SO MUCH FOR STATE NEUTRALITY

Here we go again. Five years after Jean Charest’s Liberal government tabled a bill that would have banned face coverings for anyone giving or receiving a provincial public service, and two years after the Parti Québécois’s odious values charter helped torpedo the party’s bid for re-election, we are again faced with an attempt to assert “state religious neutrality” by means of a measure whose effects will be anything but religiously neutral.

So there was a strange aura of déjà-vu on Wednesday as Justice Minister Stéphanie Vallée announced the tabling of Bill 62, the same day her government also trumpeted a host of other, much-needed measures designed to counter religious fundamentalism in Quebec — measures that risk being undermined by this so-called “Charter-lite.”

Bill 62 essentially resurrects the Liberal plan from five years ago, and provides some general guidelines on religious accommodations more broadly, fulfilling an election promise made by Premier Philippe Couillard.

A poll conducted following the introduction of the 2010 legislation revealed that 90 per cent of Quebecers were in favour of rules banning face coverings in government offices. It’s a remarkably easy position to support. There are the obvious issues linked to the proper identification of a person looking for a driver’s licence or health card. And when it comes to public-sector employees, there are also a host of other objections based on notions that the niqab and burka — and let’s be honest, the practices of a small minority of Muslim women are what we’re talk-

Bill 62 would allow a poorly defined collective right to supersede individual freedoms.

ing about here — are tools of female oppression, and that in a democratic society, government representatives should show their faces.

Broad consensus does not justify this legislation, however.

Bill 62, if it passes, would allow a poorly defined collective right (the right not to be offended? to see someone’s face?) to supersede individual freedoms. And even then, it leaves a lot of room for interpretation; while banning face coverings for public-sector workers, it leaves open the possibility that some women might be able to obtain an exemption that would allow them to wear face coverings for religious reasons, while suggesting exemptions could be refused “for security or identification reasons or because of the level of communication required.” Those considerations might sometimes be valid grounds for refusing exemptions, but why put this in the context of a law that would start by imposing a general ban?

And it’s hard to see what the point is here, given how few people actually wear face coverings.

As well, the timing seems particularly illadvised. Quebec is grappling with an increasing level of homegrown radicalization, with dozens of young people attempting to join jihadi groups overseas. Two young Quebecers have launched attacks on Canadian soil. The province’s newly announced plans to increase deradicalization efforts while beefing up enforcement and monitoring are sorely needed, but the simultaneous introduction of a law that targets Muslims only encourages that community’s isolation, plays into the hands of those who are peddling an us-vs.-them world view and threatens to undo everything the Liberals are hoping to achieve.

For all of these reasons, the province needs to re-evaluate its plans. Telling people what they can wear was wrong in 2010. It was wrong in 2013. And it’s wrong now. It seems the biggest threat to state neutrality on religious matters is the state itself.