On June 17, the Quebec National Assembly passed Bill 21, “an Act respecting the laicity of the State.” The act prohibits large numbers of employees of the province of Quebec, including teachers, police, and public prosecutors, from “wearing religious symbols in the exercise of their functions.”

For those who have a religious duty to wear a marker of their faith, the legislation precludes their participation in the public administration of the society of which they would otherwise expect to be full and equal members. The implication here is that commitment to a personal religious system of belief — and let us be frank, to any organized system of belief, religious or otherwise, that is not currently fashionably popular — is incompatible with neutrally carrying out the obligations of public service.

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That is utter nonsense, contrary to the principles of tolerance which our country has embraced in its finest moments, and a fundamentally immoral mistreatment of Quebecers affected by the law.

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Since Bill 21 is legislation of the Quebec government, some might suggest that there is little our national government might do in response. But that is not the case. Since the 1960s, the federal government has responded to Quebec difference by making available to the province’s government a broad array of unique special arrangements. Examples range from special tax arrangements for social programs in the province since 1966, to a 2006 agreement to allow Quebec to send its own representatives to the UN’s UNESCO. None of these arrangements have been constitutionalized, and all of them are subject to reconsideration by our national government.

Perhaps the most significant area where the feds might reconsider such arrangements is in immigration. While the federal government is entitled to make all of the country’s immigration decisions, the constitution allows it to share this power with the provinces. Since the 1970s, the federal government has bestowed Quebec with ever-wider powers over immigration.

The province is currently allowed to exercise sole responsibility for the selection of immigrants going to the province, and has comprehensive authority over services related to their reception and integration. I would argue that if Quebec’s government fails to live up to the Canadian standard of responsibility and fairness in its treatment of religious minorities, then the province’s governments should not reasonably be further entrusted with these sorts of powers.

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There is, then, much that the federal government can do to respond to the oppression of Bill 21 — even if only to suggest it is thinking about revising these sorts of arrangements. Given Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s self-dramatizing flair for cultivating pretensions to high moral aspiration, some might have expected his government to carry the lead in fighting the Quebec government here.

Sadly, I think few will be surprised in these days to hear that Trudeau has not done the right thing, or any of the right things, and apparently has no intention of doing so. His words on the subject have been few, tepid, and un-authoritative.

More importantly than the prime minister’s words have been his deeds. Amidst debate about Bill 21, Justin Trudeau has apparently not only not considered retrenchment of some of Quebec’s special arrangements as a tool of persuasion, but has in fact taken the opportunity to apparently reward Premier Francois Legault by giving his government a new special power.

That is, a central role in appointing the three Quebec justice positions on the Supreme Court of Canada (an idea, incidentally, which Trudeau’s father Pierre vehemently opposed in the 1980s). This move is a deplorable one in its own right — Supreme Court appointees, regardless of their source, should be carriers of national and universal values, not those of any provincial government. In the context of Bill 21, this move is not only deplorable, but seriously shocking.

As an expression of the reality of Justin Trudeau’s inner moral compass it is equally shocking. That is, unless you have come to recognize, as a growing number of Canadians seem to be, how profoundly morally empty this prime minister is.

John Soroski is an assistant professor of political science at MacEwan University in Edmonton.