It’s funny, this criticism that secularism is made of being divisive, of dividing and thereby causing harm to society. Such a reproach is so inconsistent that one could easily turn it over like a glove: it is the activists opposed to secularism who divide, separate, disunite, by wanting at all costs that each religious “community” displays its “difference” by wearing distinctive signs which allow at first glance to distinguish the “true believers” from the ungodly. It still takes a certain amount of bad faith to think that the hijab and even more the full veil are there to bring people together!
Secularism unites. It affirms that all citizens of Quebec, whatever their religious, philosophical or political convictions, have the same rights, but also the same duties, including that of putting aside these convictions when they work in the public service. Because then, they do not work as Catholics, Muslims, Sikhs, agnostics, atheists, sovereignists, conservatives, wokes, etc., but as agents of a State which must be neutral religiously, philosophically, politically.
Displaying signs of religious, philosophical or political affiliation when on duty does not necessarily make a civil servant someone who would deviate from this duty of neutrality; on the other hand, this can give suspicion to the people with whom he deals, and this mere suspicion of partisanship or favoritism is as harmful for the institutions of the State as for its reality.
To realize this, it is enough to imagine a police officer wearing a kippah who would have to arrest a pro-Palestinian demonstrator or, conversely, a police officer wearing a hijab arresting a pro-Israeli demonstrator; or even the same people proudly wearing their religious symbols as teachers discussing the conflict in the Middle East in front of a class. Beyond the incongruity of these scenes, it is a safe bet that they would undermine the confidence of certain citizens in the neutrality of the State, and it would be difficult to blame them.
It is also quite ironic that several of the same people who defend the right of civil servants to display their religious beliefs refuse certain police officers the right to display the famous Thin Blue Line on their uniforms, which in their eyes would constitute a ambiguous symbol that can be associated with the extreme right. Like it or not, just like that thin blue line, religious symbols send a message (that’s what they’re specifically there for), and that message can be misinterpreted by the public and thus break the trust that it has. This must have the impartiality of the State and its agents.
Reserve duty
This argument is generally opposed by the fact that the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms protects freedom of religion and that, consequently, secularism as formulated within the framework of Bill 21 does not respect our own rights. fundamental laws. That is not exactly correct. Article 3 of the Charter specifically protects “freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, freedom of opinion, freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association”.
This does not, however, prevent a civil servant from having a duty of confidentiality which prohibits him from displaying his political opinions, although freedom of opinion is protected by the Charter. No right is absolute. Because, as specified in the Quebec Charter: “the rights and freedoms of the human person are inseparable from the rights and freedoms of others and from the general well-being”.
Freedom of religion is no more absolute than freedom of opinion, expression, assembly, etc. It is the jurisprudence established by Canadian judges, and not the charters, which has made it a preeminent right which some would like to prevail over all the other rules governing life in society. To realize this, we only need to compare the decisions taken in other democratic countries on the basis of more or less similar fundamental principles and which nevertheless go against those of the Supreme Court on the subject of freedom of religion.
This is not very surprising from the highest court of a non-secular country such as Canada, which is explicitly “founded on principles which recognize the supremacy of God”, as solemnly affirms the preamble to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In 1982, when this preamble was written, this formula constituted a deliberate and assumed anti-secular political choice.
Whether or not Quebec adopts this religious supremacism that characterizes Canada is a political and not a legal question. It is by the Parliament of Quebec and ultimately by Quebecers themselves that this question should therefore be democratically decided, and not by the judges of the Supreme Court appointed by Ottawa, whose judgment will necessarily be partial since they place themselves -themselves under the tutelage of God and therefore appear – so to speak – in his very face in a conflict of interests for everything relating to religion or secularism.