Québec Solidaire makes its opposition to secularism bill official

​Québec Solidaire members positioned the party firmly against the Coalition Avenir Québec's secularism bill, voting on Saturday to adopt an official stance opposing any restrictions on wearing religious symbols in public.  

"Québec Solidaire can now be an organization that defends the rights of everyone without compromise," party member Eve Torres said after the vote.

The secularism bill, tabled Thursday, would ban public workers in positions of authority from wearing religious symbols. 

In choosing this position,​ Québec Solidaire is dropping its traditional support for the 2008 Bouchard-Taylor report, which suggested that judges, prosecutors, police officers and prison guards be barred from wearing religious symbols while on duty.

Not all party members in attendance were happy with the outcome of the vote, however.

Jean Trudelle, who was a candidate in the Mille-Îles riding in 2018, said that adopting "principles for the neutrality of the state" shouldn't automatically lead to social exclusion.

In his view, a person who is taking on a position of authority, a judge for example, must subscribe to certain rules, in the same way a police officer must put on a uniform to do his job.

"Clearly it's not a question of discrimination, we're not refusing anybody," he told CBC.

Moving away from Bouchard-Taylor

​Earlier Saturday, Québec Solidaire's co-spokesperson Manon Massé said the Legault government's secularism bill goes "too far."

"It would make a lot of people lose their jobs. A lot of people wouldn't be able to change jobs without giving up their rights," Massé said.

Bill 21 includes a grandfather clause to exempt public workers, such as teachers or school principals, from removing their religious symbols.

But that clause would no longer apply if, for example, a teacher was promoted to a higher position.  

"You understand, when the rights of our fellow citizens are attacked, that upsets us," said Massé.

Twenty-nine-year-old Ismael Seck, who ran in the Jeanne-Mance–Viger riding last fall, supported the party's vote to oppose the government's bill.

"I think [the vote] gives a lot of hope to a lot of people," said Seck.

"There is still a lot of work to do to make sure that everyone feels they have their place in society."

Before the vote, Massé said some members felt the Bouchard-Taylor recommendations had "been chipped away over the years" and were no longer the way forward.

The provincial Bouchard-Taylor commission spent a year examining issues around reasonable accommodation of religious and cultural beliefs and practices over a decade ago.

One of the report's co-authors, Charles Taylor backed away from a main recommendation in 2017. The other co-author, Gérard Bouchard, disagreed with him.