Canada: Quebec govt to ban turbans, niqabs from elementary schools

The new government in the Canadian province of Quebec will prohibit all religious coverings, including turbans and niqabs, from elementary schools, in a move that adds restrictions to those already in existence. The impact will mostly be on young Sikh, Muslim and Jewish children.Quebec Premier Paul St-Pierre Plamondon. (Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian P)The separatist Parti Québécois came into power in the provincial election held in October and the ban on school children wearing overt religious attire was part of its platform.“We were elected on this base, and it’s on this base that we are going to work,” the province’s education minister Joël Arseneau said, according to the outlet Montreal Gazette.In September, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, now the province’s Premier, said, “It’s accepted that when you send your child to school, there are rules. The vast majority of people will understand that a religious symbol can be removed.”It builds on further restrictions enacted in April this under the previous Coalition Avenir Québecor (CAQ) government. That banned religious practice in public universities, private institutions subsidised by the government, even child car centres, the Gazette reported at the time. It also prohibits collective religious practices on roads or in parks.The process of barring religious attire in public spaces began in 2019 under the CAQ government. The so-called secularism law prohibited certain categories of public servants from displaying a visible symbol of faith like the Sikh turban or a Muslim woman’s hijab.Public servants in positions of authority covered by that law includes school teachers, principals and vice-principals, police officers, judges and other law officers. That law has been challenged before Canada’s Supreme Court.In a statement, Anaïs Bussières McNicoll, Quebec spokesperson and Director of Fundamental Freedoms at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA), said Quebec had “progressively expanded restrictions on religious expression” after it “first banned certain public sector employees” then extended it to “staff at public schools, publicly funded private schools, and public or publicly funded daycare centres.”“Once again, we’re faced with a solution in search of a problem. And this time, the Quebec government is targeting children, sending a message of exclusion and rejection of difference to every elementary school student,” McNicoll said.