Bill 21 was designed to provide a solution to a problem that does not exist.
It was not adopted out of necessity.
There are probably not, every year, waves of veiled women who wish to teach children in public schools in Quebec.
This does not mean that this law does not do damage and that it is not discriminatory.
The case of a third-year teacher in Chelsea (Outaouais), who was withdrawn from her class because she was wearing the veil, has just reminded us of this in the most brutal way.
Fatemeh Anvari has been assigned other duties and ironically she will now be dealing with literacy and inclusion issues.
It is not clear why she was hired with her veil, but it is certain that she could not remain in her position. The responsibility of the school board was to enforce the law – which prohibits the wearing of religious symbols – as stressed by its president.
That said, this blunder is not unnecessary, since it allows us to put a face on Bill 21.
This teacher was appreciated by her students and parents, as evidenced by the wave of support for her. Many green ribbons were tied on the fence of the school, in solidarity with it, and various media have reported unambiguous testimonies to this effect.
The school therefore probably deprives itself of a good teacher.
And a Muslim woman for her part is deprived of the possibility of a career in this profession as long as she does not remove her veil at work.
It could have been otherwise.
It should be remembered that the Caquista government deliberately chose to add teachers to the list of state employees who are prohibited from wearing any religious symbol in the performance of their duties.
It thus went beyond the recommendations of the Bouchard-Taylor commission (for whom this ban was desirable only for government employees who exercise coercive functions such as police officers, correctional services officers and judges).
Despite all the inconsistencies that implied.
Such as the fact that, despite everything, other members of public school staff, including daycare educators, were excluded from the application of the law. As, moreover, the teachers of the subsidized private schools.
This double standard approach does not make logical sense, but it certainly avoids many disturbing controversies. As is the grandfather clause (commonly known as the “grandfather clause”), which applies to all employees who already wore a religious symbol when the law was adopted.
It is therefore important to take advantage of the current controversy to reflect more on the scope and impact of Bill 21 other than by theorizing them.
It is not a question of brushing aside the arguments of those who, for example, fought fiercely to get the Catholic religion out of schools, and for whom the de-confessionalization of the education system is fundamental.
On the other hand, it is important to realize that the Law on the secularism of the State comes at a cost to certain individuals, mostly women, who are usually not seen or heard.
We are rightly offended by the inflammatory statements made by the rest of Canada, which allows itself to make an amalgamation between Bill 21 and the so-called “racism problems” in Quebec. Do you remember the atrocious question asked of Yves-François Blanchet during the electoral debate in English last September?
But we can just as easily be offended by the fate that Bill 21 reserves for those who see their rights violated when they are simply seeking to integrate into Quebec society by swelling the ranks of the teaching profession.
“Me, I live well with the choice we made, as France has done and as other countries have done. It is the choice of secularism, ”François Legault said Monday.
The fact remains that in Quebec, we could have chosen secularism without penalizing veiled Muslim women who wish to teach.