Not up to feds to challenge veil-ban law in Quebec: PM

ROBERVAL, Que. — 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?”he continued.

“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.