Just months after Quebec had at last emerged from waves of violent student protests over higher education funding, the prospect of another divisive row looms after the provincial government announced plans that would force secularisation on staff working in higher education. The separatist government of Pauline Marois — whose election as premier last year finally brought to an end the strife over higher tuition charges — has moved to ban public employees from wearing turbans, hijabs and kippas as well as “overt and conspicuous” crosses, Stars of David or crescents. This ban also applies to academics.

The Quebec Charter of Values aims to make the province visibly religiously neutral, thus aligning it more closely with France’s laïcité model of secularism. Marois even cited multiculturalism in the UK as a reason why such proposals are necessary. “In England, they’re knocking each other over the head and throwing bombs because of multiculturalism and nobody knowing any more who they are in that society,” she told Le Devoir, a French-language newspaper, just days before the charter was revealed.

Bernard Drainville, the minister for democratic institutions and active citizenship, avoided such incendiary comments when he unveiled the charter at a news conference on September 10. Nevertheless, he declared, “the time has come for us to rally around clear rules and common values that will put an end to tensions and misunderstandings” that stem from the public display of religious affiliation.

However, opposition politicians in Quebec and federal Canadian leaders have been withering in their criticism. Federal Liberal leader Justin Trudeau — son of the late Pierre Trudeau, who as prime minister in 1982 entrenched multiculturalism in the Canadian constitution — called the proposed charter an “abomination”.

Moreover, academics and students at universities have not hesitated to register their dislike of the charter. The opposition is perhaps most notable at McGill University in Montreal. Its new principal and vice chancellor, Suzanne Fortier, who assumed office in September, says that preventing staff from wearing visible religious symbols “runs contrary to our principles”, the Montreal Gazette reported. “The wearing of such symbols in no way interferes with the religious and political neutrality of McGill as an institution,” she adds.

Meanwhile, Melissa Kate Wheeler, president of the students’ union at Concordia University in Montreal, says that dozens of students have been coming forward to voice their concerns. “These students whose identity includes an outward expression of their religious faith are worried about their future in Quebec and, especially, career prospects in the Quebec Civil Service,” she says.

Such concerns may not have been allayed by Drainville, whose response to a question of whether a person might be sacked for wearing a headscarf, told the September 10 news briefing: “Let’s not talk about that now. We want to talk about values.”

(Excerpted adapted from Times Higher Education)