Bill 21 absolutely will not put the debate to bed. But if there is hope of stopping this bastardized secularism, it’s with Quebec’s impudent youth
Well, here it is then. Here’s the grand compromise that Quebec Premier François Legault hopes will put to bed the province’s decade-plus debate over what religious people should be allowed to wear, and in what circumstances.
On Thursday, in no uncertain terms, the English Montreal School Board announced it would not enforce the law. That’s going to arouse blind fury on talk radio and in the Journal de Montréal, both of which were key drivers in this “secularist” movement — this supposedly natural by-product of the Quiet Revolution that mysteriously only gathered steam amidst a dizzying hysteria over halal daycare menus and other trivialities.
Here we have the state explicitly declaring itself biased against religions that entail the wearing of symbols, while not concerning itself whatsoever with very religious civil servants who don’t wear such symbols, thus obviously damaging both the equality of all citizens and their freedom of conscience. Why, otherwise, would the legislation need to invoke the Notwithstanding clause?
Ah, well. Instead, Legault’s compromise doesn’t even have the courage to stand behind its implications. Hijab-wearing teachers, perhaps the single biggest group of people affected by this law, will be allowed to carry on as normal under the principle of “acquired rights.” No one will be fired; new teachers just won’t be hired, and for an obvious reason: polls have always shown that Quebecers lose their stomach for these things when they affect real live human beings.
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