As the Na­tional As­sem­bly of Que­bec is un­re­lent­ing in push­ing Bill 21 which is “An Act re­spect­ing the laic­ity of the State,” the World Sikh Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Canada has sub­mit­ted a de­tailed brief to the Que­bec Na­tional As­sem­bly’s Com­mit­tee of In­sti­tu­tions, chal­leng­ing its pro­vi­sions and also tes­ti­fied be­fore the Coali­tion In­clu­sion Com­mit­tee. 

It is a mat­ter of deep con­cern to the Sikh, Mus­lim and Jew Que­beck­ers that the Que­bec Na­tional As­sem­bly’s Bill 21 pro­poses a ban on the wear­ing of “re­li­gious sym­bols” for gov­ern­ment em­ploy­ees in po­si­tions of au­thor­ity such as judges, po­lice of­fi­cers, jail guards, teach­ers, prin­ci­pals and oth­ers.

WSO’s Vice Pres­i­dent for Que­bec, Am­rit Kaur tes­ti­fied be­fore the Coali­tion In­clu­sion Québec’s ‘Peo­ple’s Hear­ings’ for com­mu­nity groups who were ex­cluded by the Que­bec Gov­ern­ment from hear­ings on Bill 21.

Speak­ing to me­dia, Am­rit Kaur said, “Bill 21 is in ef­fect of­fen­sive to neu­tral­ity or sec­u­lar­ism in the pub­lic sec­tor, and does noth­ing to ad­vance the cause of gen­der equal­ity.  We fear that it will re­sult in a di­vided so­ci­ety that mar­gin­al­izes cer­tain vis­i­ble re­li­gious mi­nori­ties and cre­ate an at­mos­phere of in­tol­er­ance and in­equity. We hope bet­ter sense pre­vails and that mem­bers of the Que­bec Na­tional As­sem­bly will re­ject this flawed and di­vi­sive Bill.”

WSO’s sub­mis­sions (For full sub­mis­sions in Eng­lish and French, click here) fo­cus on the im­por­tance of the Sikh tur­ban and the fact that the tur­ban serves both a spir­i­tual and prac­ti­cal func­tion and a that the tur­ban can­not be re­moved.  The re­moval of the tur­ban is tan­ta­mount to a strip search.

“We fear that it will re­sult in a di­vided so­ci­ety that mar­gin­al­izes cer­tain vis­i­ble re­li­gious mi­nori­ties and cre­ate an at­mos­phere of in­tol­er­ance and in­equity. We hope bet­ter sense pre­vails and that mem­bers of the Que­bec Na­tional As­sem­bly will re­ject this flawed and di­vi­sive Bill.”

Am­rit Kaur, Vice-Pres­i­dent, WSO Que­bec

WSO’s le­gal po­si­tion on Bill 21 as con­tained in the Brief is that the pro­posed law is both morally and legally of­fen­sive, and should not be passed.  To do so would set a dan­ger­ous prece­dent which would sig­nif­i­cantly erode the rights of women, and mi­nor­ity re­li­gious com­mu­ni­ties liv­ing in Que­bec.  The Bill is also a vi­o­la­tion of Que­bec val­ues as en­shrined in the Que­bec Char­ter of Hu­man Rights and Free­doms.

Even though Bill 21 will be in­su­lated from a chal­lenge un­der the Cana­dian Char­ter of Rights and Free­doms through the use of the notwith­stand­ing clause, the law it­self is highly prob­lem­atic.  The law is im­pre­cise, vague and ul­ti­mately un­en­force­able.  It con­tains no de­f­i­n­i­tion of a re­li­gious sym­bol, it does not re­veal who will de­cide whether an item of cloth­ing is re­li­gious, cul­tural or fash­ion and also sets out no penal­ties or meth­ods of en­force­ment.