Photo Credit: Sudbury Star
François Legault, who won provincial elections last week, will soon become the next premier of Quebec. He at the very beginning sharply expressed his attitude of wearing religious symbols. Actually, Legault has already vowed to stop government workers, including police and teachers, from wearing religious symbols like hijabs and yarmulkes and turbans “in order to protect Quebec’s secular society.”
“I know Mr. Trudeau disagrees with our proposal,” Legault said. “I think it’s reasonable to ban the religious signs, but only for people in a position of authority.” Among those to be affected are police officers, provincial judges, prison guards and teachers. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has publicly opposed Legault's proposal.
But even if Legault’s proposal was adopted, there is still a great lack of logic in Quebec. If someone bans religious symbols, there is certainly no room for the large crucifix that hangs in Quebec’s National Assembly, or maybe there is? Apparently that cross can stay right where it is because Legault claims there’s nothing religious about it. Legault made the comments as he defended his decision to keep the crucifix in the legislature while moving forward with plans to ban certain civil servants from wearing religious symbols.
The crucifix hanging in Quebec’s National Assembly is a historical symbol, not a religious one, even though it represents the Christian values of the province’s two colonial ancestors, premier- designate François Legault said Thursday.
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The crucifix, he said, invokes the role of French Catholics and British Protestants in Quebec’s history. He made no mention of Indigenous people.
“In our past we had Protestants and Catholics. They built the values we have in Quebec. We have to recognize that and not mix that with religious signs.”
The crucifix was installed above the speaker’s chair in the National Assembly in 1936. A government-commissioned report into secularism and identity issues recommended in 2008 that it be removed, but no government has done so.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, a spokesman for the CAQ transition team, said earlier this week there is no contradiction between the party’s plan to impose strict religious-neutrality rules on certain public servants and its desire to maintain the crucifix. “Crucifix represents Christian values but isn't a religious symbol” is a sentence that is contradictory in so many levels. Banning hijabs and turbans and allowing crucifix doesn’t represent religious neutrality but favors Christianity.
