(National Post) Quebec’s newly tabled law, “An Act respecting the laicity of the State,” will be sent to committee for study, and with the help of the notwithstanding clause, will pass as written. The new law prohibits all government employees in positions of authority — judges, police, educators in elementary and high school (plus anyone carrying a weapon, such as wildlife officers) — from wearing face coverings or visible religious symbols.
Opponents of the law, who include virtually all my anglophone colleagues, lean heavily on “human rights” and “freedom of religious expression” to defend their stance. But when group rights in a democracy collide, only one side can win.
The issue of face cover, for example, has been wrestled with for years in various European countries such as the Netherlands, Germany, the U.K., Denmark and Austria, in which the custom has proliferated in Muslim enclaves to the point of social divisiveness.
