Narration: The debate on laïcité is so controversial in the Canadian context because it pits two different models for managing pluralism against each other: French republicanism and Anglo-liberalism. These are rooted in different cultural and philosophical backgrounds, which explains how both sides of the debate often struggle to understand the other side’s point of view. In this episode, we will summarize the differences between these two visions of pluralism and how they influence the debate on laïcité and religious pluralism in Quebec and English Canada.
Two Philosophical Traditions
Narration: The French and English worlds have markedly different visions of the place of the individual and of the community, informed by their respective religious traditions. France has a vision of society that tends to emphasize the common good over individualism. Freedom is achieved through institutions and society, not against them. And it is important that the individual respect the collective rules that determine life in the public sphere. This vision is consistent with the Catholic faith as shaped by an institution — the church — which functions in a top-down manner.
By contrast, the Anglosphere, which has been shaped by Protestantism, typically emphasizes individual conscience over collective constraints. In the Protestant tradition, faith is a more interior matter, with less emphasis on shared public rituals and more emphasis on individual practices such as Bible reading and personal prayer. This creates a different vision of the individual and their place within the body of believers, in which individual freedoms are less prone to be limited in the name of the common good.
A Supreme Court decision in 2004, known as Amselem, concerned the conflict in Montreal between Orthodox Jews who wanted to erect a sukkah — a temporary booth — on their condo balconies as part of their religious observance, and the condominium association, which asserted that these booths violated the condo bylaws forbidding structures on the balcony. Tasked with determining what a religious belief is, the court deemed it to be a sincerely held individual belief, thus using a subjective rather than objective criterion — such as a belief that is tied to an established religious body serving as an authority on the matter.
As Julius Grey, who acted for the appellants in this case, said:
Julius Grey: Because in Amselem they try to argue that the Jewish religion doesn’t require a sukkah. And my answer is it doesn’t matter whether the Jewish religion does or not — it’s whether the conscience of Mr. Amselem requires the presence of a sukkah.
Narration: This decision is coherent with the Anglo-Protestant vision, but can seem strange to the Franco-Catholic one. We spoke about the case with Stéphane Sérafin.
Stéphane Sérafin: It’s a very interesting case, too, because it seems to give a definition of religion that’s particular to Canada. I know of a case in France where it was a similar case about an Orthodox Jewish person, and it was about, I think, the electronic entry system to the condominium complex. But in France, basically, they asked Jewish authorities about the practice — is it reasonable? The private practice needed to be justified by some sort of religious authority. Whereas in Canada, Amselem gives a new definition of religion.
Could you expand on that and the consequences of that definition? So there’s a bit of that difference in the majority and dissenting views. The dissent in Amselem — without necessarily going as far as the French approach — held that the particular exercise of religion in this case was unreasonable. So without going so far as to think that you need a religious authority opining on what the religious practice entails, there is an element of reasonableness involved. Just because you subjectively believe that this is what your practice requires you to do does not mean that it’s a reasonable interpretation of what your religious practice should entail. That’s already found in the dissent’s view.
The majority just takes a purely subjective view of what religious practice is. If this is a sincerely held belief, that’s all that you really need to establish a claim to exercise a religious freedom.
And really, when you look at it — especially in contrast with France — there are two conflicting religious cultures at play here. The French model is very much one of French Catholicism. It reflects a certain understanding of religion that is informed by the history of French Catholicism. For people who don’t know this, French Catholicism is not just Roman Catholicism. Roman Catholicism is defined by hierarchy with the Pope at the top — it’s an ecclesiastical religion with a formal structure of bishops and the Pope. So in that sense, there are officials who are supposed to rule on religious matters. But French Catholicism actually goes further, in that it is instituted in a kind of state capacity. There’s a tendency called Gallicanism, which was very prevalent in France prior to the French Revolution — basically, the church not only has its formal hierarchy in Rome, but there’s also a kind of established French church that opines on official religious doctrine within the confines of the French state.
And this is the model that’s informing, I think, the way that the French — even today, even under official secularism since the beginning of the 20th century — approach these religious freedom issues. So if it’s not Roman Catholicism, it’s some other religion: we’re still looking for religious authorities to opine on what a proper expression of faith entails. And if you individually decide that this is what my faith entails and you can’t back it up by an appeal to religious authority, then that’s not going to be seen as a legitimate exercise of your faith.
Versus in the Canadian model — the Americans have this to a certain extent too, but I think the Canadian model perhaps goes further — it’s very much influenced by a Protestant conception of religion. And so religion is primarily a matter of private faith, private belief. You know, you’re saved through your personal faith, not your adherence to — the classic distinction is saved through faith, not works. That’s how Protestants traditionally understand it. So it’s a question of your subjective beliefs — that’s what matters. That’s what faith is. It’s a private thing. It’s a subjective thing that is unique to you. And who am I, as someone who is not you, to dictate what your faith entails? And I think that’s the kind of perspective that is informing this, consciously or not.
Narration: This difference between French and English cultures affects not only one’s understanding of religious freedom but also one’s understanding of a closely related freedom — that of conscience.
Stéphane Sérafin: From the standpoint of the quintessential Anglo-Canadian viewpoint — if there were such a thing — it would be something like: well, it’s my personal sense of right and wrong. And my personal sense of right and wrong entitles me to object to participation in even a legislative scheme. So the legislation requires me to do something, but I think that’s against my conscience, so I have some kind of opt-out rights.
Whereas in the Franco-Catholic conception of conscience, conscience is more of an objectively measurable thing. Conscience is very much a feature of Catholic doctrine, for example. But conscience always means conscience in the sense of: yes, you have an innate sense of right and wrong, but it’s supposed to be oriented towards an objectively measurable sense of the good. So even if you personally disagree with this law, it doesn’t necessarily give you status as a conscientious objector. You may be entitled to object, but only if your objection is rooted in some objectively demonstrable concept of the good.
And I think that definitely plays into the way that Quebec approaches these debates. So an individual who thinks “I have a religious duty to wear a headscarf even when I’m teaching” — Quebec society isn’t necessarily going to look on this, at least on its own terms, as something worth respecting.
Another example in a completely different context is medical assistance in dying. Quebec has a very particular view on this — much more pro-medical assistance in dying than probably the rest of Canada. And there are decisions coming out of Quebec lower courts now about Catholic hospitals seeking exemptions from carrying out or participating in these procedures. And the answer the courts are giving in a lot of cases is no — because your individual conscience rights do not entitle you to disregard the law. The law is the ultimate measure of how we interact with each other in society.
The idea is: if conscience is not your personal subjective thing that you yourself have and that you’re entitled to assert against everybody else, but something that has to be manifested externally and endorsed by some kind of authority — then of course the primary concern is going to be with what the authorities put forward as the proper view of right and wrong. So in the absence of a possible reference to religious authorities to counter the authority of the state, what you’re basically left with is the authority of state officials.
Narration: As Stéphane Sérafin is already noting here, these different religious visions have consequences for political philosophy. John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s theories of the social contract reflect these differences. John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government argues that natural rights come before the political order and remain as a permanent standard and as a principle of protection against arbitrary authority. If the sovereign violates them, citizens have a right to revolt and are no longer bound to the political order. In Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Social Contract, by contrast, once citizens enter the political community, they gain political freedom to orient the general will through democracy — and thus they must also submit to the general will, even if they personally disagree with the decision taken. The general will pursues the common good and comes before individual rights.
Here is Guillaume Lamy.
Guillaume Lamy: I can try to sum this up with two very famous philosophers. In the English — in French we say Anglo-Saxon — the English sphere, we have a very famous philosopher: John Locke, who was maybe one of the first to talk about religious freedom in a meaningful way. He said: faith is so important, we cannot impose it. It belongs to the deep interior of everybody. So we have to accept difference. And from John Locke to John Rawls, we have a complete tree of philosophers who have built up this large philosophy that we talk about nowadays — recognition. We have to base the justice of society in diversity. Social justice will be achieved through diversity.
And in the opposite family, there is another very famous philosopher: Rousseau. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, with his concept of the social contract and civic culture. And in this other tradition, instead of betting on difference, we bet on what is common to everyone. And that’s what I understand about French politics. When you talk about multiculturalism in France, they will say no — because each time we accept to recognize diversity, we fragment the society a little bit more. And from a scientific perspective, nobody can answer that kind of question with certainty. These are schools of thought, and they have a heritage in different parts of the world. And outside of the English world, the French model is being reproduced in Switzerland, the Nordic countries, the Netherlands, Belgium, and also in some cities in Spain — they ban certain types of religious symbols.
Civil Law and Common Law
Narration: After New France fell to the British, the British Parliament promulgated the Quebec Act in 1774. One of the things the Act provided for was the continuation of civil law, which New France had inherited from France. Quebec today continues to use civil law for private law matters. French civil law and British common law have differences that mirror this persistent division between the place of the individual and that of the community — a top-down versus bottom-up approach.
Civil codes contain a comprehensive statement of rules. Many are framed as broad general principles to deal with any dispute that may arise. Unlike common law courts, courts in a civil law system first look to a civil code, then refer to previous decisions to see if they’re consistent. Common law, by contrast, is not written down as legislation. Common law evolved into a system of rules based on precedent. Precedent guides judges in making later decisions in similar cases. The common law is not found in any code or body of legislation, but only in past decisions. At the same time, it is flexible — it adapts to changing circumstances because judges can announce new legal doctrines or change old ones.
Stéphane Sérafin:
Stéphane Sérafin: The French civil code — and the Quebec civil code drawing on the French tradition — is very cognizant of this notion of public order. L’ordre public is the French expression for this. You’ll have all these rules, and it’s pretty explicit in some places in the code: there are rules that the parties — for example in a contract — can decide to exclude as they will. But there are other rules that are of public order. They’re imposed by the state. The state has established certain mandatory rules that apply to all contracts of a particular type, and also to relationships between individuals that are not contractual — what we call in common law terms tort law, or wrongful interactions.
There’s a bigger role for this notion of public order in the way that Quebec civil law conceptualizes the relationship between individuals, even in non-contractual settings. So there’s a general standard of fault that is applied: if I act in a way that is unreasonable, I am at fault. And if I cause an injury to another person in doing so — an injury being understood as a wrongful infringement of their rights — then some compensation is due. And this is all modulated through ideas of public order and the legitimate role of the state in regulating the interaction between individuals.
The common law has this too, but historically it’s kind of underplayed by the idea that the judge is there to give effect to people’s rights once they’ve been infringed. And these rights are not set out explicitly anywhere — that’s another big difference. The code sets out explicitly what rights individuals have. In the common law, you kind of have to figure out what individuals’ rights are based on what the precedent is telling you. If I can successfully claim against somebody in defamation, it must mean, by implication, that I have some kind of right to a reputation. But it’s kind of amorphous. And a cultural attitude that kind of evolves out of this is that people are assumed to be able to do what they want — they have this baseline freedom of action, absent some explicit precedent that constrains it.
Narration: Stéphane Sérafin applied these differences to the Amselem case.
Stéphane Sérafin: The majority in that case adopts what is, I think, a very common-law-centric approach. Religious freedom is presumed to be kind of absolute, subject to the possibility of restricting it for legitimate purposes. And they adopted an approach very similar to the reasonable accommodations framework adopted in human rights law for the employment context. And they found that there were other ways of accommodating the appellants that could have been adopted, rather than just outright banning the erection of booths — or that the alternative that was offered, erecting a common booth for everybody, was not adequate, according to the majority. So very much this idea that you have this essentially unconstrained freedom to do what you want, subject to a narrow possibility of state regulation.
Versus the dissenting judges in that case, who adopted an approach much more consistent with the general philosophy of the Quebec civil code, where — yes, we have freedom of religion, that is an important right — but the right has to be reconciled with the competing rights of everyone else who lives within the condominium complex in question. And it’s the job of the authorities — in this case the condominium board, or the equivalent under the Quebec civil code — to establish reasonable rules that allow everyone to live together in relative harmony, respecting the competing individual rights of everyone involved as best as possible.
And from the dissent’s perspective, the alternative that was offered here was not an unreasonable one. This was a reasonable way of allowing them to exercise their religious freedom, while also being cognizant of the competing rights of others who have to share that space and don’t necessarily share in their religious tradition.
Recognition and Republicanism
Narration: These differences in the place of the state and the individual have consequences for the vision of French republicanism and Anglo-liberalism regarding pluralism. The French model emphasizes assimilation to a common culture and set of rules. The Anglo model emphasizes recognition of particularisms as the way to integrate to the whole.
Earlier in this episode, Guillaume Lamy evoked the Anglo-American philosophy of recognition. Charles Taylor’s essay “The Politics of Recognition” expresses this multiculturalist vision that is dominant in the Anglosphere, which relies on the public recognition of minority groups, not just individuals. He wrote:
“There is a certain way of being human that is my way. I am called upon to live my life in this way and not an imitation of anyone else’s life. But this notion gives a new importance to being true to myself. If I am not, I miss the point of my life. I miss what being human is for me. The thesis is that our identity is partly shaped by recognition or its absence, often by the misrecognition of others. And so a person or group of people can suffer real damage, real distortion, if the people or society around them mirror back to them a confining or demeaning or contemptible picture of themselves. Non-recognition or misrecognition can inflict harm, can be a form of oppression, imprisoning someone in a false, distorted, and reduced mode of being.”
By contrast, Dominique Schnapper, a thinker of French republicanism and citizenship, emphasizes the importance of everyone subscribing to a common culture and common norms without public recognition of minority groups as such. She said: “Any minority status that is recognized runs counter to the principle of democratic equality. French national integration is of a different kind.”
Considering this divide on the importance of public recognition of particularisms for integration, we can understand how these two visions clash over the idea of banning religious symbols for representatives of state authority. The republican vision sees it as a form of neutrality and a way to integrate immigrants to the national culture, while the multiculturalist vision sees it as a form of exclusion.
We asked Guillaume Rousseau to situate the Quebec form of laïcité in relation to the Anglo and the French models.
Jean-Christophe Jasmin: Quebec laïcité seems to come in between these two worlds. So how would you say that it relates to both, and distinguishes itself from both?
Guillaume Rousseau: Yeah, I think you’ve presented it very well, because that’s the way I see it. In terms of what I sometimes call the third way: in the Anglo-American world — and we could make distinctions between the United States, Canada, and Great Britain, it’s not all the same — but if we talk about Canada and the United States, I think it’s influenced by multiculturalism and liberalism and individual rights. That’s pretty much the centre of attention. Whereas in France, it’s also about individual rights, but also about democracy and citizenship.
Dominique Schnapper — a famous sociologist — puts it this way. She says that in the Anglo-American tradition, it’s mostly about individual rights, like being protected from the state. And in the French tradition, it’s mostly about being part of the state. You vote, you protest, you demonstrate, and then you are part of an election as a citizen or as an elected official. And then there’s a law that is adopted that in theory is a limit to your freedom of religion or whatever, but since you’ve been part of the process of adopting this law, it doesn’t impinge on your freedom, because you are part of the democracy that has been at the origin of the norm. So you see that it’s a very different way of seeing citizenship.
And again, I think that in Quebec, we are influenced by both of these civilizations, if I can use that word. So we’re looking for a third way — looking for a balance between these two traditions.
Jean-Christophe Jasmin: Okay, so we talked about how the law recognizes or confers collective rights to the Quebec nation. Now, what is the Quebec nation? Is it an ethnic group? Do we mean French Canadians or descendants of the first French Canadians? Are English Quebecers part of the Quebec nation? Are Muslims part of the Quebec nation? What is the Quebec nation according to this law?
Guillaume Rousseau: I know that this perception exists and I respect it. But I think it’s pretty clear for those who adopted the law, for the National Assembly — the nation of Quebec is everybody living in Quebec who has the right to vote. Basically. So it’s anybody who has Canadian citizenship and has been in Quebec for six months or something like that, who has the right to vote.
At the same time, Bill 21 also refers to history and culture and language. I think we need to move forward from the dichotomy of ethnic nations versus civic nations — that you must choose whether you’re only a French-Canadian nation with no place for immigrants or English-speaking people, or you are a civic nation where it’s not about language, not about culture, just the Quebec Charter of Human Rights. That’s not it. These two notions, I think, are artificial — they’re not relevant anymore. Maybe they were in the past, for the notion of an ethnic French-Canadian nation, a century ago. It’s not nowadays.
So I think that Michel Seymour’s notion of a sociopolitical nation is pretty wise and fits well in the case of Quebec. It’s basically saying that there is a Quebec nation, and the reason there is a Quebec nation is because of the French language. There’s no Ontarian nation, there’s no New Brunswick nation — so why do we call our province a nation? Because of the French language. But that doesn’t mean that it excludes Anglophone citizens. What we’re saying is that French is not the only language in Quebec — it’s the common language, meaning that it’s the only language the school system will make sure you learn, whether you’re going to French school or English school. And if you’re coming as an immigrant, you have the right to learn French and we’ll make sure that you have the opportunity to learn French. And of course people can learn English in school or in different ways, but it’s not the focus of the state.
And then there’s culture that comes with language and history that is different — Quebec’s history is different from those of other provinces. We take that into account, but at the same time, we say: at the end of the day, the National Assembly represents all those who have the right to vote in Quebec. And it’s in continuity with Rousseau, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s view of the body politic.
Jean-Christophe Jasmin: Exactly. So it’s a political nation, but not only abstract.
Guillaume Rousseau: Right. There’s more than that. That’s the basis of it. But then we take into account the sociological reality that there is a French-speaking majority, and that means something. And then there’s a link between the two — meaning that okay, the nation is everyone who has the right to vote, but then if you really want your vote to be meaningful, you need to master some French. Because if you only read The Gazette, maybe you’re not going to get all the information you need to really vote as an informed citizen. So it’s both political and sociological, and we need not to oppose those two but to see that they’re logical and that they reinforce each other.
Parliamentary Sovereignty and Judicial Review
Narration: When Bill 21 was signed into law, the Quebec government decided to use section 33 of the Canadian Constitution to protect the bill from judicial review. This ignited another debate on the use of the so-called Notwithstanding Clause.
Section 33 of the Constitution states that Parliament or the legislature of a province may expressly declare in an Act of Parliament or of the legislature, as the case may be, that the act or a provision thereof shall operate notwithstanding a provision included in section 2 or sections 7 to 15 of this Charter. And this declaration must be renewed every five years to be operational.
Section 33 has its supporters and detractors. Quebec sees the use of section 33 as especially legitimate because it did not sign the 1982 constitution put forward by Prime Minister Trudeau and still sees the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as detrimental to its autonomy. The Notwithstanding Clause thus appears as a last resort to protect the general will of Quebecers from the decision of majority English Canadian judges.
Since 1982 in Quebec, the clause has been used to shield laws related to national identity — namely those protecting French and establishing laïcité — but also laws promoting access to justice, treating prisoners fairly in the parole process, or advancing affirmative action.
Ultimately, the debate around the use of section 33 raises the question of who decides in a parliamentary democracy such as ours. In this respect, the debate does not oppose the French and Anglo models, but rather the British principle of parliamentary sovereignty and the American tradition of judicial review.
The British principle of parliamentary sovereignty makes Parliament the supreme legal authority, which can create or end any law. Generally, the courts cannot overrule its legislation, and no Parliament can pass laws that future Parliaments cannot change. American judicial review, by contrast, enshrines the ability of the court to declare a legislative or executive act in violation of the Constitution. Since Article 6 of the Constitution establishes the Constitution as the supreme law of the land, the court has the final say over when a right is protected by the Constitution or when a constitutional right is violated.
In the Canadian Constitution of 1867, Canada adopted the British model of parliamentary sovereignty. The Supreme Court played only a very limited role, settling jurisdictional disputes between the federal government and the provinces. In 1982, by introducing the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Pierre Trudeau shifted the country towards an American-style system of judicial review. With the inclusion of section 33 in the Charter, Canada now has a hybrid model, since judicial review can occur but Parliament can also reaffirm its sovereignty.
We can thus see that the debate over Bill 21 and the use of section 33 to protect parliamentary sovereignty and provincial autonomy is not a debate that affects Quebec only. The Supreme Court will render its judgment before the end of 2026, and it will have consequences for the entire Canadian political system.
Here again is Stéphane Sérafin.
Stéphane Sérafin: It is the British parliamentary tradition, because that is the tradition that Quebec actually has — the Quebec National Assembly is governed by effectively a modified version of English parliamentary tradition. That said, I don’t know that that’s necessarily what’s being appealed to here. You need to understand that it’s called the National Assembly — l’Assemblée Nationale — because it’s understood primarily as the vehicle for the will — you referenced Rousseau earlier — the general will of the Quebec people. And it’s no coincidence that the primary legislative assembly in France is also called l’Assemblée Nationale. That was a deliberate choice taken up at the beginning of the French Revolution. The story is that the tiers-état, the third estate, proclaimed itself l’Assemblée Nationale as the embodiment of the will of the people in the Rousseauian sense — quite explicitly in that case.
And so that’s probably primarily what’s being appealed to. The Notwithstanding Clause is interesting in this context, because it was negotiated as a compromise by certain provincial premiers — most notably the premiers of Alberta and Saskatchewan — who really wanted this in there as a kind of condition of going along with the broader Charter project. What it was supposed to do was allow Canada to have a compromise between the UK system of full parliamentary sovereignty and the American model of rights review.
Now, Quebec is interesting. Because, as you mentioned, Quebec did not actually sign on to this compromise. Famously, René Lévesque was kind of betrayed at the last minute, and all the other nine premiers went along with the deal, but he did not. So Quebec never signed on to the Constitution. Strictly from a legal perspective, the argument has always been — well, it doesn’t matter, Quebec is still bound by it. But it has given the use of section 33 an extra legitimacy in Quebec. Politicians from all political parties — whether Federalists, Sovereignists, or nationalists of the CAQ disposition — have all felt that they can use it. And if we’re going to be saddled with this, we’re at least going to use the tool it gives us to restrict what judges can do under it. I think that’s the logic behind that.
Narration: Charles Taylor does not support legislatures making pre-emptive use of the Notwithstanding Clause.
Charles Taylor: So they not only invoked the Notwithstanding Clause, but they invoked it pre-emptively. Yes. They’re terrified. And if I had anything to propose, it would be that we forbid — what do you call it — overriding secretly. You have to allow, of course, the legislature to decide. And then if you want to exercise the override having seen the court’s decision, you go ahead and exercise it. But there should be a political cost, in a sense.
The justification in terms of the whole rights tradition — in this case the Anglophone rights tradition — is that every citizen has the right to know whether this invocation is really violating the Charter or not. And there’s an attempt here to do something more than just override — there’s an attempt to keep people in the dark about that.
The Future
Narration: As we have seen, the debate on secularism that has been ongoing in Quebec for twenty years is not without consequences for Canada. Constitutional issues like provincial autonomy and parliamentary sovereignty are at stake, but so is the model of integration that the country wishes to follow in the future. Since October 7, 2023, the rise of antisemitism and interfaith tensions have brought the issue of coexistence between different religious and cultural groups back to the forefront, along with the role that the state should play in maintaining public order.
When asked in a poll, 46% of Canadians from coast to coast said they supported Bill 21. It is therefore wrong and simplistic to interpret this as a clash between the values of Quebec and Canada as if they were two monolithic blocs. As in many areas, it is therefore possible that this debate, which began in Quebec, will one day spread to English Canada. It will be all the more important to understand the philosophical, historical, and political underpinnings of the debate on laïcité in order to address this issue in the future.
Stéphane Sérafin:
Stéphane Sérafin: What people need to understand is that Quebec’s Bill 21 — the act respecting laïcité of the state — is not just a law. It is a law that is understood to reflect certain fundamental Quebec values that are distinct from the values of the rest of Canada. All the things that are cited in that preamble, even the civil law tradition — we’ve talked about this earlier — the way that the civil law tradition conceives of the role of the state in mediating rights even between persons. This is primarily what the dispute is about. It’s fundamentally not a question of constitutional law in the strict sense, but really: how do you reconcile pluralism — different people with different values living in the same space?
So Quebec has a distinct answer to this, in line with its civil law tradition and in line also with its particular, historical relationship to religion. Religion and the state were intertwined — so to become secular, in this conception of things, is not to give pride of place to individual ways of practising religion. To be secular means to free the state from religious influence actively.
With regard to legislation or regulation that tells people — here’s who we are as a nation, here are our values — we require that you, at least in the public sphere, embody those things or comply with them.
Jean-Christophe Jasmin: Do you think Quebec is on its own path in this regard? Or do you think it’s a forerunner — that the rest of Canada will reach that point as well?
Stéphane Sérafin: I think that for all sorts of reasons, people in the rest of Canada have wanted to ignore these conversations. And we can understand why — they’re difficult conversations to have. How does one, especially with extreme levels of pluralism like we have now in Canada, even begin to grapple with the idea of a shared common culture?
That said, I don’t think the particular answers that Quebec has given to this are going to necessarily be emulated elsewhere. If you see other parts of the country adopting restrictions on what can be worn by public office holders, it’s going to be on much more pragmatic grounds than Quebec has used. Is this something that is impacting people’s ability to actually do their job in a practical way? And if so, then maybe we can legitimately restrict people’s wearing of these symbols. Otherwise, doing it on high-principle grounds — in the way that we’re seeing in Quebec — I don’t think the rest of the country is necessarily going to follow that approach.
Jean-Christophe Jasmin: Which raises the question, what is the job?
Stéphane Sérafin: It does. Well, that’s another thing too. So what is the job of a police officer?
Narration: As we bring this podcast to a close, we want to leave you with the following final comments. First, from David Koussens.
David Koussens: Quebec adopted in 2019 this law on secularism of the state. But the state in 2018 was already a secular state. So the first thing is that we have to understand that the government didn’t do secularism in 2019. It did something else. It promoted a specific secular arrangement that limits the freedom of religion of certain people — civil servants who work for the province of Quebec.
Because when we observe what’s done with this law — is there a high level of neutrality of the state? No. Because the law was adopted on the premise that some religious groups, persons who have visible practices, cannot be neutral in their action when they serve the state. Is it a high level of guarantee of freedom of religion? No, it’s not, because we limit the expression of certain religious practices. Is it a high level of equality between conceptions of the good? No, it’s not, because again, some groups are discriminated against. So it’s a secularism that does not correspond to what we should expect from a secular state: neutrality, separation, guarantee of freedom of religion, and equality.
We have to continue to defend secularism — but secularism in what is beautiful in secularism: the guarantee of freedom of conscience, and what defines liberal democracies that now are, very sadly, attacked by the growth of populism, fear of immigrants, and hostility to religious minorities. And we have to be aware that secularism shouldn’t be manipulated, as it is now, by populist movements.
Narration: Charles Taylor:
Charles Taylor: Everything is connected. And the fact that the constitutional repatriation was, in a sense, botched maybe brought us into this, because you can see that Trudeau, in his haste to get his constitutional plan through, left us a very difficult legacy. An unsolvable legacy, in a sense. So there’s a kind of bleeding sore here.
Now, why am I not completely depressed? Well, because I note with younger people that they are in another mindset. And for a lot of them — this is true in the States as well as here — the diversity of society is a kind of richness that they have experienced.
Jean-Christophe Jasmin: And I put myself in the shoes of an immigrant reading Le Journal de Montréal. And there’s this perpetuation of the two solitudes that is very sad. It seems so hard to get rid of.
And I grew up in the West Island, part of — you know — those French Canadian families who were farmers in the West Island of Montreal, who saw this first wave of not only immigration but anglicized immigration. And I was young in the nineties, so I saw a lot of anti-Quebec racism firsthand. And then the reaction of Quebecers — you know, you answer racism with racism. And it was my Christian conversion that basically forced me to reassess my relationship with the other, under a Christian framework saying: I cannot hate my neighbour. I have to forgive and talk. But if it hadn’t been for this religious conviction that I cannot be that kind of nationalist, I think I would still be very — but the insight that comes from this is that the aggressors had done a lot to create this problem.
Charles Taylor: Yes, yes.
Jean-Christophe Jasmin: One of the things that shocks me the most — not shocks in the sense of disgust, but it’s surprising — is how much English Canadians don’t seem to realize that they’re part of a cultural hegemon. Like, the Anglo-American culture is dominating the world, and it comes with a lot of cultural luxury in a sense. You have immigrants coming here, but they already listen to your music, they’re familiar with the legal system because they watch CSI and Law & Order, so sooner or later they will assimilate, or their children will.
Whereas Quebec has the perception that its survival has been a miracle. It shouldn’t have happened. There were more French speakers in New England than in Quebec at the Conquest — French Protestant Huguenots in New England — and you don’t hear about them anymore. So in my mind, it’s sad — because I think that if it were not for this existential threat, we’d have a much more mature relationship with immigration. We’d have the same problems as every culture, but not this particular version.
And same thing with religion. My hypothesis is that every nation needs a foundational myth, and Quebec’s story is unfortunately a history of survival and loss. And the whole Quiet Revolution discourse was maybe a coping mechanism — we couldn’t get independence from Canada, but at least we got it from the Catholic Church. There’s some of the national founding history in that. And now it feeds the entire religious sentiment, artificially, in a sense.
Narration: Guillaume Lamy:
Guillaume Lamy: Western countries are trying to build a new form of integration of diversity — a supra or meta-politics. Banning headscarves or public prayers won’t do that much to integrate diversity. Banning is not a strategy. In the past, in the 1970s, Quebec passed a very famous and powerful law — Bill 101 — that required the children of immigrants to attend French schools. This is integration. This will have an effective impact on social cohesion, because the kids will be raised in French and they will use French as their everyday currency to talk with others. But when we ban religious symbols, what’s the ingredient that will work in integration and inclusion of diversity? We are just banning things. So it helps parties stay in power, make gains from an electoral point of view, but it won’t deliver anything to build a common sense of citizenship.
We don’t want a faceless society. Religion is part of the societal and national fabric, and it’s not going anywhere. Religion is here. Religion will adapt. It will modify itself. We have churches where leaders are from the LGBTQ community — something we did not think of just twenty-five or thirty years ago. We have three mosques now where the imams are from the LGBTQ community, even within Islam. So religion will adapt, change, modify itself. But it’s here to stay, in one way or another.
Narration: And Xavier Gélinas:
Xavier Gélinas: The situation in Quebec in terms of its own self-identity and its constitutional future seems to have been settled, but for most Quebec nationalists, it’s unsettled and it is worrying. Sovereignty has not been gained, and the enshrining of the famous distinct society has not occurred. They see the federal government as almost every week trampling into Quebec provincial jurisdiction. Therefore, these nationalist Quebecers — whether they are still exponents of federalism or whether they are Sovereignists — want to strengthen what they deem to be the Quebec nation or Quebec identity.
Language is one of the tools they use, stronger control of immigration is one of the tools they use, and laïcité or secularization is also one of the tools they use. It can be said that laïcité is therefore both viewed as a desirable end in itself and as one of the compensatory tools for the uncertain status of Quebec.
There is a general valuing today of the fact that there is not one single way of apprehending things, and that in the interest of coexistence and civility and being part of the brotherhood and sisterhood of Canada, we should accommodate some differences whenever possible — understanding and acknowledging that one has the right to be wrong from time to time, and also acknowledging that one has the right to change views over the course of time due to new knowledge or further introspection and reflection.
Let’s please keep in mind that decent, well-educated, well-travelled people who have thought about these matters for decades with the same level of certainty and rigour and scholarship come with different approaches to regulate or orchestrate the relationship between faith and the state. The Quebec model is largely inspired by the French continental model, and also from many other European continental models. It may be an imperfect model. It may not be the best. But it’s certainly one model deemed legitimate by millions — if not hundreds of millions — of well-informed, generally decent societies. It’s important to keep this in mind. We may well debate it, but it’s important to respect its legitimacy. It will help so much, having a fruitful exchange of views. I truly believe that.
