(Canadian Press) Opponents of Quebec’s secularism law introduced a new legal argument in Appeal Court Tuesday, saying that Bill 21 disproportionately affects women and therefore violates the Constitution.
Lawyer Olga Redko argued Bill 21 violates the sexual equality guarantees in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms — which are not shielded by the notwithstanding clause that the province has invoked to avoid court challenges.
Virtually all the people affected by the law so far are women teachers who can’t find work because they wear the Islamic head scarf, Redko told the three-judge Quebec Court of Appeal panel. “This law was applied … and the impact is overwhelmingly — if not exclusively — on women.”
