Feds won’t challenge Quebec’s veil ban

DENOUNCED BY ONT.

• It’s not Ottawa’s role to challenge a new Quebec law that forbids people from receiving government services with their faces covered, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday during a visit to the province.

Trudeau added, however, that he believes the Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies to everyone and he will defend that principle.

“It’s not up to the federal government to challenge this,” he said about Bill 62, which is seen by many as targeting Muslim women who wear the niqab or the burka.

But the prime minister said, “We will certainly be looking at how this will unfold with full respect for the national assembly that has the right to pass its own laws.”

Quebec sparked heated criticism across the country Wednesday after it passed the law, which prevents people from receiving or giving a service from a public institution with their face covered.

Muslim organizations, civil rights groups and the province of Ontario have come out strongly against the legislation.

Trudeau, who was campaigning in Roberval ahead of a federal byelection on Monday, would not say if he thought Bill 62 was unconstitutional, and added there will be a lot of reflection on the new law.

“In Quebec and Canada we are not necessarily used to seeing a woman with a veil,” Trudeau told reporters. “That makes us uncomfortable. We wonder why she is doing that, is she required to do that?

“But if you want to prevent women from being forced to wear a veil, maybe you don’t want to be a society that forces women not to wear a veil.”

In Ontario on Thursday, politicians took the unusual step of using time in the legislature to unanimously condemn the Quebec law.

Premier Kathleen Wynne said Ontario and Quebec have a very close working relationship, but on this issue they fundamentally disagree.

“Religious freedom is part of our identity,” she said. “Forcing people to show their faces when they ride the bus, banning women from wearing a niqab when they pick up a book from the library, will only divide us.”

The legislation will disproportionately affect women, including those who are sometimes already at the margins, and push them into further isolation, Wynne said.

“We have and will continue to grapple with the tough questions that come with diversity,” she said. “It’s not always easy, but that’s what makes it important. If we believe that difference is actually our strength, then we do the work to understand each other and not just tolerate each other but love each other because of our differences.”

Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard has defended the law by saying it is necessary for reasons related to communication, identification and security.

“The principle to which I think a vast majority of Canadians, by the way, not only Quebecers, would agree upon is that public services should be given and received with an open face,” he said.

“I speak to you, you speak to me. I see your face. You see mine. As simple as that.”

Ontario NDP women’s issues critic Peggy Sattler disputed those justifications.

“Despite the guise of religious neutrality, Quebec’s legislation appears to be targeted primarily to Muslim women wearing the niqab or burka,” she said. “This bill has nothing to do with secularism or public safety, which is why it is overwhelmingly not supported by municipalities in Quebec and likely unenforceable.”

Progressive Conservative Lisa MacLeod called on the Ontario Liberal government to participate as interveners in any charter challenge to the legislation.

“The expression of freedom is never strengthened when we try to limit it in others,” she said. “All Canadians have a legal right to their religious beliefs, including in the province of Quebec.”

Quebec Justice Minister Stephanie Vallee, who tabled the bill, said guidelines on how the law would be enforced would be phased in by next June 30, after consultations.

THIS BILL HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SECULARISM OR PUBLIC SAFETY.