‘SECULARISM’ ISN’T RELIGIOUS NEUTRALITY

Marvin Rotrand opened a Pandora’s Box last week with his perfectly reasonable proposal that Montreal’s police force allow officers to wear religious headgear. No sooner had his suggestion been greeted warmly by Mayor Valérie Plante, than it was pounced upon by provincial opposition politicians.

Sadly, another round of reactionary identity politics, wrapped in the dubious cloak of secularism, is once again upon us.

Several other Canadian cities integrate religious headgear into police uniforms; and Sikh members of the RCMP have been allowed to wear a uniform-issue turban since 1990.

Allowing the variation on the Mounties’ iconic uniform was not without controversy, but tolerance and respect for religious freedom prevailed.

No would-be Montreal police officer is asking to wear religious headgear. However, that does not make the question hypothetical, as the lack of accommodation would serve to discourage applicants.

In any case, the discussion is already a broader one, and is hardly moot.

The Coalition Avenir Québec, currently the favourite to be voted into power in October, would ban religious headgear not only for police, but others deemed to be in positions of authority ( judges, prison guards, teachers, daycare workers).

Not to be outdone, Jean-François Lisée, who leveraged identity politics on his way to the Parti Québécois leadership in 2016, jumped in Monday with a blog post saying a PQ government would quickly bring in a similar ban, the only apparent difference being that existing teachers and daycare workers would be grandfathered.

The PQ, he said, would also enact measures to help with the integration of minorities into the workforce. But banning religious headgear promotes assimilation, and discourages integration.

Beyond the important need to diversify our police forces — and it should be acknowledged that the SPVM has made major strides — there are other fundamental issues at stake, ones that touch upon the very nature of our society.

Last week, Québec solidaire MNA Amir Khadir called for the adoption of the 2008 Bouchard-Taylor recommendation on the subject as an “honourable compromise,” and it seems many Quebecers agree. That recommendation, since disowned by report co-author Charles Taylor, would have prohibited the wearing of religious headgear by public servants wielding coercive state authority (police, judges, prison guards), but not by others.

However, there is nothing honourable about discrimination and exclusion, nor should fundamental human rights be matters for compromise or majority vote.

For those who wear turbans or hijabs or kippahs, doing so is an integral part of their religious practice that has no real counterpart in Christianity, where the wearing of a crucifix or cross might be a religious statement, but is not religiously mandated.

Barring religious headgear is an encroachment on freedom of religion, violating the Charter of Rights. Society has no countervailing right to enforce secular appearance in the name of religious neutrality; and a society that tolerates rules that exclude people on the basis of religious practice is anything but religiously neutral. (Nor is one that features a religious symbol prominently in its legislature ...)

Regrettably, though, calls to make “them” conform to “our” norms resonate among many people, particularly outside Montreal, where fears run deep that the cosmopolitan metropolis is the thin edge of a wedge that somehow threatens Quebec’s majority language, values and identity.

Quebec’s majority is doing just fine. Members of religious minorities have considerably more reason for concern.