MONTREAL — The Quebec government is planning to expand the province’s ban on religious symbols to everyone who interacts with students in an effort to reinforce secularism in schools.
A bill tabled Thursday would prohibit anyone who works in a school or on school property from wearing a religious symbol — including a hijab or a turban — on the job. It would also forbid students and staff from covering their faces.
The proposed law would be a significant expansion of the province's existing secularism rules, and comes after a controversy over allegations of religious practices appearing in certain Quebec public schools. Education Minister Bernard Drainville has been promising for months to introduce new legislation to fight the spectre of religious influence in schools.
"I'm aware that this bill will cause disruption," he told reporters during a news conference in Quebec City on Thursday. "But honestly, we can't just sit back and do nothing."
Quebec's existing secularism law, known as Bill 21, bans the wearing of religious symbols only for public employees deemed to be in positions of authority, including teachers, judges and police officers. The new bill would update the province's Education Act to apply the ban to all public school staff, including daycare workers, school psychologists and cafeteria workers.
The ban would also extend to people who are not school employees but who regularly offer services to students, such as volunteers at a school library. It would not apply to bus drivers, and like Bill 21, it includes a grandfather clause for people who are already employed.
“Any adult can be a figure of authority, and therefore no adults who are working within the school system should be allowed to wear a religious symbol," Drainville said.
In addition, the bill would forbid students and staff in public and private schools from wearing full face coverings. "It's a question of principle," Drainville said. "In Quebec, we cannot accept that students have their faces covered in a classroom."
Quebec's Coalition Avenir Quebec government is responding to a flurry of concern over possible religious influence in Quebec schools, which began last October when it published the results of an investigation of Montreal's Bedford elementary school. The report detailed how a group of teachers, many of North African descent, had imposed autocratic rule at the school, including by yelling at and humiliating students. Subjects such as science and sex education were either ignored or barely taught, and girls were prevented from playing soccer.
Premier François Legault dubbed the Bedford affair an attempt to "introduce Islamist religious concepts into a public school."
The province subsequently launched an investigation of more than a dozen other schools over claims they were breaking secularism rules. Auditors found only one violation of Quebec's secularism law, but noted other practices the government found troubling, including the fact that daycare workers and other staff were still permitted to wear religious symbols.
The decision to pass a law preventing students from wearing face coverings appears to stem from reports gathered during the investigation about a handful of students at one school who were partially or fully covering their faces.
Drainville brushed off a question about whether the bill is an overreaction, calling the ban on face coverings a preventive measure. "We do not want this practice of the full veil to spread to other schools," he said.
The government has invoked the notwithstanding clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to shield the bill from constitutional challenges, as it did with Bill 21. In January, the Supreme Court of Canada agreed to hear an appeal of Bill 21 from several groups who oppose the law and the pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause. The federal government has filed a notice to intervene in that case.
The legislation would also require schools to evaluate teachers annually. In response to the Bedford affair, independent advisers last month recommended teachers be evaluated every two years.
The bill would further expand the requirement for employees at French-language schools to speak only in French with students and staff, after teachers at Bedford and other schools were reported to be speaking in other languages.
It would also tighten rules around religious accommodations to ensure, for example, that the number of teachers absent for religious holidays does not compromise the quality of education.
Quebec is contemplating further measures to strengthen secularism across the province. Earlier this month, the government announced a new committee to "document the phenomenon of infiltration of religious influences" in all public institutions.
The committee will also look at what can be done to prevent people from praying in public streets and parks, including during protests — something Legault has said he wants to ban.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 20, 2025.
— With files from Caroline Plante in Quebec City
Maura Forrest, The Canadian Press
