By Ruby Pratka

Local Journalism Initiative

Quebec’s controversial state secularism legislation, known as Bill 21, which forbids authority figures including police officers and public school teachers from wearing religious symbols while on the job, has been upheld by the province’s Court of Appeals, much to the dismay of many in the English-speaking community. The appeals court panel, made up of Judges Manon Savard, Yves-Marie Morrissette and Marie-France Bich, handed down their judgment on Feb. 29.

The judges found that the law was “valid with regard to the power-sharing principles set out in the Constitution Act, 1867, and did not contradict the law, nor any pre-Confederation principle having constitutional value.” They also found that the law did not infringe on the principle of equality of the sexes or the “educational rights” of the English-speaking community of Quebec, and its uses of the notwithstanding clause were not unconstitutional. They specified that the law banned visible religious symbols in public daycare centres and primary and secondary schools, but did not affect private schools, CEGEPs or universities, and did not prevent anyone from wearing a hijab, kippa, turban, cross or similar symbol outside of a professional context.

The panel overturned a previous Superior Court ruling which found that the law infringed on the constitutional right of the English-speaking community to govern its own schools.

Premier François Legault said the ruling represented “a great victory for the Quebec nation.”

“In 2019 we made the decision to forbid people in authority from wearing religious symbols [while exercising their functions] … as a guarantee that these people are neutral,” he said in a brief French-language video message posted on Facebook. “This is a principle that unites us. We’ll continue to use the parliamentary sovereignty [notwithstanding] clause as long as it takes for Canada to recognize the choices of the [Quebec] nation. I will always fight for our nation to make its own choices,” he said.

The English Montreal School Board was one of the organizations that contested the law in court, supported by the eight other English school boards in the province, including the Eastern Townships School Board (ETSB), and the Quebec English School Boards Association (QESBA).

QESBA vice president Paolo Galati said he was surprised by the judgment. “The part where the judges say they feel the law does not infringe on our right to manage and control our schools – that’s where we don’t see eye to eye,” he said. “Also, we have an important teacher shortage in Quebec, and to oppose restrictions on who we can hire is counterproductive.”

ETSB board chair Michael Murray took exception to the Legault government’s broad interpretation of parliamentary sovereignty, which the ruling upheld. “They [the government] have argued that the legislature has the final say – there are no rights; there are only permissions which the legislature can modify or revoke at any time.” He added that as far as he knows, the board has never received a complaint from a parent uncomfortable with a teacher wearing a hijab, cross or kippa.

“We maintain that the bill infringes on our right to manage and control our own schools,” Galati said, adding that the QESBA board of directors would meet to discuss further steps, which may include an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. Federal justice minister Arif Virani has indicated that the federal government will support any appeal.

The Quebec Community Groups Network said it was “profoundly disappointed” with the ruling. “We believe [English] schools should have the latitude to manage their own affairs, as is the case with minority-language schools in other provinces,” QCGN president Sylvia Martin-Laforge said.

“Every time this government doesn’t know what it’s doing, they invoke the notwithstanding clause,” she added. “It is a sad statement about the climate we live in that the government feels the only way it can engineer society the way it wants is to deprive minorities of their rights. [Professionals] who want to wear the kippa or the hijab will want to go somewhere else, for sure.”