Quebec’s Bill 21 has been a major topic of conversation recently, both in Quebec and across the country.

The bill bans the wearing of religious symbols by public servants in the province. Effectively, many Sikh men, Jewish men, and Muslim women would be barred from working in Quebec’s public service. That may not be the bill’s intent, but it certainly is the bill’s effect.

This ban is advanced in the name of secularism. Secularism implies that the state is neutral on questions of religion; and, I do not think very many people in Canada would disagree with that as a general principle. In this case, the proponents of the bill posit that having a visibly religious person in the public service contradicts the religious neutrality of the state. The idea is that if I see a government employee wearing a kippa, for example, then the state is projecting a religious preference through that visible symbol.

In my opinion, though, this argument misunderstands what many religious symbols are. They are external signs of an individual’s personal religious beliefs, but they are not some public declaration of bias for or against people of a particular faith. They may be publicly visible, but that’s not the main point. When a person’s faith obliges them to wear a religious symbol, they wear it based on their understanding of their own obligation to God, not as a way of projecting some stance or proselytizing to others. Allowing public servants to wear religious symbols is not about allowing them to promote their faith. Instead, it is simply about allowing them to be true to their conscience while continuing to do their job.

We would expect every public servant to treat those they interact within a fair and neutral way, regardless of their philosophical commitments. Everybody has philosophical commitments, so why does it really matter if someone happens to have an external sign of those commitments?

Whatever the intentions, the practical impact of a ban on religious symbols in the public service is a form of separation. Members of certain faith community will no longer be able to serve in the public service. It is a dangerous thing for young people from minority communities to grow up knowing that opportunities are denied to them because of their faith. It does not serve anyone for them to feel the resulting alienation.

In this context, people will sometimes say, “If they choose to come to our country, then they should abide by our rules.” But protection of religious liberty has always been one of “our rules”. That principle must protect members of all faiths if it is to mean anything at all.

The courts will ultimately decide whether Quebec’s law is constitutional, but I would strongly oppose any effort by anyone to introduce similar rules at the national level. ‎The leader of my party has been equally clear about this. We must be clear in our commitment to defending the fundamental freedoms of conscience and religion.