Bill 21

Quebec's Bill 21 makes it mandatory that no one wear religious symbols if they work in the public sector in the province. People will also have to show their faces if they want to receive public services, forcing essentially Muslim women to remove their face covering, which they wear for religious purposes.

Comments follow...

The Sikhs with the turbans and the Muslim women with the hijabs and the Jewish men with the side curls will all speak French. Unlike with most discriminatory laws in Quebec, there is no language issue here. The issue is the alternation of appearance in aid of religion – do it, and you are deemed unemployable in the public service in Quebec, and you may be denied certain services if you cover your face.

The excuse is secularism - proponents are saying they need to do this in order to have a secular state. 

In fact, there is no state religious coercion in Quebec, which is what “separation of church and state” actually means. That went out in Quebec decades ago. The law does not make the state secular, it forces people to be secular. It implicitly puts forward the idiotic argument that the wearing of a turban or a hijab by a state employee somehow represents the state’s attempt to coerce religious belief on behalf of others.  

No it doesn’t.

The law also purports to make people equal - proponents are saying that they need to do this to increase equality in the province. 

But people are legally equal in Quebec – no one is saying that there is inequality before the law in Quebec, in the sense of state sponsored discrimination, which is what “equality before the law” actually means. Instead of this, the law demands that people be equal in appearance, as if somehow wearing a hijab by a state employee makes others unequal before the law.  

No it doesn’t.

As noted, it also requires that persons wearing religious coverings over their faces uncover to receive public services. So, if you want to ride the bus, you must show your face.  

Everyone involved knows that this likely means that no one who covers their face for religious reasons and who normally needs to ride a bus will now do so. It doesn’t make them equal, it will make them even more invisible.

The Quebecois have to invoke the “notwithstanding clause” to make this work, that is, so that they can implement a law that they say promotes secularism and separation of church and state as well as the equality of persons. (Note - in Canada, a legislature can pass discriminatory laws as long as they invoke clause 33 in Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms which allows them to override the Charter.)

Governments and legislatures don’t have to invoke clause 33 if what they are doing is causing a net increase in Human freedom – they do it to take freedom away. 

That is precisely what this does, and what it was obviously intended to do.