A bitter debate over identity, religion and tolerance has resumed in the Canadian province of Quebec, as parliamentary hearings begin on proposed legislation that would ban anyone wearing a face covering from receiving public services in the province.
The bill, tabled by the provincial Liberals last year, aims to address the issue of state neutrality and provide a framework for religious accommodation requests.
But much of the public discussion of the bill has focused on its attempt to ban face coverings. The provincial government has said there are no public employees in the province who cover their faces, meaning the legislation is likely directed at Muslim women who wear the niqab or burqa.
The government has presented it as an issue of public safety. “We are not legislating on clothing,” Stéphanie Vallée, the province’s justice minister, said last year. “Public services have to be offered and received with the face uncovered for security, identification and communication purposes.”
She has since said she’s not sure how many people in the province have sought out a public service while wearing a face covering. “There are some, but I don’t have the numbers,” she said.
The parliamentary hearings began on Tuesday and will continue until early November. Some 50 groups, from daycares to immigrant support groups, are expected to take part.
The bill is the third attempt by authorities in Quebec to legislate secularism in the public domain since 2010. A previous attempt by the Liberals – which died on the order paper in 2012 – aimed to address public concerns that could become ripe terrain for some of the province’s opposition parties.
This month, one of these parties, the Parti Québécois, elected a new leader who has promised to explore a ban on burqas. “There are security reasons and there are reasons based on equality of men and women,” said leader Jean-François Lisée. “[For] reasons that were underlined by 10 European democracies.”
In 2013, a Parti Québécois government sparked controversy with a proposal to ban public servants ranging from doctors to school janitors from wearing religious symbols such as kippahs, turbans or hijabs. The party was defeated in provincial elections soon after.
The Liberal legislation is a watered-down attempt to address the anxieties over accommodation of diversity and public expression of religion that have at times surged to the forefront of Quebec politics, said Jack Jedwab, the president of the Association for Canadian Studies and the Canadian Institute for Identities and Migration. Polling carried out by his organisation last year suggested that 80% of Québécois believe the niqab should be banned in government offices and the courts.
“This is the way the Liberals hope they can address this while proposing something they don’t think is a violation of fundamental rights,” he said. Jedwab believed the proposed bill stood a good chance of being passed, barring any kind of legal challenge.
While he believed some support for such legislation existed across Canada, he pointed to the province’s close links with France – where headscarves have been banned in the public service since 2007 and a ban on face coverings in public places was introduced in 2010 – to explain why popular sentiment towards a religious practice had coalesced into proposed legislation in the province. “The Francophone population is a much more secular population than is the case anywhere else in North America.”
The proposed legislation, however, would still allow a crucifix to sit over the speaker’s chair in Quebec’s National Assembly.
Some groups have voiced concerns that the legislation will simply serve to stigmatise a small group of women in the province. “It is very targeted,” said Mihad Fahmy, a lawyer with the National Council of Canadian Muslims. “Given the body of case law that already exists across the country and even the different human rights codes, one has to wonder why Quebec felt a need to address specifically in a piece of legislation the issue of face coverings.”
As the province pushes forward the proposed legislation, the group is bracing itself for ripple effects. “Clearly there’s going to be an impact nationwide,” said Fahmy. “It affects people’s understanding of what’s reasonable and how far we’re willing to go as a pluralistic society in accommodating needs.”