As Shaheen Ashraf reads over Bill 62, Quebec’s religious neutrality bill, she's left disappointed and disheartened. She says once again it targets Muslim women, and she's tired of it.
“It's not so important if your face is covered or not. There are more important issues to focus on,” said Ashraf, a board member at the Canadian Council of Muslim Women.
The practical effects of the bill would be to be ban niqabs and burkas from the civil service. And while some say it's a good thing, others argue it's unfair. As one niqab-wearing woman said, the bill is simply not needed.
“The Muslim women who choose to wear, who choose to cover their faces routinely uncover their faces for identification and security reasons. I've done it multiple times,” said Shama Naz.
Quebec's justice minister says they are not targeting clothes or style. The ban, said Stephanie Vallee, is just common sense.
“It's for security, identification and communication reasons [that] we're tabling this. It's basic, it's very inclusive and we believe that it's important that we legislate,” she said.
Opposition parties say the bill doesn't go far enough. They're criticizing the government for being too soft and wanted all religious symbols to be banned, including the chador, which covers a woman from head to toe except for the face and is considered by some to be a symbol of oppression.
Premier Philippe Couillard himself came out against the chador in January 2014, and Parti Quebecois MNA Agnes Maltais said the government’s omission of the garment was an “unacceptable backtrack.”
But Vallee pointed out not one civil servant in Quebec who wears the chador, so the government won’t legislate on a possibility.
