this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2025
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Canadian Muslims outraged as Quebec moves to ban religious symbols at schools, including hijab (ciiradio.com)
submitted 19 hours ago by IndustryStandard@lemmy.world to c/canada@lemmy.ca
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Canada’s largest Muslim organisation is outraged over a bill introduced by the Quebec government that would ban headscarves for school support staff and students.

“In Quebec, we made the decision that state and the religion are separate,” said Education Minister Bernard Drainville, CBC News reported. “And today, we say the public schools are separate from religion.”

But the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), who are challenging in the Supreme Court the original bill that forbids religious symbols being worn by teachers, say the new bill is another infringement on their rights and unfairly targets hijab-wearing Muslims.

“This renewed attack on the fundamental rights of our community is just one of several recent actions taken by this historically unpopular government to bolster their poll numbers by attacking the rights of Muslim Canadians,” the NCCM said in a social media post.

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[–] gonzo-rand19@moist.catsweat.com 6 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

I'm happy that Quebec has finally decided to include Christian symbols in these laws (they started targeting Muslim women around 2012/2013 but didn't end up passing any laws banning religious symbols until Bill 62 in 2017), but I don't believe that they will be enforced equally. Also, a cross is easily hidden whereas a head or face covering is not.

[–] HonoredMule@lemmy.ca 2 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Surely any hidden symbol is that much harder to justify banning in the first place. It's pretty hard to attribute to that a negative effect on others who can't even see it.

[–] gonzo-rand19@moist.catsweat.com 2 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Surely a government that wants to respect human rights including its own charter of human rights and freedoms would not try to justify the banning of certain types of apparel at all. It's pretty hard to attribute to that a negative effect on others who can see it.

[–] HonoredMule@lemmy.ca 1 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

I pretty much agree, but at least in the visible case I can construct scenarios where some marginal harm is possible. For example, displays that suggest biases so strong they cannot even be temporarily set aside while exercising authority would undermine the integrity of institutions granting that authority.

[–] gonzo-rand19@moist.catsweat.com 1 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

If a person who is wearing a hijab is not breaking any other laws, I don't believe that it's right to ban wearing a hijab. To construct a situation that makes this okay with nothing to suggest that there is actually a real threat here is really strange.

If you want to ban terrorism or defiance of authority from Muslims, those things are already illegal.

[–] HonoredMule@lemmy.ca 2 points 15 hours ago

I'm not in Quebec and I don't know what effects religious symbols are actually having. Someone who claimed to be from Quebec described a couple examples to me that sounded pretty reasonable - things like someone from one religion being condemned and sentenced/fined by a judge wearing overt symbols of an opposing religion. Until I have concrete data either validating or discrediting the impact or actual occurrence of such scenarios, I'm inclined to at least consider them.

All examples were closely tied to religious influence on top of a substantial power imbalance and wouldn't really translate beyond that situation. I don't see it as being particularly different from trying to dictate who someone can date or engage in sexual activity. That's insane out of context - then add the context of a pre-existing boss-employee relationship.