The Quebec government plans to enact a series of measures expanding its secularism rules across public institutions, including a ban on prayer rooms in universities and CEGEPs and restricting the offering of religion-based meals.
Radio-Canada confirmed the contents of the province’s new bill, expected to be tabled Thursday, as first reported by TVA and the Le Journal de Montréal.
The government is looking to ban religious symbols in communications by public institutions.
The bill also seeks to ban public institutions from offering a diet exclusively based on a religious tradition and it will expand the requirement to have faces uncovered throughout the public and subsidized daycare system.
The government also wants a ban on religious practices in all public institutions, including prayer rooms in universities and CEGEPs, with some exceptions for residential settings.
The bill would also prohibit public prayer, with exceptions provided under certain conditions.
Bill 21, passed by the Quebec government in 2019, is a law that enforces state secularism by prohibiting certain public employees from wearing religious symbols while at work.
The law applies to teachers, police officers, judges and others in positions of authority. It covers items such as hijabs, kippahs, turbans and crosses. The law also bars people in these positions from wearing face coverings that conceal their identity, with exceptions for medical reasons.
The Quebec government adopted Bill 94 in October extending the province’s ban on religious symbols to everyone who interacts with students in schools. The law also prohibits students from wearing face coverings.
The new bill, expected to be tabled Thursday, also looks to ban the wearing of religious symbols by staff members of public and subsidized daycare centres, with some exceptions.
Back in August, a committee recommended 50 changes to the law aimed at strengthening secularism in the province.
