Sure, the leaders of Canada’s federal political parties didn’t have much to say during the election campaign when reporters asked what they planned to do about Quebec’s Bill 21. The law, which prohibits public servants in the province from wearing religious headgear and other symbols, is so popular politicians are reluctant to challenge it directly.
This is all a handy reminder that history sometimes rests on unsteady shoulders. But the Quebec government is allowing the board to proceed with its Bill 21 challenge, which these days is just about the most popular thing the EMSB does. “When you tell a student that a teacher can’t wear her veil, or his kippa because it’s wrong, it’s almost like you’re telling them that when they wear those religious symbols, it’s a wrong thing. So we risk having a generation of students grow up thinking, if you wear a religious symbol, there’s almost something wrong with it,” she said.
In January the majority on the board voted to cut Mancini’s pay from $38,000 to $10,000 after she missed a series of events in preceding months. She is unapologetic. “I’ve gone on record as saying I feel intimidated and harassed by certain members of the board,” she told Maclean’s. The board’s lawyers, Perri Ravon, Mark Power and Giacomo Zucchi, face a substantial obstacle: the law invokes the controversial “notwithstanding” clause of the 1982 Charter of Rights to affirm its effect despite the protections of Sections 2 and 7 through 15 of the Charter. Those are all the big Charter rights. Section 2 lists “fundamental freedoms” including freedom of conscience and religion, thought, belief, opinion and expression, and free association.
Ravon and her colleagues point out that 88 per cent of preschool and elementary teachers in the EMSB are women and that 53 per cent of all Muslim women in Canada, according to some public-opinion surveys, wear headgear.
Can the EMSB’s challenge to Bill 21 continue past the legal demise of the board that launched it? “Short answer: We don’t know,” an EMSB spokesman said when I asked.
Quebec is a strong province filled with proud French people and others who are proud of their roots too. Bill 21 is out of keeping with strength, pride and multicultural society. It's a bill for fearful, weak people and that's not the Quebecers I know.
Law Law Latest News, Law Law Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: VancouverSun - 🏆 49. / 61 Read more »