Front Burner - Quebec's secularism bill praised and denounced as hearings begin

Episode Date: May 10, 2019

This week, hearings were held on Quebec's secularism bill - which aims to ban public workers in positions of authority from wearing religious symbols. There were fiery exchanges: some say the bill institutionalizes discrimination, while others think secularism is crucial to keeping Quebec's distinct identity. Today on Front Burner, the CBC's Jonathan Montpetit brings us highlights from the debate - and we hear from a young Muslim woman who worries her livelihood will be affected by the bill.

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Escaping NXIVM from CBC Podcasts Uncover. Subscribe now at cbc.ca slash uncover. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. So a few weeks back, we did this episode on multiple attempts in recent Quebec history to legislate secularism. The PQ government would press ahead with its proposed Charter of Quebec Values, which would reportedly ban all religious clothing. Across the province, Quebecers are wrestling with the contentious issue of reasonable accommodation. That is, how far should Quebec go to accommodate cultural and religious minorities? And even though these previous and very controversial attempts failed,

the current government in Quebec is taking another run at it, with a bill that would bar people who work for the civil service from wearing religious symbols. Think teachers who wear the hijab, or a police officer who wears a kippah. The bill has been criticized for impeding on people's right to practice their religion and for its potential of dividing Quebecers and excluding minorities from public service. Well, this week, groups with an interest in that bill becoming a reality held hearings at Quebec's National Assembly. In a few minutes, I'm going to talk to my colleague Jonathan Montpetit about these hearings. But first, after our last episode, I really wanted to speak to someone who'd be affected by this firsthand.

Reem Jawad recently graduated from law school and is about to take the bar exam. She's a practicing Muslim from Montreal. Hi, Reem. Hello. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me. So I understand you started wearing a hijab four months ago. Exactly.

Can you tell me about that? Yes. You know, people try to find themselves their whole lives. And they try to find their purpose in this life. So I was doing the same like every other person. And, you know, I read books about Islam I read the Quran and I have found myself in in these words and in this belief so I wanted to practice it fully but there was a time that I was really scared because people would tell me that there was

discrimination but you know I was doubting a bit, but I was believing them. But I was brave enough to put the hijab. But now I can feel this discrimination. So can you tell me about that? What's the transition been like for you? You know, I've never, never felt discrimination in my whole life. So I didn't believe in it in a kind of way until I wore the hijab and I started feeling it slowly. How so? When people would stare at me in the subway when I would go to school, you know, with time, it becomes heavy. It becomes heavy.

It's interesting that you started wearing the hijab about four months ago, which is just about the same time that the Coalition Avenir Quebec introduced its secularism bill. Are you feeling heightened pressure around this? Are you feeling like... Yes, a lot, a lot. But I can't not be who I am. So this is not an option for me to just surrender and ignore who I am after I found myself my whole life. So I had to be brave enough.

And can you tell me a little bit more why you chose to wear it? Like, what does it represent for you? It's all about integrity. If I lack somewhere in my religion, this means I'm not practicing. I feel there's something missing, and I feel there's a hole somewhere. And this is something that nobody, religious or not, that nobody would accept this for themselves. And this, people would understand it just because they have a heart, not because they understand Islam or not. If this bill was passed, Bill 21, how would it affect you directly? You know, we know that Bill 21 is also prohibiting lawyers that will occupy

government occupations. And I always wanted to be, it's called an administrative judge in the immigration law. Okay. And so, which means that I would have to work for the government. But now my dream is crushed. But not only this, when I will be a lawyer, the thing is that clients will want to win. So they will think about their best interest. And they will look at me and falsely think that it might be too risky to have to work with a hijabi woman,

so they will go with another lawyer. Lawyers are known for their competence, but they're also known for their reputation. So this bill is stepping on my reputation. So this bill is, you know, stepping on my reputation. So your concern is that the bill would affect you very directly if you wanted to work for the government in an administrative judge capacity, but you're also concerned that the bill would create hurdles for you even if you went into private practice. People wouldn't want to hire you? Exactly. It says it's limited, but it's not really. Everything you do, there's a consequence that comes with it.

Can I ask you why you think it's not limited? Why do you think that it would expand outside of government roles? The law is applied to humans, you know, and we have the tendency to be judgmental after a law prohibiting something or giving them a second class. That's how I feel. I feel second class and the law is not even. I want to go back to the bill itself and what it would do to your ambitions to work for the government. And I want to read you this quote from Francine Lavoie, who heads up this pro-secular lobby group in Quebec City

that's pushing for this bill to go forward. She says there's a lack of understanding around this debate about religious symbols and that when she sees a young woman like you say she will put her hijab, her religion, before her career, before everything, that she doesn't understand that and never has. And what do you think of that statement, the idea that you're putting your religion before your career as a young woman? Yes. Well, I would ask her the same question.

Would she put her career before her identity, before herself? Would she do that? I get that this quote from Francine Lavoie is incendiary. But what about the people who are just saying, look, all we want is a state that is separate from religion. That's all we're trying to do here. Yes. Well, I think it's already done,

that the state shouldn't get involved in religious decisions. So for you, there already is that separation between state and religion? Well, it's the government that's not supposed to take these decisions about religion. And that's what they're doing. So for you, this bill is doing the opposite. Exactly. That there was a separation between religion and state. And now the state is getting involved in religion.

Exactly. Let's say this bill passes. What are you going to do? I will work hard to try to manage this and hopefully it won't pass and people would understand that this is very serious. And this is not some limitation that someone can live with. This is prohibiting someone from being who they are. And I don't think that they would accept this on themselves. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, now on to my colleague, Jonathan Montpetit. He's been covering these hearings all week.

Hi, Jonathan. Hi, Jamie. So we got you on a break right now. I know that this is the last day of hearings this week, and we're reaching you on Thursday afternoon. And I have to start here because I've been watching your Twitter account all week and I keep seeing these references during the hearings to all these big thinkers like Foucault and John Locke. And this morning, Hannah Arendt came up. And I have not heard these names since my university philosophy class. What is happening in Quebec? What is happening in Quebec? Well, I guess one way of describing what's happening is that there's a

graduate seminar in political philosophy that has broken out in the National Assembly here. There have been kind of some outrageous highly controversial claims during the hearings so far. But the hearings to this point have been an incredible display of erudition by both sides. And most of the people who have been invited to the commission are people who have written and thought about this issue for 5, 10, 20 years. People who've written books about the issue. People who have been to the commission during previous attempts to legislate this issue.

So this is the fourth time in the past 10 years or so that Quebec has tried to legislate secularism. And so some of these people are on their third or fourth time explaining their position to parliamentarians here in Quebec City. Right. And so let's go through some of those positions. You know, who is testifying at these hearings? Who are for this bill? They would like to see this bill enacted. And what are some of the arguments that they're using? I have a feeling you're going to bring up some of these philosophers now. Right. So one of the kinds of people and kinds of groups that we've heard a lot from so far are feminist groups. Religious rules are against women. That's like the big religion. You have segregation, sexual segregation permitted

in the name of the religion, and we don't want that. Now, it's a particular kind of feminism of a certain generation. The argument here is that gender equality requires secularism, that unless we implement a strict division of church and state, and here you'll get people invoking John Locke, you know, unless we get that kind of strict divide between religion and state, the project of gender equality, the project of female emancipation is incomplete. male emancipation is incomplete. The other thinker they draw from quite a bit is Hannah Arendt, basically saying, you know, the state has a way of upholding values, upholding religious freedom, but it can only do so when the priorities given to gender equality, the sense is that, you know, like people who wear the hijab

and having the hijab in public spaces discourages kind of universalist project of feminism. Okay. And what other arguments are we hearing? So another argument has come up, especially from public service employees, is that their workers don't want to have to keep on negotiating when and when it isn't acceptable to accommodate somebody's religious preferences and demands. Say a Muslim woman who's wearing a niqab asked to be served by another woman. You know, this kind of creates a lot of complexity for civil service employees and they don't want to have to deal with that stuff. And so one of the things they're asking for is actually for the bill to be widened, to have its scope widened to all sectors of the public service.

You know, to wrap up, kind of the third type of argument is either nationalist or even sovereigntist groups who are making a point that Quebec is a distinct society, that we draw from a Republican as opposed to a more multicultural tradition. People have to kind of leave their more subjective identity at the door and kind of assume this more universalistic attitude in order to become Quebecers. This Quebec identity. That is Quebec's identity, exactly. Okay, so we've got people saying this is about gender equality. We've got public workers saying this is about avoiding accommodations.

And then we've got other people saying this is like all about a Quebec identity that they want people to get behind first. Are we missing anything else here? There's also the fatigue argument that we've been having this debate in Quebec for 10 or 20 years. And the bill, in its supporters' eyes, 20 years. And the bill, in its supporters' eyes, would simply bring an end to that debate and allow Quebec to move on to other things. You also get, and so far it's been a minority, you know, people who kind of invoke a certain fear of Islamic radicalism, that we're kind of going too easy on the more fundamentalist side of Islam. And that's kind of led to some more incendiary remarks at the commission. Like what? So earlier this week, a very well-known and very controversial,

I should add, secularism advocate, a longtime critic of Islam, a woman by the name of Jamila bin Habib. a woman by the name of Jamila Ben Habib. She basically said that women who wear the hijab and refuse to take the hijab off for work are fundamentalists. She said, you know, somebody who wears a hijab should be able, if they're moderate, to take the hijab off when they go to work and then put it back on at home. That's a comment that drew a sharp response from other interveners saying, well, that's just, you know, that's not how faith works. You know,

you can't flip it on and off like a switch. And then earlier today... Former senator by the name of Céline Hérée-Payette came and basically invoked the fear that unless we kind of take a stand against the hijab, that we're opening the door to things like female circumcision and forced marriages. She kind of invoked the specter that these kinds of radical practices are happening in Quebec. And that brought a comment from the chair of the commission, who is part of the party who tabled the bill, and he kind of asked her to use great caution in her remarks. Because in the debate, in the Laïcité debate,

that kind of word has no place here in the discussion. But, you know, so far, those kinds of comments have been in the minority. Okay. So those are generally the arguments we're hearing from the pro-secular, pro-bill side. What are we hearing from the other side? Well, there's a variety of ways that the critics are trying to use to weaken the bill. One common argument is specifically aimed at the provision of the bill that would ban public teachers from wearing religious symbols. And so a lot of people have commented and pointed out,

well, there's just no evidence that when a teacher wears a religious symbol, it leads to conversion or radicalization amongst their students. You have another argument that says the government is stripping people of a right that they have currently. So because you're taking a right away from somebody, you have to show that there's some kind of urgent need to violate somebody's fundamental right. And they say we're still waiting for an explanation. Like show us the data, show us the studies, show us just some kind of evidence that would justify this violation of a right that is protected not only by the Canadian Charter of Freedoms, but also the Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms. who just graduated from law school. She started wearing a hijab just four months ago, and she talked about the discrimination she faced as soon as she put on a hijab.

And do you hear that kind of sentiment at the hearings? Yeah, that's a sentiment that's come up a few times so far, and I think it really speaks to the anxiety that exists in a lot of minority groups about the impact this legislation will have. The state secularism is supposed to solve problems. It's supposed to make equality better. It's supposed to protect the freedom of belief. And this project is actually against these principles.

And we think that it's not moderated laicity and it's an extremist way of seeing how institutions should deal with minorities. This bill will harm racialized people first. And obviously, it's institutionalizing discrimination in our law. Another, I think, really important argument about the message that the Quebec government is sending by passing a bill that is widely seen to target Muslim women in particular, Sikh men and Jewish men as well. Right, and the message that that might send. Yeah, which is one of intolerance, one of the Quebecers aren't welcome, which is a phrase that one woman who was wearing the hijab used before the commission.

And even Gérard Bouchard, the famed sociologist, was asked, you know, what is this doing to Quebec's reputation? And he says it makes us look like a bunch of, you know, intolerant people. And this has left a legacy, a very painful legacy in the population, and it won't die very soon. You know, when we talked before, we discussed how the attempts by previous governments to legislate secularism resulted in court challenges, and that this government, the CAQ, has said that they're going to use a notwithstanding clause essentially to get over any court challenges and to get this bill through.

The notwithstanding clause will be in the bill because it's about the decision of the member of the National Assembly and not about the court. Has that intent been brought up in the hearings? It has. And I think this is one of the most interesting, or has led to some of the more interesting exchanges at the commission. Yesterday, a very well-known law professor came and said, you know, basically, it's almost certain that it will be challenged. It will be challenged on parts of the bill that can't be subtracted from the Charter of Rights. So basically what the Notwithstanding Clause does is it removes the possibility of the bill from being challenged in court on grounds that it violates religious freedom.

However, other parts of the Charter that cannot be covered by the notwithstanding clause, like gender equality, and so he was pointing out that if people challenge the law on the fact that it may violate gender equality, then there's nothing the notwithstanding clause can do to protect it from having judges determine what's the cost of stash now. So it sounds like this will go to court no matter what. I mean, at least in this law professor's opinion, he says it's all but guaranteed.

And one of the arguments that the government has put forward for using the notwithstanding clause at all, you know, it'll save us a bunch of time and money. And he says, no, it won't. I mean, you know, you can basically, you know, hire lawyers now. You guys are going to court over this. Okay. What purpose do you think these hearings have served this week?

I think from the government's perspective, they're using the hearings to try to build support for the bill. A more Machiavellian consideration is that all the groups who support the bill come and say the bill should go farther. And so this allows the government to say, well, see, the bill we have put forward is actually moderate. It's not going as far as all these other people want it to. And so ours is a moderate bill. We are able here in Quebec to debate, to make arguments, and to have not the same point of view as others. But the bill at that table is a moderate bill, a bill that would apply, and a bill that will end the discussion, about 10 years of discussion. I think if you're an opponent of the bill, the hearings are a chance to poke holes

in the sense that this needs to be done, this needs to be done now, this needs to be done quickly. They're trying to point out that this needs to be done now, this needs to be done quickly. They're trying to point out that there's a lack of evidence that there's a clear and present threat to Quebec society being posed by people who wear religious symbols. So what is the need for us to go around stripping people of their rights when we haven't taken that first more basic step of showing that there's a problem that needs to be addressed? John, thank you so much.

My pleasure, Jamie. So as I mentioned at the top of the show, we did an episode a few weeks back, essentially charting Quebec's attempts to legislate secularism over the years. And if you're looking for more context on that story, you can find that episode in our feed. That's it for today. From Burner comes to you from CBC News and CBC Podcasts. The show is produced by Matt Alma, Chris Berube, Imogen Burchard, Elaine Chao, and Shannon Higgins.

We had help this week from Rachel Levy-McLaughlin and Hannah Elberga. Derek Vanderwyk and Austin Pomeroy are our sound technicians. Our executive producer is Nick McCabe-Locos. Special thanks this week to Vivian Luck in Vancouver and Spencer Van Dyke in Montreal. And I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks for listening, and see you Monday.

For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts. It's 2011 and the Arab Spring is raging. A lesbian activist in Syria starts a blog. She names it Gay Girl in Damascus. Am I crazy? Maybe. As her profile grows, so does the danger. The object of the email was, please read this while sitting down. It's like a genie came out of the bottle and you can't put it back. Gay Girl Gone. Available now.