Adopted by Quebec in 2019 and inspired by the French model, the law on secularism is once again controversial. Last December, Fatemeh Anvari, a teacher in an English-speaking establishment in Chelsea, a locality west of the Belle Province, was suspended by her hierarchy. Reason? The school teacher taught in a hijab. However, for nearly three years, this “external religious sign” has been prohibited for provincial officials in “position of authority” (police officers, judges, teachers, etc.).
Immediate excitement among the parents, who are mobilizing to say how much their toddlers appreciate their mistress. The press seized on the affair and, very quickly, all of Canada was in turmoil. From coast to coast, politicians, journalists and associations from the English-speaking provinces denounce the “racist and Islamophobic” Quebec law.
The clash between Francophones and Anglophones
The incident reveals the gaping chasm between two visions within the same country: one, that of the French-speakers, “advocates respect for secular principles, in particular the separation of the State and religions”; the other, that of the Anglophones, is “multiculturalist” and allows everyone to live according to the religious habits and customs of their community of origin.
From the outset, the new legislation aroused a chorus of protests. Thus, the National Council of Canadian Muslims, the World Organization of Sikhs in Canada or the Autonomous Federation of Education are undertaking a legal battle to block the text. But they lose the first round. Indeed, the Superior Court of Quebec recently validated it. An appeal is underway, however, as English schools are asking for an exemption.
The cultural war is also politico-media. In 2019, the Conservative Premier of Manitoba (1,500 kilometers from Quebec) published an advertisement in the press inviting public servants to come and settle in his province “which respects and values diversity”. Tempers flared to the point that a lawyer slipped by comparing the law “to those adopted by the Nazis against the Jews at Nuremberg”!
With the dismissal of the teacher from Chelsea in December, the controversy rebounds even more. The mayors of major Canadian cities – Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary – have announced that they want to release municipal funds (100,000 Canadian dollars each, or 70,000 euros) to finance legal action. With public funds, the Muslim Association of Canada is making a video for schools to denounce “the increased control and marginalization of Muslims”. A powerful trucking union joins the movement. Finally, some great Canadian “voices” are getting involved. On Twitter, the Canadian ambassador to the United Nations castigates a text which, according to him, is “contrary to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”. For his part, a former Minister of Justice judges that he “creates discrimination in hiring”.
An unprecedented degree of aggressiveness against a law
“This law is neither racist nor anti-Muslim; it is secular,” protests André Lamoureux, professor of political science at the University of Quebec in Montreal. According to him, this outcry is explained by the visceral opposition between the Belle Province and the rest of Canada on the place of religion. He insists: “The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, contained in the 1982 Constitution, establishes religious freedom as a fundamental principle, defends a communitarian vision of society and proclaims ‘the supremacy of God’. We Quebecers see the things differently. Under French influence, but also in view of our own history, we broke with the Catholic Church in the 1960s. And we lean towards a more republican model of state neutrality. in itself, he concludes, such a degree of aggressiveness, which goes so far as to raise funds against a law, is unheard of!
He sees in this “Quebec bashing”, “a new coup de force” of English-speaking Canadians determined to deny the Belle Province the right to exist as a nation – which is an old claim – or even as a “distinct society”. The battle rages on… and could continue in the Supreme Court.