Three years after the passage of Quebec’s secularism law — known as Bill 21 — the province’s religious minorities feel increasingly alienated and hopeless, new research shows.
“Religious minority communities face — at levels that are disturbing — a reflection of contempt, hatred, mistrust and aggression,” Miriam Taylor, lead researcher and director of publications and partnerships at the Canadian Studies Association, said in an interview with CBC.
“We’ve even seen threats and physical violence,” Taylor said.
Bill 21, which was passed in 2019, prohibits public school teachers, police officers, judges and state attorneys, among other public officials in leadership positions, from wearing religious symbols — such as hijabs, crucifixes or turbans — while on the job .
Taylor and her association colleagues worked with polling firm Leger to gather a unique portrait of attitudes toward Bill 21 in Quebec.
Miriam Taylor, the study’s lead researcher, told the CBC she was upset by the results, which show that Muslim women in Quebec in particular feel alienated, insecure and hopeless. (twitter)
The association surveyed members of certain religious minority communities, including 632 Muslims, 165 Jews and 56 Sikhs.
These results were collapsed into a Leger study of the Quebec population as a whole and then weighted to ensure that the sample was representative of the entire population.
This allowed Taylor to compare and contrast the attitudes toward Bill 21 of religious minority Quebecers with the attitudes of Quebecers in general.
A total of 1,828 people were surveyed in the online survey.
Taylor shared an advance copy of his final report, which is being released today, with the CBC.
Muslim women are the most affected
Although all three religious minority groups surveyed said they experienced negative impacts due to Bill 21, the effects were felt most acutely by Muslims, and Muslim women in particular.
“We’ve seen severe social stigmatization of Muslim women, marginalization of Muslim women and a very disturbing decline in their sense of well-being, their ability to fulfill their aspirations, their sense of safety, but also their hope for the future,” Taylor said.
A woman wears a hijab while draped with a Quebec flag during a demonstration to protest Bill 21 in Montreal in 2019. Taylor’s research shows that Muslim women have suffered the most negative consequences of the law’s passage. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press)
Of the Muslim women surveyed, 78 percent said their sense of being accepted as a full member of Quebec society had worsened over the past three years.
Fifty-three percent said they had heard prejudicial remarks about Muslims from family, friends or colleagues.
Respondents were given the opportunity to share examples of comments they had heard or behavior they had experienced.
One reported hearing: “These Muslim women with headscarves, if they can’t integrate, let them go back to their country.”
Forty-seven percent of Muslim women said they had been treated unfairly by a person in authority.
One person reported being called a “dirty immigrant” by a Quebec City police officer. Another reported that a teacher told disparaging jokes about Islam in class.
Two-thirds of Muslim women said they had been a victim of and/or witnessed a hate crime. Seventy-three percent said their sense of safety in public places had worsened.
Taylor found that almost three-quarters of Muslim women surveyed felt that their comfort with safety in public places had worsened in the three years since Bill 21 was passed. (Canadian Studies Association)
People surveyed gave examples ranging from racist remarks to death threats, ripping off hijabs and being spat on. One person reported that a man intentionally tried to run them and their three-year-old daughter over with a pickup truck.
Most Muslims also report feeling less hopeful, less free to express themselves publicly, and less likely to participate in social and political life.
“For a law that is supposed to be very moderate and only affect a very small number of people, we were shocked by the responses,” Taylor said.
She said the response she found most upsetting was that 83 percent of Muslim women surveyed said their confidence in their children’s futures had worsened since Bill 21 passed.
Taylor said the number that upset her the most was the lack of hope Muslims in Quebec have for their children’s future. (Canadian Studies Association)
“It’s one thing to say, ‘you know what, I’m being treated very unfairly because they don’t understand me,'” Taylor said. “It’s another thing to push forward and not have hope for your children.”
The law reinforces existing prejudices
Taylor believes Bill 21 alone is not responsible for the feelings of alienation and insecurity experienced by Quebec Muslims and other religious minorities.
She said prejudices have been brewing in Quebec for nearly 20 years, when the debate over so-called “reasonable accommodations” for religious minorities first began.
“Unease, fear, and anxiety build up over time,” Taylor said.
She said that often these worries are based on ignorance.
“By their own admission, Quebecers generally have very little contact with members of religious minorities,” Taylor said. “All these negative opinions are based on a lack of knowledge.”
Taylor said Bill 21 has allowed these prejudices — rooted in ignorance — to become the norm.
“We’re getting to a situation where the discomfort of the bystander outweighs the deep convictions of the person who actually wears the religious symbols,” Taylor said.
“We assert and reinforce these opinions, and then we politicize the symbols. These symbols are lightning rods,” she said.
“And so we end up dehumanizing the people wearing the symbols,” Taylor said.
Women are generally less supportive of Bill 21
Taylor said Bill 21 has consistently maintained the support of about two-thirds of Quebecers since it was passed, with a dip last January following the high-profile case of a hijab teacher in Chelsea who was removed from the classroom and reassigned.
But she said the support is nuanced and fraught with controversy.
Women in Quebec, for example, are generally less supportive of Bill 21 than men. Sixty-eight percent of men support the law, compared to 58 percent of women.
Taylor said the research shows that women, and young women in particular, are less supportive of Bill 21 than men. (Canadian Studies Association)
And the younger women are, the less likely they are to support the law. Only 31 percent of women ages 18-24 support Bill 21.
Taylor said that raises questions for her.
“It’s being touted as a feminist law by the people who support it. So why are younger women in Quebec in particular so less into it when one would expect the opposite ratio?” she said.
Support for the law, but not for the implementation
Another statistic that surprised Taylor: even Quebecers who support the law don’t necessarily want it implemented.
Only 40 percent of respondents believe that a civil servant who does not follow the law should lose his job.
Students participate in a rally against Bill 21 in Chelsea, Que., last December after their teacher was fired for wearing a hijab. Poll shows most Quebecers don’t want people to lose their jobs because of Bill 21. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)
“The law is supported and liked by the people of Quebec. But they seem much less interested in actually seeing it implemented,” Taylor said.
“I think we are a human society and we care about people. We all need income to survive and I think people are aware of the high price that would have to be paid,” she said.
Quebecers are interested in what the courts say about Bill 21
Taylor was also surprised that the survey showed that Quebecers care a lot about what the courts have to say about Bill 21.
When drafting the law, the Quebec government, realizing that it would likely violate both the Canadian and Quebec charters of rights, preemptively invoked the constitutional independence clause and amended the Quebec charter to try to stop legal challenges.
But those challenges came anyway, and now both the government and groups opposed to the bill are challenging a 2021 Quebec Superior Court decision that upheld most of the law before the Quebec Court of Appeal.
The law is widely expected to eventually be challenged in the Supreme Court of Canada.
Women leave the Quebec Court of Appeal in Montreal in 2019 after a hearing related to a challenge to Bill 21. New research shows that most Quebecers care a lot about what the courts have to say about the law. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press)
The bill’s architect, Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrett, argued that it was up to elected politicians in the National Assembly – not the courts – to decide how they wanted to organize the relationship between state and religion.
But Quebecers seem to feel differently.
Sixty-four percent, about the same percentage who support the bill, also think it is important for the Supreme Court to rule on whether Bill 21 is discriminatory.
And if the courts confirm that the law is discriminatory, support for the bill will plummet.
Just 46 percent of those polled – less than half – said they would continue to support the law if the courts upheld that it violated the Charter of Rights.
The debate is not over
Jolin-Barrett portrayed Quebecers as united in support of the bill and accused opponents of trying to divide Quebecers.
But Taylor’s poll shows a majority of Quebecers – 56 per cent – believe the law itself is divisive.
When Bill 21 was passed, Jolin-Barrett said it would “allow a harmonious transition to secularism” for Quebec.
Taylor said that was clearly not the case.
“The debate is far from over,” she said. “Bill 21 is having a devastating impact on citizens in our…
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