While all po­lit­i­cal par­ties of Canada and their lead­er­ship have ex­pressed con­cern over the pass­ing of Bill 21 by the Que­bec gov­ern­ment ban­ning the wear­ing of re­li­gious sym­bols by pub­lic ser­vants, the re­sponse of the Fed­eral gov­ern­ment -Prime Min­is­ter Trudeau down­wards has not been a strong one. The World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Canada and other hu­man rights bod­ies have chided the Fed­eral lead­er­ship for their muted re­sponse. 

BILL 21 is a hu­man rights cri­sis. Peo­ple of cer­tain faiths, in­clud­ing Sikhs, Mus­lims and Jews have been rel­e­gated to sec­ond class cit­i­zen­ship in Que­bec and ex­cluded from sev­eral fields of em­ploy­ment, said the World Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tion ru­ing the muted re­sponse from the Fed­eral lead­er­ship in Canada.

The World Sikh Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Canada is shocked by the si­lence of Cana­dian fed­eral lead­ers over the pass­ing of Bill 21- An Act re­spect­ing the laic­ity of the State by the Coali­tion Avenir Que­bec gov­ern­ment ban­ning the wear­ing of re­li­gious sym­bols. 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, among oth­ers.

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 is a hu­man rights cri­sis. Peo­ple of cer­tain faiths, in­clud­ing Sikhs, Mus­lims and Jews have been rel­e­gated to sec­ond class cit­i­zen­ship in Que­bec and ex­cluded from sev­eral fields of em­ploy­ment.

World Sikh Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Canada

Nei­ther Prime Min­is­ter Justin Trudeau, nor Con­ser­v­a­tive Party of Canada leader An­drew Scheer have made any of­fi­cial state­ment since the pass­ing of Bill 21 on Sun­day. NDP Leader Jag­meet Singh has tweeted about it. While Green Party leader Eliz­a­beth May tweeted call­ing the move, “a dan­ger­ous step back­wards for Que­bec and all of Canada. No one should have to choose be­tween their faith and their ca­reer.”

The pass­ing of Bill 21 pri­mar­ily af­fects mem­bers of the Sikh, Mus­lim and Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ties. The law for­bids the wear­ing of ‘re­li­gious sym­bols’, vaguely de­fined as “cloth­ing, sym­bol, jew­ellery, or­na­ment, ac­ces­sory or head­gear that is worn in con­nec­tion with a re­li­gious con­vic­tion or be­lief and can rea­son­ably be con­sid­ered as re­fer­ring to re­li­gious af­fil­i­a­tion.”

What can be eas­ily termed as po­lice state norms, “The law will be en­forced by ‘in­spec­tors’ who will su­per­vise com­pli­ance with the sec­u­lar­ism law and im­pose cor­rec­tive mea­sures- a tar­geted em­ployee can be sub­ject to dis­ci­pli­nary mea­sures for fail­ing to com­ply.”

Le­gal ex­perts have ex­pressed fears that the law will be en­forced in an ar­bi­trary and dis­crim­i­na­tory man­ner, tar­get­ing racial­ized in­di­vid­u­als.

“The si­lence from our fed­eral lead­ers on this is­sue is deaf­en­ing.

Mukhbir Singh, Pres­i­dent WSO

WSO Pres­i­dent Mukhbir Singh said “The si­lence from our fed­eral lead­ers on this is­sue is deaf­en­ing. We are al­ready see­ing that the pas­sage of this in­tol­er­ant law is en­abling dis­crim­i­na­tion, even in the pri­vate sec­tor. It is un­think­able that in Canada to­day, peo­ple will be sub­ject to ‘in­spec­tors’ who mon­i­tor re­li­gious garb at the work­place and that a gen­er­a­tion of Sikhs, Mus­lims and Jews will be ex­cluded from work­ing as teach­ers, po­lice of­fi­cers or gov­ern­ment lawyers.”

“True lead­er­ship means speak­ing out when hu­man rights are vi­o­lated and in­di­vid­u­als are sub­jected to dis­crim­i­na­tion. We’ve seen Canada be a leader when call­ing out hu­man rights abuses around the world, whether it is China or Saudi Ara­bia- but we haven’t seen that lead­er­ship from our Prime Min­is­ter or Op­po­si­tion Lead­ers when it comes to our very own back­yard.”

Are the fed­eral lead­ers of Canada wor­ried about their elec­toral prospects in the forth­com­ing fed­eral elec­tions in Oc­to­ber 2019?

Photo cour­tesy: Huff­Post.