(Canadian Press) Premier François Legault said Friday a school board in western Quebec should never have hired a woman who had to be removed from her teaching duties because she wears a hijab.
Legault said the province’s law restricting religious symbols, known as Bill 21, has been in place for more than two years and the Western Quebec School Board should have respected it. “The school board should have not hired this person in the first place, given Bill 21,” he said at a news conference in Quebec City.
It emerged this week that a Grade 3 teacher at Chelsea Elementary School, just north of Gatineau, Que., had recently been reassigned to duties outside the classroom because of her hijab. Parents were informed the teacher, Fatemeh Anvari, would take on a literacy project for all students that “will target inclusion and awareness of diversity.”
