They call themselves liberals, but they have an elastic idea of liberalism when it comes to freedom of religion, as if freedom of conscience, the matrix of all freedoms, were exercised differently depending on its fields of application: freedom of expression, assembly, demonstration, among others, are subject to regulations established by law. Freedom of religion, for its part, enjoys, in Canada, a country of institutional multiculturalism, a privilege such that any attempt to limit the freedom of expression (wearing of religious symbols) of religion is automatically taxed. Islamophobia or systemic racism (favorite term for those who oppose Quebec’s Bill 21, which prohibits the wearing of religious symbols to four categories of public and parapublic agents).
However, Bill 21 deserves neither so much honor nor so much indignity: it is open to criticism like any other law, some finding it insufficiently restrictive, others finding it inquisitorial and finicky. It is excessive to affirm that a law limiting the wearing of religious symbols in the state space with which all users of any belief should nevertheless identify is contrary to individual freedoms.
Finally, the ethnocultural approach which classifies people according to ethnic and religious criteria and which is the hallmark of multiculturalism alters the freedoms of individuals since it locks them into their respective ethnocultures and creates differences in rights and duties according to pressure exerted by one or the other. In this regard, let’s see what great liberal thinkers think and say on these subjects.
John Locke to the rescue of Bill 21
The father of political liberalism, John Locke (1632-1704), wrote in the Treatise on Tolerance (1686), that the prohibition of the wearing of religious clothing as a distinctive feature of the rest of society is perfectly compatible with the enjoyment of freedoms. Not that “the wearing of a cope or a surplice is likely to endanger or threaten the peace of the State”, but account must be taken of an essential factor specific to the preservation of “the unity civil”.
Forgive me for quoting John Locke at length, but his thought, so rich in nuances, demands it: “So that if we exercise a constraint on them, it is not because they have such and such an opinion on the way in which divine worship should be practiced, but because it is dangerous for a large number of men to manifest their singularity in this way […] The same would apply to any mode of dress by which one would attempt to distinguish oneself from the government. […] ; when it spreads and becomes a rallying sign for a large number of people who thereby establish close relations of correspondence and friendship with each other, could not the government take umbrage at it, and could he not use punishments to prohibit this fashion, not because it would be illegitimate, but because of the dangers of which it could be the cause? »
For Locke, religious or ethnocultural diversity should not hamper civic solidarity or the cultural unity of the state: therefore, we cannot use our freedoms to evade our common responsibilities.
John Stuart Mill against the assembly of ethnocultures
“Free institutions are almost impossible in a country made up of different nationalities. In a people without a sense of community, especially if different languages are spoken there, the common public opinion necessary for the functioning of representative government cannot exist.Considerations on Representative Government, 1861). Stuart Mill (1806-1873) thinks that, in a society where ethnocultures are recognized as such with particular rights (multiculturalism), suspicions, rivalries, clashes between ethnocultures are likely to increase and undermine the essential confidence to civic peace.
In this sense, diversity and socio-cultural integration do not go well together. Remember that the aforementioned authors are not terrible Jacobins of the French Revolution quick to guillotine God the Father at the slightest opportunity, they are liberal thinkers concerned with promoting individual freedoms within the framework of a well-understood liberal democracy. All things considered—and except for its provisions relating to the ability of the OQLF to search a company’s internal documents without a warrant—Bill 96 is necessary to ensure the cohesion of the nation.
In Canada, which has enshrined multiculturalism in its Constitution, there is, it is true, no state religion, but religion is in the state, and “each community” forges a culture and an allegiance which are proper to him, according to his good pleasure.