adopting a bill which expanded Bill 21’s prohibition of religious symbols, the province is once again taking aim at the intersection of religion and public life.
Even before being tabled, Thursday’s bill was criticized by religious groups and civil liberties advocates as an attack on minorities for political gain.
Stephen Brown, president of the National Council of Canadian Muslims, said the bill amounts to “political opportunism” and serves as a distraction from other pressing issues, including a conflict with the province’s doctors and a shortage of affordable housing.
“Unfortunately, once again, it’s the same group of minorities that are serving as the foil,” he said.
In a statement, the Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Quebec said the proposed bill would be a “radical infringement on the rights and freedoms of the Quebec population” and that “the government has not demonstrated the need for such legislation.”