Many education and law students plan to make their lives beyond the reach of Quebec’s Secularism Act — starting with those wearing religious symbols, but not just them.
Nearly three years after the adoption of Bill 21, 73.9% of future, current or former education students who wear a religious symbol and 54% of future, current or former law students who wear a religious symbol are considering the idea of leaving Quebec, can we read in a research report signed by professors Elizabeth Elbourne (McGill University) and Kimberley Manning (Concordia University).
These have endeavored to measure the impact of Bill 21 on the life projects of students and graduates in education and law. To achieve this, they notably distributed a questionnaire on college and university campuses, which 629 people completed between October 13, 2020 and November 9, 2021. “The sample is relatively small and not necessarily representative of the whole law and education students from Quebec,” they point out.
The idea of turning our backs on Quebec also runs through the minds of many students and graduates who do not wear religious symbols. In fact, 46% of those surveyed say they are “very or quite likely to look for work outside of Quebec because of Bill 21”.
“It’s not just people who wear a religious symbol, but it’s their family members, it’s their friends, it’s their classmates who are rethinking their careers, wondering if they’re going to stay in Quebec, and this has an impact on their general impression of Quebec,” maintains Kimberley Manning.
Others, less numerous, would rather resign themselves to reviewing their career plans, believing – sometimes wrongly – not to be able to achieve their professional ambitions because of Law 21.
“Instead of going to law, I’m going to try to go into psychology. I wanted to be a law teacher at the university level, ”said a schoolgirl wearing the hijab.
“I was planning to finish my law studies or teach at university, but I changed my plans because I have no future in Quebec in these fields,” said a student enrolled in the Law and Society program at Concordia University. The woman, who also wears an Islamic veil covering her hair, ears and neck, says she cannot bring herself to ask her husband to give up his job and uproot their three children from Montreal, “a city we love. and in which we have lived most of our lives”.
Bill 21 prohibits certain employees of the Quebec state, including police officers, prosecutors, prison guards, teachers and principals of public primary or secondary schools from wearing a religious symbol in the exercise of their functions. Lawyers in private practice and CEGEP or university professors are not subject to the ban on wearing religious symbols.
Discrimination episodes
In addition, the researchers note a rise in Islamophobia and anti-Semitism since the adoption of the Law on State Secularism by the National Assembly in June 2019.
No less than 76.2% of women wearing the hijab or a headscarf interviewed as part of the research project reported having experienced discrimination. Elizabeth Elbourne says she was “surprised by experiences of discrimination — street harassment, etc. » recounted by the students in the course of his work.
I changed my plans because I have no future in Quebec in these areas
The authors are careful to point out “a strong possibility [de] selection bias in favor of those opposed to the Act” in the survey results, which would be caused by the “high response rate in the Montreal area, where religious minorities are more concentrated than anywhere else in Quebec, and people wearing visible religious symbols”.
That said, “the fact that few people responded to express strong support for the law is significant in itself,” they say.