Sabaah Khan started volunteering in the library of the elementary school her four children attend on Montreal’s South Shore eight years ago, when there was a shortage of parent volunteers.
“There wasn’t anybody available to come in and open the library, and I didn’t want to deprive the kids of that. So I stepped up,” Khan said.
She’s been happily volunteering there ever since, cleaning and cataloguing books, making recommendations and reading to students.
But in January, the Riverside School Board sent an email to all parents, including Khan, that changed everything.
“As a public school board, we are required to comply with Law 29 (Bill 94), which reinforces the principle of secularism in Quebec, namely when it comes to the display of religious symbols,” the email said.
It meant Khan, who wears a hijab, would no longer be welcome at the school library, or be allowed to drive students to basketball tournaments as she has been doing, or to volunteer in any other way at the school.
“After years of doing that, I’m being told not to come in. That was very, very hurtful. I felt really bad,” she said.
“Insisting on the removal of religious attire, it violates my rights, my right to practise my faith, which is considered an essential part of my identity.”
In a statement to CBC, the school board said it was implementing the law with professionalism and care, and trying to ensure its schools continue to be welcoming environments for students and their families.
The province’s secularism law Bill 21 will go before the Supreme Court of Canada on March 23. Although some legal experts say it’s unlikely, there’s a chance the court overturns the law. Many Quebecers who wear religious symbols and have been living with the effects of the law will be watching closely.
Beyond Bill 21
Bill 94 is an offshoot of Quebec’s original secularism law, Bill 21, which is being challenged before the Supreme Court of Canada next month.
Bill 21 prevents some civil servants, most notably teachers, from wearing religious symbols at work.
Bill 94, adopted last fall, introduced a whole new swath of measures targeting schools: the religious symbols ban is now extended to cover all school employees, students are prohibited from wearing face coverings, and the ban on religious symbols now also applies to parent volunteers at schools.
“In Quebec, we made the decision that the state and religion are separate. And today we say the public schools are separate from religion,” former education minister Bernard Drainville said when tabling Bill 94 last March.
The effects of the bill are starting to be felt now, and not just by parent volunteers such as Khan.
Dozens of school staffers, mostly lunch and after school monitors, have either been fired, suspended, or decided to resign because they don’t want to comply with the law and remove their religious symbols at work.
There’s another, even tighter secularism law on the way.
Bill 9, currently being studied by a National Assembly committee, would bar subsidized daycare and private school workers from wearing religious symbols, ban prayer spaces, restrict kosher and halal foods in public institutions, and limit groups praying in public.
The Bill 21 case will have an impact on Bill 94 and Bill 9, and other legislation in Quebec where the province has pre-emptively invoked the constitutional notwithstanding clause to suspend Charter rights.
The top court will hear from Quebec’s attorney general, teachers and religious and civil rights groups challenging the law, from five other provinces and the federal government, and dozens of other groups and individuals intervening in the case.
The arguments before the Supreme Court begin March 23.
Across the province, teachers, other school staffers, and parent volunteers who wear religious symbols are anxiously waiting to see if the court might overturn Bill 21 and the other secularism laws that have upended their lives.
‘They look at what’s on your head,’ not in it, teacher says
Bill 21 was adopted in 2019, the same day Amrit Kaur graduated from the University of Ottawa with a bachelor’s degree in education.
“That was the first time I felt alienated because of my appearance,” Kaur said of the law.
Kaur, who is Sikh and wears a turban, grew up in Quebec, was educated in Quebec, and hoped to have a long teaching career in the province.
“I had to put my career aspirations in Quebec on a pause and go to B.C. so I could practise and be a teacher,” Kaur said.
“Had it not been for this bill, I think I would have been a contributing member to Quebec society.”
Bill 21 includes an acquired rights clause, so teachers who wear religious symbols and were already employed when the bill was tabled could continue to work. Only new hires would have to remove religious symbols in order to work in public schools.
But even teachers with acquired rights have seen their careers limited. Under the law, they can’t change jobs or get a promotion unless they agree to remove religious symbols.
That has stalled the career of Montreal English teacher Bouchera Chelbi, who wears a hijab.
“They don’t look at what’s in your head, they look at what’s on your head,” Chelbi said.
“I wanted to go back to university and study to be a principal. But this limits my freedom of choice. I can only be a teacher until I retire.”
Parent volunteers turned away
Unlike teachers affected by Bill 21 and other school staff affected by Bill 94, parent volunteers such as Khan who wear religious symbols are not protected by an acquired rights clause.
Many have been receiving the news over the last couple of months that they can no longer volunteer unless they remove their religious symbols.
Asma Qureshi, who wears a hijab, has volunteered in various capacities for seven years at the same school Khan’s children attend, including this year helping to organize a lunch for her daughter’s graduating class.
She and her husband, who owns a restaurant, are donating all the food.
“One of the things that hit me hard is that when I asked if I could participate in that event and be there to distribute the food, I was told I couldn’t because of my hijab,” Qureshi said, adding she’s feeling a mixture of hurt, sadness, anger and shock.
“There are times where I have to battle with this feeling of being a second-class citizen, when I know I’m not.”
Pavandeep Magon, who wears a turban, has volunteered at his children’s elementary school, also on the South Shore, setting up a stage for events and tying skates at a winter carnival.
Magon said it’s insulting to be told he can’t do that anymore. He said volunteering is part of his faith and his identity.
“It’s our job to go there and help out as Sikhs. That’s why we wear the turban,” Magon said.
Quebec’s Bill 21 bans religious symbols for some civil servants. Now, the legal battle has shifted from the ban itself to whether the province overstepped by invoking the notwithstanding clause in the text of the law, to bypass Charter rights.
Khan said wearing her hijab in the school makes Muslim students feel more welcome.
“Sometimes they would see me and they would say, like, ‘I’m Muslim too, did you know?’” she said.
“I feel like they would see me and feel safe.”
Confusion and worry
As with many of the Coalition Avenir Québec’s secularism laws, there’s been a lot of confusion about how Bill 94 is supposed to be applied and what the limits are, which only heightens anxiety among parent volunteers.
Khan said when she recently attended one of her children’s basketball games at school, organizers wondered whether she was there as a volunteer or a spectator, and weren’t sure what to do.
“I ended up showing them the text of the law on my phone and telling them ‘Look, it doesn’t affect spectators,’” she said.
“It did kind of leave me sitting there thinking at each game after that, is somebody going to make me feel not welcome, or will I have to leave?” she said.
During a recent snowstorm, Magon saw an elderly woman parked across the street from his children’s school whose car was stuck in the snow.
“My first gut instinct, you know, knee-jerk reaction, is to go out and help,” he said.
“And I’m sitting there going, ‘Well, am I allowed to? Is this considered volunteering if I go and push a car out of the snow? Like, are the cops going to come and arrest me?’” he said.
Fighting back
Teachers and parents are fighting back against secularism laws as best they can. Chelbi and Kaur are part of the court challenge to Bill 21 and will be watching the Supreme Court hearings closely.
Kaur has a three-month-old baby boy, and said he’s part of her motivation for continuing the fight.
“I would never want him to be disbarred from a job or studying something or any position in society just because of the way he looks,” Kaur said.
Chelbi accepts that even if the court overturns the law, it may be too late for her to fulfil her dream of becoming a principal.
“I’m at the end of my career, but I think it’s important that I do it for the next generation,” she said.
The parent volunteers who’ve recently been banned from volunteering are also starting to speak out, and hoping the court and politicians listen.
“I feel like it’s an uphill battle, but I don’t want to give in to defeat and I don’t want to give in to despair. I think this is a wake up call and that we need to start mobilizing,” Qureshi said.
Khan is also hoping for change.
“I really hope that our government will realize that, you know, we are also a part of Quebec and that this does a lot of damage to the community, which is all of us as well,” she said.
