A union representing Quebec's teachers have launched a legal challenge ahead of the religious symbols bill set to be tabled by the CAQ government on Thursday.

A lawyer for the Federation autonome de l'enseignement, a union representing 43,000 teachers across the province, filed the paperwork in Quebec superior court Tuesday morning.

The challenge relates to a survey sent by the CAQ to schools asking questions about staff wearing religious attire: for example, how many teachers wear religious symbols and whether it was causing tension in the school environment.

At the time, the CAQ claimed the previous Liberal government had sent out a survey of their own, asking the same kinds of questions as early as 2016. Former Liberal education minister Sebastien Proulx denied it, saying he never gave the surveys the green light, instead claiming civil servants from the ministry sent them out without his knowledge.

The teachers’ union is now pointing to both the Legault and Couillard governments, saying that type of survey should be declared unconstitutional because it denies the fundamental rights of its members.

“We ask the court to strike it down; we ask that these requests be declared unconstitutional, that they are annulled or cancelled by the court, and finally that all the information that was gathered be destroyed,” explained lawyer Remi Bourget. “And finally, we’re asking that a permanent injunction be admitted so that they can't ask the same request in the future.

The CAQ government said it plans to prohibit some public sector workers, including teachers, judges police officers and prison guards, from wearing conspicuous religious symbols on the job.

Philippe-Andre Tessier, the head of the provincial human rights commission, told La Presse Tuesday he opposes the use of the so-called notwithstanding clause to block judicial challenges to the bill.

The newspaper reported last week the government plans to use Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms pre-emptively to avoid having the bill tied up in the courts for years.

 

- With files from The Canadian Press