As a Muslim parent, Ola Shaheen thinks her children no longer belong in Quebec.
Shaheen’s family moved to Quebec from France 17 years ago. Back then, she thought the province was a place of “dignity and belonging.”
“We believed this was a place where we could raise our family without fear. Where our faith, our skin color or our ethnicity would not define our safety,” said Shaheen, the marketing director of Canadian Youth Development Center, an organization that works with Muslim youth.
But the Quebec government’s hostility toward religion and its proposed law to further restrict who can wear religious symbols has shattered her beliefs about Quebec.
“As a Muslim parent, I no longer see a clear future for my children in this province,” she said.
“Doors that once felt open now feel widely closed, and our place in Quebec as Muslims is being increasingly questioned.”
‘Internal severance’
Shaheen was one of several speakers at a recent event hosted by the Canadian Interfaith Conversation, an organization that promotes interfaith dialogue and co-operation between different religions.
The online event, on Feb. 12, featured speakers from various religions and Indigenous groups. All were united in their concerns about a proposed law that would strengthen secularism in Quebec.
The Quebec government introduced Bill 9 in November. It is now being studied by a legislative committee.
The bill would ban daycare workers from wearing religious symbols and would prohibit public institutions from offering menus based on religious principles — such as halal or kosher menus at daycares, schools or hospitals.
The bill would also ban prayer and organized religious events in public spaces, unless those events are approved by municipal governments.
The bill makes changes to Quebec’s Act respecting the laicity of the State. That bill, commonly known as Bill 21, took effect in 2019. It prohibits government employees, such as teachers, from wearing religious symbols while working.
The Supreme Court of Canada is set to hear a constitutional challenge of that law next month.
Speakers at the Canadian Interfaith Conversation event questioned the idea that a person’s religious beliefs can be separated from the rest of their life.
“It’s not something that [you] can just hang on a coat rack,” said Angad Singh, president of the Concordia Sikh Students Association at Concordia University in Montreal.
“It’s not something I can just take off. It’s the fabric of my very being. [Bill 9 is] asking to split these parts of myself, is asking me to fragment my identity at the very core. It’s asking for internal severance.”
Rabbi Reuben Poupko, who has been a rabbi in Montreal for nearly 40 years, says the Quebec government does not understand the separation of religion and state.
“In the rest of North America, separation of church and state means that government will not tamper with religion … and it will not be subject to governmental intrusion,” said Poupko, who was born in the U.S.
“In Quebec … separation of church and state means something radically different,” he said.
“[It] means religion will not tamper with government or try to assert undue control or influence in society. It’s protecting government from religion, not protecting religion from government.”
Social cohesion
Many speakers voiced concern with how the proposed law treats public prayer.
The bill proposes to remove spaces for prayer in universities. It would also prohibit prayer in public spaces unless approved by a municipal government.
A municipality would only be permitted to approve events that are safe, short, accessible to everyone, and that do not make it difficult for others to access public spaces.
These requirements assume prayer is inherently dangerous, said Greg Newing, who was representing the Baháʼí faith.
“Bill 9 does not contemplate that prayer can promote collective wellbeing and values integral to social cohesion and belonging,” he said. In his experience, he has often seen public prayer build unity and promote peace.
Even though the bill says its goal is promoting secularism, it could actually force governments to consider religion more regularly than they do now by having municipal governments decide what public prayers to allow.
“[This will] bring questions about religion closer, not farther from secular decision-making bodies,” said Newing.
‘Capacity for love’
Some speakers said the provincial government is not completely at fault for having negative views of religion.
Simon Labrecque, from the Quebec Assembly of Catholic Bishops, admitted that many Catholics “are fearful of people from other religions.” They do not understand what it is like to belong to a religion that requires someone to wear specific clothing or head coverings, he said.
And interfaith co-operation has been much harder since Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Labrecque said.
There have been public religious events that have blocked traffic or religious leaders who have said hateful things about people of other faiths, Rabbi Poupko said. Bill 9 is the government’s attempt to respond to what can be legitimate concerns.
“The government needs help and we need to help them,” he said. Religious leaders need to denounce religious behaviour that is hateful or harmful, he said. He referenced reports of imams making public statements about killing Jews.
In some cases, those statements have been denounced by both Jewish and Muslim organizations. But Poupko says more religious leaders need to speak out when people of their own faith make hateful statements.
“Nobody wants to hear a Muslim denouncing Jewish behaviour, or a Jew denouncing Catholic behaviour,” he said. “We have to clean up our own house. We have to have the courage to be critical of our own people when the line is crossed.”
The best way to change a secular public’s attitudes about religion is for religious people to love well, said Poupko.
“That capacity for love is what is most godly about any one of us,” he said. “That’s the language we need to speak.”
