Pressure is mounting on the Liberal government to challenge Quebec’s Bill 21 after a teacher wearing a hijab was removed from her classroom earlier this month.
Fatemeh Anvari, who taught in a Chelsea elementary school, part of the Western Québec School Board, was removed from her teaching position for wearing a hijab in the classroom and reassigned to administrative duties within the board.
In the House of Commons on Dec. 15, Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet asked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau if he was planning to fund challenges to Bill 21.
“Would the Prime Minister have the courage of confronting Bill 21, after shying away from it in the federal election, and of saying that he will not have the courage to confront Bill 21 in the Quebec election?” Blanchet said during question period.
“Does he have the courage to admit that it is because he is afraid of Quebec public opinion, which is largely in favour of Quebec secularism?”
Trudeau said in his reply that “whatever religion someone practises in their personal life should not prevent them from practising a profession or having an important role in our society.”
“As I have often said, I strongly disagree with Bill 21. I do not believe that in a free society someone should lose their job because of their religion. That is the position of our government and our party,” he said.
“We will continue to be on the side of Quebeckers who are shocked and disappointed that Fatemeh Anvari lost her job because of her religion, and we support and will follow Quebeckers who defend their rights before the courts because they believe this bill is unfair.”
Adopted in 2019, Bill 21 prohibits the display of religious symbols for public servants in positions of authority. school board told CBC it opposes the bill and wasn’t aware Anvari wore the hijab when she was hired.
A Léger poll from September suggested 64 percent of Quebecers agree with the secularism law.
While many Liberal MPs publicly oppose the bill, some have requested it be challenged in court by the federal government.
“[Bill 21] cannot be allowed to stand unchallenged,” Salma Zahid, Liberal MP for Scarborough Centre, said in a Dec. 13 statement.
“It is time for the Government of Canada to join the legal challenge filed by the National Council of Canadian Muslims and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. It is time for the government to intervene.”
Liberal MP for Kanata-Carleton, Jenna Sudds, also condemned the bill, saying the government “cannot rule out” federal intervention.
“We cannot in good conscience stand idly by and allow this Bill to go unchallenged, for what we permit, we promote,” she said in a statement Dec. 10.
“While provincial jurisdiction must be acknowledged, we cannot rule out the necessity of federal intervention when the fundamental rights of Canadians are challenged.”
Conservative Party Leader Erin O’Toole has said he disagrees with Bill 21 but respects provincial autonomy. However, some members of the Conservative caucus have been more vocal on the issue.
“We can’t let laws like that go unchallenged,” Tory MP Marl Strahl told reporters before heading into the Tories’ national caucus meeting on Dec. 15, where he said the issue would be raised.
“It’s a position that’s shared by many, many of my colleagues.”
Conservative Sen. Salma Ataullahjan did not call directly for the government to challenge the secularism law in court, but she said in a Dec. 15 statement that the bill is “discriminatory and racist.”
“This Bill was originally meant to only affect police officers, correctional services officers, and judges. It was then extended to teachers. Who will be next?” she wrote.
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, who previously said he would not interfere on the issue, said this week he would support a court challenge by the federal government.
While Ottawa is reluctant to support a legal challenge, some municipal politicians have decided to go forward. Municipalities such as Calgary, Toronto, and others are looking at passing motions to contribute to legal fees to support a court challenge, while many more have spoken out against the bill.
In Quebec, supporters of Bill 21 are not backing down, framing the opposition as a plot against the Québécois nation.
“Justin Trudeau certainly wants to preserve his image by making believe that the challenge of Bill 21 does not fall under federal interference. It is a big joke, because the entire Canadian regime is mobilizing to dismantle this law, to put an end to it,” wrote Mathieu Bock-Côté, a pro-independence intellectual, in the province’s largest daily newspaper Journal de Montréal.
Bock-Côté said Bill 21 “carries another vision of the collective, based no longer on multiculturalism but on the nation,” and it “makes the people of Quebec, and not the Canadian Charter of Rights, the principle of reference for establishing political legitimacy.”
Canadian Press contributed to this report.
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