The long-running debate in Quebec about the wearing of religious symbols while in positions of authority is intensifying once again, this time because of a Muslim teen who wants to become a police officer.
The teen, 17-year-old Sondos Lamrhari, told the Journal de Montreal newspaper that she hopes to wear her hijab while on duty – just as police officers in the rest of Canada are able to do.
Quebec’s Justice Minister Stephanie Vallee told reporters she applauded Lamrhari’s career choice, noting there is not enough diversity nor women in policing.
But, for the opposition Parti Quebecois and Coalition Avenir Quebec parties, religious head coverings have no place in a police uniform.
CAQ member Genevieve Guilbault told reporters on Thursday, her party strongly believes that no one in a position of power or who is representing the state should be allowed to wear religious symbols, such as veils.
Agnes Maltais, the PQ’s secularism critic, agrees and says when people approach a police officer, they should only see an “official of neutrality,” she said.
“Welcome to women, [and] welcome to people from elsewhere – but everybody must play by the same rules,” she told CTV Montreal.
Vallee says that kind of talk amounts to discrimination. She says it seems to her the opposition parties are sending the message that people like Lamrhari cannot feel welcome in Quebec.
The religious neutrality issue also became heated during question period in the National Assembly in Quebec City on Thursday. The Speaker asked PQ Leader Jean-Francois Lisee to remove a PQ pin from his jacket, noting that partisan symbols are against the rules of the assembly.
Lisee pointed out that Liberal MNA David Birnbaum wore a kippah, a Jewish head covering, in the legislature on Wednesday.
“There shouldn't be a hierarchy between some convictions and others,” he said. “The premier seems to be fine with the hierarchy where religious convictions are more important and have more rights than non-religious convictions.”
Birnbaum, who had worn the kippah to commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day, said he was surprised at being called out.
“I have to tell you, I and my colleagues were -- and I think most Quebecers would be -- rather surprised that he would equate a political logo with a symbol of the Jewish people with 4,000 years of history.”
Earlier this week, a 44-year-old Muslim mother of three who wears a hijab, Eve Torres, announced she was seeking to run in the provincial election as a member of Quebec Solidaire -- the legislature's most left-leaning party. That would make her the first woman who wears a hijab to run in a Quebec provincial election.
Amid renewed anger over the issue of the wearing of religious symbols, it appears headed to once again play a role in the election, still six months away.
With a report from CTV Montreal’s Maya Johnson
