TROIS RIVIÉRES - Attention public servants: turbans, kippahs and hijabs will not be allowed in the workplace under a Parti Québecois government, but by all means, sport that crucifix, as long as it’s not too ostentatious.

The party hoping to form the next government Sept. 4 tried to expand on its contradictory plan to protect Quebec values during a campaign stop Tuesday in Trois Rivières.

“We don’t have to apologize for who we are,” said PQ leader Pauline Marois, while saying the so-called charter of secularism would be adopted as soon as they come to power. “We are one of the most tolerant and open people on the planet, but we want our values, such as equality between the sexes, respected by everyone.”

At first, the charter appeared to ban just the hijab. “Pretty scarves that women sometimes wear in their hair” would be acceptable, said PQ official Eric Gamache. But after being pushed on what exactly would be allowed, Gamache admitted the list wasn’t quite drawn up yet, but a turban would not make the grade, while a kippah probably would, since it’s not that “ostentatious.”

A short time later, he advised that, in fact, even the kippah, the skull cap worn by Jewish men also known as a yarmulke, would be forbidden.

“The crucifix could be allowed, as long as it was discreet,” he said, without defining discreet. “But if it’s too big....”

Such a charter would never fly, said McGill University law professor François Crépeau, because it violates both the Quebec and Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

“Freedom of expression includes expressing your religion as long as it doesn’t infringe on the rights of others” or matters of public interest, he said. “I’ve never seen a kippah, turban or any clothing to do with religion infringing on other’s rights.”

Pearl Eliadis, a human rights lawyer who teaches at McGill, said the charter is nothing more than a populist vote-getting tactic.

“It was a bald-faced bid to occupy the nationalistic territory abandoned by the right-wing Action démocratique du Québec,” she said. “It creates hierarchies of rights, primacy for Quebec heritage, and a solemn assertion of the separation of state and religion. This last, it must be added, in a National Assembly that has unanimously decided to retain the cross, and in a province where several municipalities start their meetings with a Christian prayer.”

In the shadow of a Roman Catholic Church, Marois introduced Djemila Benhabib, her star candidate in Trois-Rivières – an immigrant from the northern African Muslim country of Algeria who sees the hijab as a symbol of the oppression of women. (She would also like to see the crucifix gone from the National Assembly, contrary to what her leader wants).

“For us, women’s rights aren’t negotiable,” said Benhabib, who has written widely against Islam. “We want equality for all women and all men, no matter what their origin.”

Such rights are already enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, noted Eliadis.

If forced to wear the veil, women are protected here under the Criminal Code, noted Crépeau, and if they choose to wear the hijab, it’s a matter of freedom of religious expression.

He said no right to secularism exists, so it’s outrageous to claim that if people proclaim their religion too vigorously, they are infringing on Quebecers’ secularism.

Marois said the charter, which they will defend against any legal challenge, will put to rest Quebecers’ fears that were stirred up during the Bouchard-Taylor Commission on reasonable accommodation in 2007. Hérouxville, a town not far from where Marois spoke Tuesday, adopted a code of conduct for immigrants at the height of the commission hearings, informing them that polygamy, sex discrimination and honour killings weren’t practised in Quebec.

The PQ charter will also serve to “avoid conflict and misunderstanding,” Marois noted.

Many voters in the region – 95 per cent of whom were born in Quebec – say they don’t identify with Benhabib and won’t vote for her. But Marois defends the party’s choice, despite the risk in the riding which has been held by the Liberals.

smontgomery@montrealgazette.com

Twitter: @MontgomerySue