THE DEBACLE OF BILL 62

It’s been obvious from the start that, in principle, Bill 62 is a bad law. Now, Quebecers are about to start finding out how bad it will be in practice. Best known as “the niqab law” for its prohibition on the giving and receiving of public services while wearing face-coverings, Bill 62’s ostensible goal is to foster state religious neutrality and to provide a framework for addressing requests for accommodations on religious grounds — for example, by teachers wishing to be absent for a religious holiday.

For now, at least, the bill’s inherently discriminatory face-covering provision will not go into effect, thanks to a ruling this week by Justice Marc-André Blanchard. He said that provision was unlikely to survive a constitutional challenge, and that there remained significant confusion and ambiguity about how the law would be applied. His ruling, however, does not prevent the accommodation guidelines Quebec published in May from coming into effect on July 1 as scheduled. Henceforth, people seeking religious accommodations from public institutions will have to make their case to an “accommodation officer” within each body. The guidelines that are to used by the officers, however, amount to judging each case on its merits. It’s hard to see how this improves on the status quo. At best, it will just add a layer of bureaucracy.

At worst, if certain officers interpret the guidelines in a restrictive way, it could result in fewer accommodations being granted.

The law’s evident purpose was to address the Quebec Liberals’ political vulnerability to those claiming they are lax on secularism. It was the party’s answer to the Charter of Values.

All too often, politics makes bad policy, and Bill 62 is a case in point. Its contortions are worthy of the Cirque du Soleil. Even when face coverings were forbidden, those wearing them for religious reasons were to be able to seek accommodations (so what was the point?), though how and whether they would receive them was less than clear. And then there was the National Assembly, in a chamber where a crucifix hangs prominently, passing a law purporting to advance state religious neutrality by constraining holders of a specific religious belief from going about their business.

So where does this leave us?

Among other things, it leaves us heading toward an election campaign in which the main opposition parties — not least the front-running Coalition Avenir Québec — would enact restrictions on the rights of certain adherents of minority faiths to practise their religions.

The Quebec Liberals’s Bill 62 is a debacle. Around the corner loom policies that would be even worse.