QUEBEC, CANADA - The Association for Canadian Studies (ACS) has recently released a research report exploring the impact of Quebec’s Law 21 on several religious minorities across the province.
In June 2019, the Quebec government passed Law 21 to prohibit government employees in positions of authority, including police officers, prison guards, lawyers, judges, and classroom teachers, from wearing visible religious symbols while at work.
The results were based on a series of survey conducted among 1,828 Quebecers, including 632 Muslims, 165 Jews and 56 Sikhs, between April and June. The report was authored by Miriam Taylor, ACS publications and partnerships director.
The report revealed that “neutrality” is one of the most central values associated with Law 21. While Law 21 claims to place all religions on the same footing, the report showed that Quebecers have relatively little contact with members of non-Christian religious groups and their perceptions of these religions, their followers, and respective symbols rise in increasing order of negativity from Christianity to Judaism to Sikhism to Islam.
“Negative opinions of the turban (52.1 percent), Islam (54.1 percent), and the hijab (57 percent) reach above the 50 percent mark,” Taylor wrote. “This hierarchy of negativity is amplified among strong supporters of Law 21, increasing more than 20 percent in the case of the turban (75.7 percent), Islam (75 percent), and the hijab (78.1 percent).”
Moreover, the report showed that the prevalent negativity toward non-Christian religious symbols that drives support for Law 21 is directly reflected in experiences and testimonies of religious community members whose practices the Law 21 restricts. While Law 21 has been publicized as a legislation that protects gender equality, the report showed that Quebec women are “less supportive” of Law 21 than are men.
In addition, they are more “cognizant” of Law 21’s potential to discriminate against other women. “This evidence of sisterly solidarity is noteworthy in the context of survey findings that identify Muslim women as among the groups most severely impacted by stigmatization (53 percent), injustice (47.2 percent), and marginalization (decline of 78.4 percent),” Taylor wrote.
“In addition, women in all three religious minority communities reported more important declines in their levels of safety and freedom of expression than their male counterparts.”
