More groups join fight against Quebec’s controversial secularism law

The CEO of the National Council of Canadian Muslims says Quebec’s secularism law is cruel and dehumanizing.

“As a sixth-generation Afro-Canadian, I only need to go back one generation to find a time when people that looked like me were barred from educational professions,” Stephen Brown says.

Brown argues that’s what’s happening to some religious minorities in Quebec because of Bill 21. His group and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) are going to Canada’s Supreme Court.

“Contrary to what the government of Quebec pretends, Bill 21 has weakened Quebec society by exacerbating social tensions,” Brown told reporters outside the court in Ottawa.

2:04 English Montreal School Board to ask Supreme Court of Canada to hear Bill 21 challenge

The groups claim that the law, which bars many public sector workers, like teachers, from wearing religious attire at work, has caused people to lose jobs.

“What is at stake is whether rights and freedoms we have in Canada can be so easily taken away without any judicial oversight,” Harini Sivalingam of the CCLA says.

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They’re following the FAE teachers’ union as well as the English Montreal School Board, which are also going to the Supreme Court. Quebec’s Court of Appeal upheld the law earlier this year.

“The decision of the Court of Appeal was very disappointing and there are several issues that really deserve to be heard again,” says civil rights lawyer Julius Grey, who represented some of the intervenors in the case at the Court of Appeal.

1:59 Bill 21 court decision will further discrimination, say Quebec minority groups

Grey says those issues concern language, the equality of men and women and the notwithstanding clause. Quebec has invoked the Canadian Charter’s notwithstanding clause to protect Bill 21 from court challenges. He believes it’s time to limit any government’s use of the clause, and that’s why so many groups are appealing to the Supreme Court.

“Because people are so disappointed and so worried about a charterless society,” Grey says.

Quebec French Language Minister Jean-François Roberge denies that Bill 21 has caused anyone to lose jobs.

“Our laïcité law is a legitimate law, is a moderate law,” he insists. “We have a large, a huge consensus here in Quebec.”

The federal government has said it will get involved if the case goes to the country’s highest court.

“We have a responsibility to plead at the Supreme Court for the interest of Canadians and to protect the Charter,” the country’s immigration minister, Marc Miller, told reporters in Ottawa. “It’s as clear as that.”

The groups now wait to see if the Supreme Court will agree to hear their arguments.