On ex­pected lines, the Coali­tion gov­ern­ment of the Que­bec state of Canada has passed the Bill 21 -An Act re­spect­ing the laic­ity of the State ban­ning the wear­ing of re­li­gious sym­bols by gov­ern­ment em­ploy­ees, with a 73-35 vote. Sikhs, Mus­lims, Jews and oth­ers who wear head cov­er­ings as part of their re­li­gious or cul­tural prac­tice have been jolted though they had been at­tempt­ing over the months to fight this ret­ro­grade and un­fair step. WSO has sharply re­acted con­demn­ing the move of Que­bec as Sikhs in gov­ern­ment will have to give up the tur­ban or give up their jobs.

IN a rare late-night vote, the Bill 21 was passed on Sun­day af­ter the Gov­ern­ment of Que­bec in­voked clo­sure to pre­ma­turely end de­bate.  In a far-reach­ing de­vel­op­ment, the Gov­ern­ment of Que­bec has also in­voked the notwith­stand­ing clause, al­low­ing it to over­ride free­dom of re­li­gion pro­tec­tions en­shrined in the Cana­dian Char­ter of Rights & Free­doms.

Bill 21 cham­pi­oned by Pre­mier François Legault does not stop at dis­al­low­ing Que­bec res­i­dents from wear­ing head­gear. The Bill also dis­al­lows those wear­ing head­gear to use any gov­ern­ment ser­vice, ef­fec­tively mean­ing that Sikhs wear­ing tur­bans and Mus­lim women wear­ing hi­jabs and Jews wear­ing Ya­mulkes -skull caps, will not be al­lowed to use pub­lic trans­port.

“This is a very sad day for the peo­ple of Que­bec and all of Canada.  Que­bec is the first ju­ris­dic­tion in North Amer­ica to im­pose a re­li­gious dress code.  The mes­sage the CAQ Gov­ern­ment has sent to the world this week­end is that Que­bec has shut its doors to di­ver­sity and in­clu­sion and that it will not ad­here to ba­sic in­ter­na­tional hu­man rights norms.”

Mukhbir Singh, Pres­i­dent, World Sikh Or­ga­ni­za­tion

“It’s not a small thing. It’s a big de­ci­sion. But some­times, in or­der to pro­tect col­lec­tive rights, we have to use it. I think we have to pro­tect our col­lec­tive iden­tity,” Legault said, point­ing out the clause has been in­voked nu­mer­ous times by dif­fer­ent pre­miers. To sep­a­rate re­li­gion and pol­i­tics is im­por­tant in Que­bec,” said Pre­mier François Legault, while spelling out the ra­tio­nale for the Act.

De­nounc­ing the bill, Colum­nist He­mant Mehta says, “It’s a move that trounces on re­li­gious free­dom in the name of re­li­gious neu­tral­ity and cre­ates far more prob­lems than it solves.”

Not only this, to make mat­ters worse, Clo­sure was also used on Sat­ur­day to pass Bill 9, a con­tro­ver­sial law throw­ing out 18,000 pend­ing im­mi­gra­tion ap­pli­ca­tions to Que­bec.  Bill 9 in­cludes the frame­work for a Que­bec val­ues test that would-be im­mi­grants need to pass in or­der to be­come per­ma­nent res­i­dents.

“It’s a move that trounces on re­li­gious free­dom in the name of re­li­gious neu­tral­ity and cre­ates far more prob­lems than it solves.”

Colum­nist He­mant Mehta 

Bill 21 re­stricts the wear­ing of ‘re­li­gious sym­bols’ by pub­lic ser­vants in po­si­tions of au­thor­ity such as po­lice of­fi­cers, judges, pros­e­cu­tors and also school teach­ers and prin­ci­pals

Adding more bite to the work­ing of the Act that was passed, a last-minute amend­ment was in­tro­duced by the Que­bec gov­ern­ment that makes pro­vi­sion for “in­spec­tors”  who will su­per­vise com­pli­ance with the sec­u­lar­ism law and im­pose cor­rec­tive mea­sures- the tar­geted em­ploy­ees can be sub­ject to dis­ci­pli­nary mea­sures for fail­ing to com­ply.

To sep­a­rate re­li­gion and pol­i­tics is im­por­tant in Que­bec.” 

François Legault, Pre­mier, Que­bec Na­tional As­sem­bly

The World Sikh Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Canada be­lieves that “De­spite the amend­ment, ac­cord­ing to ex­perts, the bil­l’s vague de­f­i­n­i­tion of re­li­gious sym­bol as “cloth­ing, sym­bol, jew­elry, or­na­ment, ac­ces­sory or head­gear that is worn in con­nec­tion with a re­li­gious con­vic­tion or be­lief and can rea­son­ably be con­sid­ered as re­fer­ring to a re­li­gious af­fil­i­a­tion” makes the Bill dif­fi­cult if not im­pos­si­ble to en­force.”

There are ap­prox­i­mately 15,000 Sikhs in Que­bec who will be dis­pro­por­tion­ately im­pacted by the ban on re­li­gious cloth­ing and sym­bols.  Prac­tis­ing Sikhs, both men and women, wear the Sikh ar­ti­cles of faith such as the tur­ban at all times as part of their daily lives as re­minders of the prin­ci­ples of equal­ity, ser­vice and spir­i­tu­al­ity.

In May, three UN le­gal ex­perts joined sent a let­ter to the Cana­dian mis­sion in Geneva which said that Bill 21 threat­ens free­doms pro­tected by the In­ter­na­tional Covenant on Civil and Po­lit­i­cal Rights. It is quite ev­i­dent that it had no ef­fect on the Que­bec gov­ern­ment which was hell-bent on push­ing their par­ti­san and non-in­clu­sive agenda.

The WSO re­acted sharply to this de­vel­op­ment and its Pres­i­dent Mukhbir Singh said, “This is a very sad day for the peo­ple of Que­bec and all of Canada.  Que­bec is the first ju­ris­dic­tion in North Amer­ica to im­pose a re­li­gious dress code.  The mes­sage the CAQ Gov­ern­ment has sent to the world this week­end is that Que­bec has shut its doors to di­ver­sity and in­clu­sion and that it will not ad­here to ba­sic in­ter­na­tional hu­man rights norms.”

“Strip­ping mem­bers of mi­nor­ity com­mu­ni­ties of their rights is a shock­ing move that will have long term reper­cus­sions for Que­bec and Canada.  Bill 21 was a so­lu­tion to a prob­lem that did not ex­ist and pan­dered to the xeno­pho­bic ten­den­cies of a sec­tion of the Que­bec elec­torate,” he added.

Chart­ing the next phase of their ad­vo­cacy work, WSO said that it would con­tinue to work with other com­mu­nity part­ners in Que­bec to op­pose this leg­is­la­tion.

“The fight against this sec­u­lar­ism law will be a his­toric strug­gle that will have a per­ma­nent im­pact on hu­man rights in Canada. We call on the peo­ple of Que­bec to re­ject this dis­crim­i­na­tory and di­vi­sive law,” said a dis­traught but com­mit­ted Mukhbir Singh.

World Sikh News en­dorses the at­tempts of WSO and other civil lib­er­ties groups who will not take this ly­ing down and con­test it tooth and nail.