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“She said I’m keeping it (the hijab) shorter, less apparent. And this is what we want to achieve when we ask in Bill 62 that people also make an effort to accommodate each other.

“I congratulate her for that and frankly hope that she can fulfill all her dreams in Quebec.”

He dared the leaders of the opposition parties crying foul over religious garb to go and tell Lamrhari to her face that she is not welcome here and should find a job elsewhere.

Couillard was responding to the Parti Québécois, which had said earlier that under a PQ government Lamrhari would have to give up her hijab or go work for the RCMP, which accepts such garb.

“It’s a subject that is becoming unnecessarily difficult when it’s so simple,” Couillard said at a news conference where he was flanked by Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Dwight Ball.

“A person is a person is a person. We have talents in Quebec, which we need to keep.”

Couillard repeated that he thinks it’s up to individual police forces to decide if they will authorize such garb and argued the situation in multi-ethnic Montreal is obviously different than in Saguenay—Lac-St-Jean.

He called on the opposition to explain why it does not criticize the RCMP — which has officers in Quebec — for allowing its officers to wear turbans. In fact, other forces in Canada allow it, too.

“What happened there? Nothing,” he said.

And what about the federal minister of national defence, Harjit Singh Sajjan — who is also a person in authority and wears a turban — Couillard asked?