NOT TO PROMOTE ONE RELIGION MORE THAN ANOTHER.

politician would feel at ease attacking a fellow politician of the left over his religion reveals how poisoned Quebec’s debate over secularism has become.

From the controversy over reasonable accommodation a decade ago through the 2013 Parti Québécois “charter of values,” to the government bill before the legislature that would prohibit women wearing burkas or niqabs from receiving public services, Quebec politicians have repeatedly singled out minority religions under the guise of promoting religious neutrality.

Ouellet said her opposition to a politician openly displaying his faith is in line with Quebec opinion about the separation of church and state.

“That’s what liberty is about, the liberty to be able to choose our own religion and not to promote one religion more than another,” she said in a Huffington Post video. “That’s how most of the people in Quebec think.”

She said by wearing a turban, Singh has signalled that his “primary values” are religious. Canadian multiculturalists might accept that, she said, but in Quebec, such religious displays should be limited to “the private sphere.” It is an argument frequently heard in Quebec.

It was a Sikh boy who inadvertently helped launch the reasonable accommodation debate when his attempt to wear to school a kirpan, a small ceremonial Sikh dagger, went to the Supreme Court of Canada. The court ruled in 2006 that the school board violated Gurbaj Singh Multani’s religious freedom, and he won the right to wear the kirpan provided it was concealed