QUEBEC — They were two points of view illustrating the passion of the debate that has gripped the province.

One, from an alliance made up of members of cultural communities, reflected a profound malaise among health care workers who fear for their employment and feel discrimination already exists even without the proposed charter of values.

Soumya Tamouro of the alliance told the committee examining Bill 60 that Quebec has created "disarray, confusion and worry," in her circle, while alliance director Jérôme De Giovanni said a neutral body, the Quebec Human Rights Commission, should be asked to study the place of religion in Quebec society.

Tamouro summed up the problem in a blunt fashion.

"When you are in hospital and sick on a gurney and waiting for hours and hours, believe me when someone comes to help you and is qualified, even if she has a veil, she's an angel coming to see you," she said.

But earlier, a Muslim woman who grew up in Tunisia and is a member of the pro-charter Janette group, went the other way, warning the government that fundamentalism could creep into Quebec.

Rakia Fourati said she has seen it happen first hand and said women wearing veils represent a kind of thermometer for fundamentalists testing the water.

She said she had tears in her eyes recently while screening a video showing the indoctrination of 10- to 13-year-old girls in Montreal North where they are obliged to swear they will wear the veil forever.

"For me, that's it, those women are blocked in their heads," Fourati told the committee. "How can you expect them to grow up or one day want to take off the veils because they have made a pact, they promised God?"

And so kicked off the second week of hearings into the bill setting up a proposed charter of values, a process that continues to veer off in many directions; far beyond the immediate scope of the bill.

Again, a wide diversity of individuals and groups emerged.

The group Laicité citoyenne de la capitale nationale told the committee that even in Quebec City, which is 95 per cent francophone, integration of new arrivals has become an issue.

The group's brief complains that while the tiny Quebec City anglophone community made up of Irish, English and Scottish stock is well integrated into the capital's society, others brought their "cultural baggage" with them.

The brief mentions one incident in 2009 in which a woman from Burma refused to remove her veil and identify herself at the request of a city bus driver. He proceeded to kick her off.

A poll of Quebec City residents after the incident showed 95 per cent of the 1,000 people who responded agreed with the driver.

The brief also says that in May 2013, a Muslim student who had studied at the Université Laval was arrested by the FBI in the United States.

"Quebec City, like other cities in Canada, has not been spared the presence on its territory of individuals suspected of participating in terrorist activities," the brief notes.