Canada’s largest Muslim organisation is outraged over a bill introduced by the Quebec government that would ban headscarves for school support staff and students.
“In Quebec, we made the decision that state and the religion are separate,” said Education Minister Bernard Drainville, CBC News reported. “And today, we say the public schools are separate from religion.”
But the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), who are challenging in the Supreme Court the original bill that forbids religious symbols being worn by teachers, say the new bill is another infringement on their rights and unfairly targets hijab-wearing Muslims.
“This renewed attack on the fundamental rights of our community is just one of several recent actions taken by this historically unpopular government to bolster their poll numbers by attacking the rights of Muslim Canadians,” the NCCM said in a social media post.
The Canadian charter of rights and freedoms guarantees freedom of religion. That means freedom to worship in private or public. Unless you’re planning on bending the constitution, you can’t remove public display of religion in Canada.
Forgive my ignorance, but can the charter of rights and freedoms be amended?
I am an anti-theist, and would love nothing more than to ban all public displays of all religions.
It can be amended of course, but you mentioned bending the laws to accomodate religion. I’m just setting that part straight. The laws (in Canada) aren’t bent to allow for religious freedom, they guarantee it.
It’s worth considering the material conditions upon which the Charter was created. Religion was prevalent and religious people wanted to be free from being persecuted for their religion. Today irreligious people in Canada are about a third. If we amended the Charter to curb public religious display, it would go against the majority of Canadians. That’s undemocratic, and unrepresentative of the reality of the country. If some gov did that, it would likely experience severe backlash and the changes would be reversed to more closely match the material conditions.
I’m also an anti-theist and would love religion to disappear, but I think that cannot occur through repression via law or other means. Rather people of religious cultures have to go through the material evolution secular societies have. The Eastern bloc did a lot of work to repress religion without addressing the material conditions giving its rise. Now irreligious people are still a minority in those countries.
I am anti-theist, and fuck no to banning public displays of anything. It’s in the name - public. Public space belongs to everyone. Freedom of expression should not be a privilege restricted to people who can afford to buy or rent a place to exercise it.
If you can prove harm, we can ban the harm. Any and all bans must be tightly focused on restricting only harm and to a greater degree than it inherently restricts freedom. Elsewise, we’re just oppressing dissent/diversity and essentially abandoning freedom itself as a core value. And the fact that we’re talking about dictating what people can do on or with their own bodies raises the stakes that much higher. Seriously, this is a dangerous path and the hazards far greater than any possible reward.
Tax religion. Remove their privilege. Do not create a new underclass.