It’s just over two weeks ago now that Quebec’s CAQ government announced its intention to introduce a bill that would ban public prayer. 

This idea didn’t come from the committee of lawyers that’s been tasked with strengthening secularism across the province. This committee has just shared its own recommendations for how to expand Quebec’s secularism laws, which notably includes widening the ban on wearing religious symbols to school support staff, as well as workers in publicly funded daycares. While the committee’s latest recommendations do not suggest a ban on prayer outright, they do propose cities look into adopting legislation to this effect. 

The province’s move to ban all public displays of worship in parks and on streets seems to have come from the CAQ’s head honcho François Legault, who’s tasked his  secularism minister, Jean-François Roberge, with rolling it out. 

Comments from his government suggest this ban is targeted at reigning in Muslim prayer in particular, which has been taking place during pro-Palestine rallies organized on Sundays in front of Montreal’s Notre Dame Basilica. 

The head of the Archdiocese of Montreal, Archbishop Christian Lépin, has said this proposed ban is discriminatory. When pushed to acknowledge the rallies outside Montreal’s iconic church as a provocation, he instead described them as a rally for peace, rather than a rally against the Catholic Church.  

In a letter published in La Presse, he said a ban on public prayer would be a violation of fundamental freedoms protected by both the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as well as Quebec’s equivalent charter. 

For the CAQ though, that’s not an issue. While the government has yet to offer much clarity on what legislating a ban like this would look like, Legault has indicated he’s considering use of the notwithstanding clause to pass it, which would make it harder to challenge such a bill in court on the grounds that it is a violation of constitutionally protected rights. 

Legault is a big fan of the notwithstanding clause. He used it preemptively in 2019 to pass Bill 21, which banned certain public sector workers from wearing religious symbols in their workplaces. He used it, again preemptively in 2021, to push through Bill 96, the law introduced to strengthen protection of the French language in Quebec.

And now he’s suggesting he may use it to bypass basic freedoms guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms a third time. I wonder if his casual disregard for such rights has anything to do with why his support has tanked in the past year.

There’s a lot to be said about this government’s conflation of secularism with public displays of religion. These are not the same thing. 

Also concerning is the danger of this government’s seeming comfort with disregarding the legal infrastructure put in place to protect human rights in this province. Three uses by one government is surely an abuse of this clause’s intended function – to give provinces some power, to be used in exceptional circumstances, to override the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 

The dangerous precedent already set by the CAQ government may further normalize its future use. Some pundits have suggested the party is introducing this legislation to distract from other scandals it is currently embroiled in (ahem SAAQclic). Whether it will be enough to regain votes from previous CAQ supporters, time will tell. But so far the polls are not looking good.