Affected employers include schools, hospitals, universities, daycares
The Quebec government has tabled new legislation that would further tighten secularism rules in public institutions, extending restrictions on religious symbols, prayer spaces and religiously based services in workplaces such as daycares, schools, universities and hospitals.
Premier François Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government introduced Bill 9, titled An Act respecting the reinforcement of laicity in Quebec, on Thursday.
The bill would apply to a wide range of publicly funded environments, with direct implications for hiring, workplace policies and religious accommodation practices in Quebec’s public and parapublic sectors.
Jean-François Roberge, Quebec’s minister responsible for secularism, said the legislation is intended to advance the province’s longstanding objective of ensuring the “religious neutrality of the state” and “equality for all citizens,” CBC reports.
“We think that when the state is neutral, Quebecers are free,” Roberge said at a news conference. He rejected the notion that religious minorities are being unfairly targeted, adding, “We have the same rules applying to everyone.”
The Quebec government has announced plans to ban religious symbols for daycare workers in October.
The bill invokes the notwithstanding clause pre-emptively, which would shield it from challenges under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, according to CBC. This step signals the government’s expectation of legal and constitutional opposition.
Here are the key proposed measures in Bill 9, “An Act respecting the reinforcement of laicity in Québec”:
The extension of the religious symbols ban to subsidised daycare workers has drawn concern from childcare providers.
Maria English, executive director of a public daycare network with five locations and more than 300 children, told CBC the measure would disproportionately affect Muslim women and make recruitment more difficult.
“A religious symbol does not determine how you will be with the children, so it will take away some very nurturing educators,” English said.
Meanwhile, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association noted that Quebec’s Bill 9 “attacks fundamental freedoms and the right to equality by almost completely banning collective religious practice in public and limiting the right to peacefully protest near places of worship.”
“Through yet another invocation of the notwithstanding clauses, the Quebec government is perpetuating the shameful legacy of exclusion initiated by Bill 21, which the CCLA is currently challenging before the Supreme Court of Canada,” the group said via LinkedIn.
“Bill 9 must be withdrawn. The Quebec government must stop weaponizing its distorted view of secularism as a political tool.”
Previously, one committee called for action from the Quebec government to address what it described as a growing presence of religion in some institutions in the province.
Quebec pushes for further restrictions of religious symbols, services, prayers in workplace – HRD America
