{"id":198973,"date":"2019-05-07T10:32:35","date_gmt":"2019-05-07T14:32:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/irpp-policy-options.local\/issues\/quebecs-bill-21-misapplies-religious-neutrality-principle\/"},"modified":"2025-04-14T04:44:54","modified_gmt":"2025-04-14T08:44:54","slug":"quebecs-bill-21-misapplies-religious-neutrality-principle","status":"publish","type":"issues","link":"https:\/\/potestlaunch.irpp.org\/fr\/2019\/05\/quebecs-bill-21-misapplies-religious-neutrality-principle\/","title":{"rendered":"Quebec\u2019s Bill 21 misapplies religious neutrality principle"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Quebec government has introduced its\u00a0promised legislation<\/a>\u00a0restricting visible religious imagery in the public service. In essence, Bill 21 prohibits state employees such as prosecutors, police officers and teachers from wearing religious symbols \u2014 including head and face coverings \u2014 when carrying out their civic duties. It will apply only to new public service hires, exempting existing civil servants from its provisions. The Bill, tabled in late March, follows similar legislation passed in 2017 that banned the wearing of face coverings by individuals providing or receiving certain public services.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The new law is ostensibly supported by four principles: the religious neutrality of the state; the separation of religion and the state; the equality of all citizens; and freedom of conscience and religion. But perhaps even more significantly, Bill 21 seeks to amend the\u00a0Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, the quasi-constitutional provincial statute with which all Quebec laws must comply, and which itself is subordinate only to the\u00a0Canadian Charter\u00a0of Rights and Freedoms. Although the\u00a0Quebec Charter\u00a0<\/em>guarantees freedom of religion, its preamble will now include a declaration affirming the \u201cfundamental importance\u201d of state secularism.<\/p>\n

In response to warnings<\/a> from civil libertarians that these provisions will disproportionately target members of minority religious groups, Premier Fran\u00e7ois Legault has insisted<\/a> that the Bill is consistent with the views of most Quebecers that the state ought to be religiously neutral.<\/p>\n

One could be forgiven for thinking that the main purpose of Bill 21 is to promote the state\u2019s duty of religious neutrality. These words appear no fewer than seven times throughout the legislation, and the Bill\u2019s title references the French concept of laicity, or the ideal that the exercise of state power ought to be divorced from expressions of religious dogma.\u00a0Yet, despite its professed support for religious neutrality, Bill 21\u2019s ban on religious symbols is fundamentally inconsistent with how this constitutional principle is actually understood in Canadian law.<\/p>\n

Since the advent of the\u00a0Charter, the Supreme Court of Canada has interpreted the Constitution as limiting the state\u2019s jurisdiction in matters concerning religion. This does not, however, mean that the\u00a0Charter\u00a0banishes religion or religious expression from the public sphere. Far from it.<\/p>\n

The Canadian principle of religious neutrality holds that governments must remain neutral on questions of religion or theology by neither favouring\u00a0nor disfavouring\u00a0<\/em>any particular belief. In practice, this means that it\u2019s unconstitutional for the state to instruct its citizens on what constitutes the right religion. While governments can\u2019t be explicitly religious, they also can\u2019t be explicitly irreligious: the state must treat religious groups equally.<\/p>\n

In this way, religious neutrality reinforces the\u00a0Charter\u2019s guarantees of freedom of religion under section 2(a) and the right to equality under section 15. Indeed, without religious neutrality, there can be no meaningful guarantee for either of these constitutional protections. If the state can unconditionally pass laws forcing religious adherents to deny their core identity every time they step into the public square, then our society is not one in which religious minorities are respected as equal citizens.<\/p>\n

Of course, the very idea of religious neutrality is a bit pretentious. The state can never be truly neutral on questions of religious morality, nor should it be. In a pluralistic society like Canada, governments will inevitably be forced to pursue policies that are inconsistent with some faith-based convictions, since religion itself can\u2019t be neutral about what a good and just society looks like. As\u00a0Benjamin Berger\u00a0of Osgoode Hall Law School explains<\/a>,\u00a0\u201cThe state\u2019s inescapable adoption of positions on such matters will\u2026involve position-taking on matters of deep religious interest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet this is precisely why the\u00a0Charter\u00a0<\/em>safeguards the right of religious minorities to participate fully in public life. Though religious neutrality limits the state\u2019s theological jurisdiction, it doesn\u2019t consign religion to private practice, nor does it justify legislation that discriminates against religious minorities. Civil servants enjoy the same\u00a0Charter\u00a0<\/em>rights as everyone else; the suggestion that a crucifix- or hijab-wearing public employee undermines religious neutrality inherently misapplies this constitutional principle.<\/p>\n

Photo:\u00a0Shutterstock by Maridav<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Do you have something to say about the article you just read? Be part of the\u00a0<\/em>Policy Options\u00a0discussion, and send in your own submission.\u00a0Here is a\u00a0<\/em>link<\/em><\/a>\u00a0on how to do it.\u00a0<\/em>|\u00a0Souhaitez-vous r\u00e9agir \u00e0 cet article ?\u00a0<\/em>Joignez-vous aux d\u00e9bats d\u2019<\/em>Options politiques\u00a0et soumettez-nous votre texte en suivant ces\u00a0<\/em>directives<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Quebec government has introduced its\u00a0promised legislation\u00a0restricting visible religious imagery in the public service. In essence, Bill 21 prohibits state employees such as prosecutors, police officers and teachers from wearing religious symbols \u2014 including head and face coverings \u2014 when carrying out their civic duties. It will apply only to new public service hires, exempting 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