Quebec’s Act Respecting the Laicity of the State and the Demise of Religion: Scandal or Trial?

Abstract

On June 16, 2019, Quebec’s National Assembly voted and adopted an Act respecting the laicity of the State, which prohibits a wide variety of government and civil officials, including public school teachers, from wearing religious symbols at work. The act also establishes laïcité as a fundamental principle superseding the exercise of certain rights and freedoms and prevailing over the provisions of any subsequent law. The proposed bill was debated heatedly in Quebec and encountered stiff opposition in the rest of Canada. This article analyzes five factors that were interwoven in the debate: identity, modernity, demise of religion, laïcité activism, and gender equality. The act reflects the difficult journey of a society trying to enforce and protect its unique cultural, social, and political profile within an overwhelmingly English-speaking and multicultural continent. However, the debate and the act itself reveal modern assumptions shared by both the proponents and the opponents regarding the private nature of religious beliefs and practices. From a theological perspective, the article argues that a post-secular approach to contemporary politics would be better suited to a society that, like many others, is facing major local and global issues. Such an approach would entail the possibility for religions and other symbolic sources of meaning to contribute to public debates. Jürgen Habermas and others have defined conditions for the implementation of this approach and called for a “complementary learning process.” The opponents to Quebec’s laïcité act and advocates for religion should see beyond scandal and understand this event as a trial proving religion’s capacity to make positive and fruitful contributions to public life.