National leaders in Canada have questioned the motives behind a controversial proposal in the province of 
Quebec that would ban religious symbols and garb in public workplaces.
The leader of the Liberal Party, Justin Trudeau, said he was concerned about the implications of the law religious freedom in Quebec.
“I have enormous concerns about the limits that would be imposed on people, on their religion and on their freedom of expression,” he told reporters in Quebec City after a meeting with the Prime Minister of Quebec and leader of the governing Parti Quebecois (PQ), Pauline Marois, who is behind the proposed change.
Mr Trudeau said: “I’m worried that it’s more about politics than it is about the rights of citizens. It’s important the State and its institutions be neutral, but the freedom of expression, freedom of religion are freedoms that are accessible to all Canadians regardless of who they work for.”
Last week Ms Marois’ government announced plans for the controversial legislation that would ban “conspicuous” religious symbols worn by public employees at work.
The “Charter of Quebec Values” would forbid employees in courts, law-enforcement, schools, hospitals, and daycares from wearing items such as turbans, hijabs, kippas, and crucifixes.
“What divides Quebeckers is not diversity. It is the absence of clear rules so that we can move onward in harmony,” she said on the weekend to young PQ supporters who met in Quebec City.
“To recognise secularism as a Quebec value is to take cognizance of the evolution of a people which, for the past half century, has become increasingly secular and has taken the confessional character out of its institutions,” she said.
Tom Mulcair, the leader of the socialist NDP, warned that the legislation might make a scapegoat of minority Quebecers.
“I don’t want to see scapegoating, particularly of Muslim women,” Mulcair told reporters on Parliament Hill on Monday.
“That seems to be one of the particular targets here. So we’ll wait and see what’s in it.”
The Charter, set to be revealed in the autumn, is the latest move against public expression of religious belief by a province that has become increasingly hostile to religious believers.
Catholic schools have been forbidden from teaching Catholic courses on religion and morality. Government-funded daycare centres have been stripped of anything religious even when privately run, and religious leaders have been barred from visiting them even for Christmas celebrations. Private citizens have been fined for holding religious ceremonies in public buildings rented for that purpose.
Dr. Bruce Hicks, a political science professor at Carleton, believes that the Marois government allowed the proposed charter to be leaked for “strategic purposes”, saying that there is “no possible way a document like that can get through a minority National Assembly”.
“There’s an old joke that says governments [the] only ship that leaks from the top,” he told Joel Balsam writing for Vice.com. “It’s very rare something this important gets leaked unless it’s for strategic purposes, so the question is what are the strategic purposes?”
“One of the purposes could be to get everyone excited about an imagined threat,” he said, “and then when you bring in the document it’s much milder, and everyone is willing to accept it.”
“Or, it’s the real document, and you are trying to get the debate going to divert the attention from something else,” he added.
Hicks said that the PQ has had a “few stumbles since taking office” and that forcing a debate on the proposed charger is “easier than having a debate on the economy or some of other things that aren’t going exactly the way that is ideally suited for the government.”
Marois defended the proposed charter, saying that it will be a force for unity among Quebecers in the same way the province’s language laws have been.