Politicians unite against niqab ban

Liberal, NDP, PC leaders in Ontario express outrage at Quebec’s new legislation

In a rare show of unity, all three major Ontario political parties have denounced Quebec’s controversial new law, which targets Muslim women.

One day after Quebec’s Liberal government passed a law prohibiting anyone from getting or performing a public service with their face covered, MPPs at Queen’s Park expressed their collective outrage.

“We have a very close working relationship with Quebec. But on this issue, we fundamentally do not agree,” Premier Kathleen Wynne said Thursday.

“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,” Wynne told the hushed chamber.

“Sometimes life in a diverse society is uncomfortable and that is exactly when it is even more important that we work to understand each other. Religious freedom is part of our identity,” she said.

Although Wynne is close to Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard, she said his province’s Bill 62 “would disproportionately affect women, who are sometimes already at the margins, and push them into further isolation.”

Progressive Conservative MPP Lisa MacLeod (Nepean-Carleton) said her party stands shoulder to shoulder with Ontario’s governing Liberals on this issue.

“The law brought in by the Liberal government in Quebec has no place in Ontario — indeed, it has no place in Canada,” MacLeod said.

“All Canadians have a legal right to their religious beliefs, including in the province of Quebec,” she said.

MacLeod emphasized that “there is no place for two-tiered citizenship in Canada.” NDP MPP Peggy Sattler (London West) called the Quebec law “an unprecedented action in Canada.”

“There is no circumstance in Ontario in which anyone should ever be able to tell a woman what she can or cannot wear, whether high heels at work or a veil on a bus,” she said.

“Despite the guise of religious neutrality, Quebec’s legislation appears to be targeted primarily at Muslim women wearing the niqab or burka. This is a dangerous law that compromises rather than protects public safety.”

Officially, Bill 62 is the Quebec Liberals’ bid to underscore that the province is a secular place that does not promote any religion. That ignores the fact that there is a Catholic cross in the National Assembly chamber where the law was passed.