At the end of February, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni addressed the U.S.-based Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) via video link. In a rousing speech, Meloni proclaimed, “I still believe in the West. Not just as a geographical space but as a civilization. A civilization born from a fusion of Greek philosophy, Roman law and Christian values.”
For small-c Canadian conservatives who have watched as statues of Canadian statesmen have been toppled and woke critiques have seeped into every crack and crevice of public life, the words of Meloni inspire hope that at least a few Western nations have begun to reclaim and celebrate the foundational underpinnings of their societies. For many of those same Canadians, Premier François Legault and his Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) might appear as Meloni-like populists who have created a nationalist island in a post-national Canadian sea.
When Quebec Immigration Minister Jean-François Roberge tabled Bill 84, An Act Respecting National Integration, on January 30, he did so with a reference to Canada’s “vicious” multiculturalism – in contrast to the “interculturalism” promoted by the new law. Quebec Bill 84 attempts both to define Quebec culture and to sketch out the means by which newcomers can integrate with that culture. They must, for example, learn French upon arrival in Quebec if they haven’t already mastered it, and agree to “participate fully, in French, in Québec society.” The government, in turn, would create policies to improve access to Quebec cultural content and foster respect for the flag and “other emblems of Québec.” It might, Roberge mused to reporters, even adopt its own citizenship ceremony.
A few days later, National Post columnist Geoff Russ called the law a “model for the rest of Canada.” Russ framed it as an attempt to build a shared identity in a world of mass immigration and digital globalization. “Bill 84,” he wrote, “is not an attack on diversity but an admission that the Quebec nation cannot continue to grow without a common culture that the state must actively nurture and protect.”
But François Legault is no Giorgia Meloni, and Quebec is not Italy.
Since the CAQ was elected to a majority government in 2018, the party has undertaken a strategic and aggressive program of nation-building. That much is true. Avenir means “future” and the future of Quebec, as envisioned by Legault and his cabinet, rests upon three pillars: language, laïcité – that is, secularism – and a common national identity that rests upon those first two.
Laïcité is the term used to describe the secularism of France, established by the 1905 law of the 3rd Republic that separated church and state. Quebec, since at least its “Quiet Revolution” of the 1960s, has been struggling to define its own brand of secularism. At first, it favoured an “open” secularism that sought to weaken the Catholic Church’s influence in political and public institutions (for centuries the church had been central in Quebec’s provision of education, social services, health care and civil administration), while allowing people to practice religion in their personal and social lives without much restriction.
A new kind of nation-building: Premier François Legault and his Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) believe the province’s future rests on three pillars: the French language, laïcité (or secularism) and a common culture based on distinct social values. (Source of photo: The Canadian Press/Christinne Muschi)
But this did not last, and there has long been pressure from prominent politicians and academics to make Quebec entirely secular and push religion into the shadows. The CAQ government has accelerated matters significantly. Quebec Bill 84 has come after two controversial CAQ-sponsored laws that address the pillars of language and laïcité: Quebec Bill 21, An Act Respecting the Laicity of the State – the so-called “secularism” law passed in 2019 – and Quebec Bill 96, a massive amendment to the Charter of the French Language adopted three years later. Both laws invoke the infamous “notwithstanding” clause in section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to protect the legislation – and the Quebec nation as conceived by the current provincial government – from judicial review.
Some legal experts suggest this effectively establishes a new legal order in Quebec that amounts to constitutional change. Marion Sandilands, a lawyer, former Supreme Court of Canada clerk and constitutional law scholar, wrote in the 2024 essay collection, The Notwithstanding Clause and the Canadian Charter, that with Bills 21 and 96, “Quebec becomes the only Canadian province where human rights charters are not supreme.”
Quebec Bill 21, its so-called “secularism” law, and Bill 96, its massive amendment to the Charter of the French Language, both invoked the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms’ infamous “notwithstanding” clause protecting them from judicial review; opponents see both as unfairly targeting minorities. Shown, Quebec residents protest against the bills. (Sources of photos: (top) The Bullet; (bottom) The Canadian Press/Graham Hughes)
For the CAQ, a nationalist, autonomist party elected partially on its promise not to hold another referendum on Quebec independence, the law-craft marks the advent of a new technique of nation-building. And though it might appear to some as part of an admirable attempt to protect a distinct culture and nation from dissolution, it is not simply a benign form of civic nationalism.
The watchword of all secularism projects is “neutrality”, but Quebec secularism in its current form is not neutral. Rather, it is biased against religious institutions and people of faith. This essentially atheistic, socially progressive (i.e., left wing) laïcité is not only the new modus operandi of the province but is being placed at the centre of the proposed “common culture” that all Quebecers must adopt to merit social inclusion.
“Reasonable” Accommodation? Or a “Non-Negotiable” Notwithstanding Clause?
When the town council of Hérouxville, Quebec adopted a code of conduct for its nonexistent immigrant population in January 2007, the headline might have read “Every Who down in Hérouxville likes Christmas a lot.”
The village, population 1,338, banned the burning, stoning and genital mutilation of women, halal meat and wearing of burqas, while simultaneously stressing the cultural importance of Christmas trees. The “Affaire Hérouxville” may not have been the chronological beginning of the battle over religious accommodation in the province, but it was arguably the existential starting point.
Bouchard and Taylor concluded that ‘the foundations of collective life in Québec are not in a critical situation.’ They did recommend that officers of the law, namely judges, police officers, prison guards and Crown prosecutors, be barred from wearing religious attire or symbols while at work.
One month later, Quebec Liberal Premier Jean Charest tasked Catholic philosopher Charles Taylor and sociologist Gérard Bouchard with examining provincial attitudes towards religious minorities and the limits of “reasonable accommodation” of minority religious practices.
After province-wide public consultations, Bouchard and Taylor concluded in their final report, Building The Future: A Time for Reconciliation, that “the foundations of collective life in Québec are not in a critical situation.” They did recommend that officers of the law, namely judges, police officers, prison guards and Crown prosecutors, be barred from wearing religious attire or symbols while at work. They also suggested that the crucifix placed over the Speaker’s chair in Quebec’s legislature, the National Assembly, be moved to another part of the building.
Charest rejected that last recommendation, telling reporters, “We cannot erase our history,” and a subsequent vote in the National Assembly kept the crucifix in place. Charest promised that the government would carefully consider the report, but given its assertion that “the current situation does not require the adoption of a series of legislative measures aimed at introducing an entirely new system,” little more was done.
Once Charest was out of office, however, successive governments introduced legislation to tackle the issues raised during the Bouchard-Taylor commission.
What is Quebec Bill 21, and why is it controversial?
Quebec Bill 21, An Act Respecting the Laicity of the State, bars public-sector workers, including teachers, from wearing any religious symbols at work. Critics argue it targets minority religious groups, particularly Muslim women, and violates rights protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Quebec government invoked the federal Charter’s “notwithstanding” clause to shield it from legal challenges.
In 2013, the governing Parti Québécois introduced the contentious Charter of Quebec Values. The law, Bill 60, prohibited government employees, including university teachers and those in the health and social services sector, from wearing overt religious symbols, kippahs, turbans and hijabs, while at work. Polling suggested that Quebecers were split in their support and the law failed when the PQ lost the election the following year.
In 2017, the Liberal government passed a more modest law, Bill 62, that although not specifically mentioning Islam, was dubbed the “niqab law” as it banned face coverings for those either seeking or providing government services. Although the law’s passage was relatively uncontentious compared to the controversy surrounding Bill 60, Quebec’s Catholic bishops chose to present a brief and asked to appear at legislative committee hearings.
It was not the law’s specifics that troubled the bishops, but the way it used “state neutrality” as a justification for suppressing religious freedom. “Why does a state choose religious neutrality?” Montreal Archbishop Christian Lépine asked. “Isn’t the aim to guarantee the exercise of fundamental freedoms, in particular freedom of conscience and freedom of religion? These freedoms, it must be emphasized, precede the state, they do not come from it…It is not neutrality that is a fundamental value to be protected, but rights and freedoms.”
The next law, the first to be brought forward by the newly-elected CAQ, was Quebec Bill 21, which bars public-sector workers, including teachers, from wearing any religious symbols at work. It also amended the preamble of the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms to qualify that “the Quebec nation considers State laicity to be of fundamental importance.”
(It was after the passage of the CAQ laïcité law, in fact, that the crucifix was removed from above the Speaker’s chair in the National Assembly and moved to display space elsewhere in the building.)
The law sparked considerable controversy. The main criticism has been that it targets minority religious groups and, specifically, places an undue burden on Muslim women. Charles Taylor notably backtracked on recommendations in the report he co-authored on prohibiting officers of the law from wearing religious symbols while at work, saying they motivated demands for more restrictions and put obstacles in the way of newcomers integrating. “We were very naïve,” Taylor told legislators at committee hearings. “Even going down this path in a minimalist way saying certain people can’t do certain jobs gives comfort and encouragement and creates a really frightful climate.”
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA), the National Council for Canadian Muslims and the English Montreal School Board launched court challenges to Bill 21, first in the Quebec Superior Court and then the Court of Appeal, on the grounds that it violated gender equality rights and rights guaranteed to the English-speaking minority-language community of Quebec.
In his 2021 decision, Superior Court Justice Marc-André Blanchard found that Bill 21 does send an “explicit message” to religious minorities “that their faith and the way they practice it do not matter and that their faith does not carry the same dignity or require the same protection from the State.” But Blanchard concluded that the court could not invalidate the legislation because the government had invoked the notwithstanding clause. In 2024, Quebec’s Court of Appeal upheld Blanchard’s decision. Declared a triumphant Legault in response, “The Quebec government will continue to use the notwithstanding clause as long as necessary for Canada to recognize the social choices of the Quebec nation. It’s non-negotiable.”
Lisée went further still, connecting secularism to a broader progressive agenda, one that would allow Quebecers to achieve ‘independence from religion’ and implement left-wing policies on ‘abortion, gay marriage, end-of-life issues’ and others. Lisée, then, was arguing for a ‘closed’ secularism – what the CAQ government is now pursuing.
The CCLA and Muslim Council then sought leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. This January, the court agreed to hear the appeal, with arguments likely to be scheduled sometime within the year. It struck many as odd that the Supreme Court would hear a case that Canada’s Constitution, via the notwithstanding clause, says it cannot weigh in on. The court does not announce the reasons behind its decisions to hear an appeal. This has led some legal scholars to speculate that it may be trying to put “guardrails” of some kind around the use of the notwithstanding clause, or otherwise dissuade provincial governments across Canada (not just in Quebec) from using it as a blank cheque for passing controversial legislation.
How does Quebec’s secularism differ from traditional secularism?
Quebec’s secularism, or laïcité, is sometimes described as “closed”. It seeks to push religion entirely out of public life. Critics say it does not give equal treatment to people of faith and is in fact anti-religious. More traditional secularism is concerned with the separation of church and state. Political and public institutions should not be subject to influence or control by the church, but people are free to practice their religion as they wish, including with public displays of faith.
From Neutrality, to Disregard, to Contempt – To Erasure
The Quebec government’s actions and messaging suggest it is pursuing a model of secularism that is not simply about religious minorities, putting limits around an encroaching Islamism, or even ensuring a strict separation between church and state consistent with a modern, liberal democracy. Instead, the evidence suggests the current version of Quebec secularism is anti-religious.
This was articulated best by one of Quebec laïcité’s strongest proponents, former Parti Québécois leader Jean-François Lisée. In a 2021 article in Le Devoir, Lisée trumpeted Bill 21 as “feminist, anti-discriminatory and avant-garde.” In contrast, he denigrated the “great religions” as “fundamentally misogynistic and opposed to equality between men and women.” Thankfully, Lisée wrote, Bill 21 was riding to the rescue: “The Loi sur laïcité means that the State will henceforth refuse, for its employees in positions of authority, to endorse and normalize the symbols of these religions.”
Lisée went further still, connecting secularism to a broader progressive agenda, one that would allow Quebecers to achieve “independence from religion” and implement left-wing policies on “abortion, gay marriage, end-of-life issues” and others. Lisée, then, was arguing for a “closed” secularism – what the CAQ government is now pursuing as well. This is the very thing the Bouchard-Taylor report had warned about in 2008: “The secular State, by seeking to distance religion, adheres to atheists’ and agnostics’ conception of the world and of good and consequently does not treat with equal consideration citizens who make a place for religion in their system of beliefs and values.” This form of secularism, the report stated, “is not neutral.”
The CAQ government has long shown disregard for religious believers, even for the nominally Catholic majority. This became blatantly clear in the treatment of religious leaders during the Covid-19 public health crisis, when churches were shut down and religious activities beyond in-home prayer were all-but impossible. In summer 2020 Cardinal Gérald Lacroix, the highest-ranking Canadian Catholic prelate, outlined in painful detail how the Quebec government ignored the bishops as they attempted to work with government officials on pandemic planning.
In his sermon that July 26, Lacroix directly addressed the faithful who, he said, had been asking, “WHAT are the bishops doing?…Are they working in dialogue with the public health authorities and the Government of Quebec to promote our needs and ensure that believers are considered?” Lacroix assured Quebec Catholics that, together with other religious leaders, the bishops had repeatedly attempted to open lines of communication with the government. The government, however, had avoided “undertaking any form of open and measured dialogue with the leaders of faith communities.”
Three years later, an evangelical Christian organization planning a “Faith Fire Freedom Rally” learned its contract with the intended venue, Centre des Congrés du Québec, a facility owned by the Quebec government, had been cancelled. The government’s stated rationale was the church group’s opposition to abortion (even though rally organizers such as Pastor Art Lucier had said the event would be about “about reconciliation, worship and fellowship”). “It’s a question of judgment,” Legault said. “We’re not going to allow anti-abortion groups to put on big shows in public places.”
Legault meant it. Quebec Tourism Minister Caroline Proulx announced that events like the rally must no longer be held at any conference centre under provincial jurisdiction, including the Palais des congrès de Montréal and the Parc Olympic. “It’s against the fundamental principles of Quebec,” Proulx said. “This type of event will not take place here.” It was just as Lisée had hoped and predicted: secularism on a continuum of progressive ideology.
Olivier Séguin, director of francophone operations for the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, said “it is now de rigueur [in Quebec] to discriminate on the basis of ‘fundamental Quebec principles’.” (Source of screenshot: justicecentre/Instagram)
In August 2023 the issue was put before the courts. Olivier Séguin, director of francophone operations for the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms and the lawyer representing Lucier and Harvest Ministries International (HMI), wrote in an email to The Catholic Register that the suit is not just “a simple breach of contract action.” The more concerning issue, he said, is that new and opaque grounds for discrimination are being introduced in the province. “With the support of the Premier,” Séguin wrote, “it is now de rigueur to discriminate on the basis of ‘fundamental Quebec principles’,” and it is “up to the Crown corporations to guess…the Minister’s mind.” Last year, HMI rejected a $100,000 settlement offer because the Quebec government refused to acknowledge it had violated Charter rights, and the suit remains before the courts.
The assault on people of faith continued. By October 2024, Legault was telling reporters he had instructed his team to look for ways to ban praying in public – and had not ruled out use of the notwithstanding clause to achieve that goal. When it suits him, Legault likes to positively reference what he calls Quebec’s “heritage” of Catholicism, as in this 2023 post on X. But he seems to forget, or not know, or perhaps not care, how manifesting that Catholic heritage includes public prayer, eucharistic processions and ecumenical Good Friday walks from church to church. (As well as proclaiming certain political positions at odds with current progressivism.)
What is the significance of Quebec’s use of the notwithstanding clause?
In Quebec Bill 96 and 21, the Quebec government is using the infamous “notwithstanding” clause from Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, part of Canada’s federal constitution, to prevent the Supreme Court from overturning the legislation or forcing changes. The move shields the laws from judicial review and means they override the Charter. Some legal experts suggest this effectively establishes a new legal order in Quebec in which Charter rights are not supreme, which amounts to constitutional change.
The Role of Islam in Quebec
Legault’s remarks came after a flurry of press reports of Islamic influence on Montreal-area public schools. Eleven teachers were suspended from Bedford Elementary School after a report that a “cabal” of teachers, largely of North African descent, had created a “toxic” environment. There were accounts of psychological and physical bullying, plus reports of girls being told they could not play soccer, of “ablutions” in the restrooms and of Muslim prayer being conducted in the classrooms. In addition to Bedford, 17 other schools were added to a list to be investigated.
Perhaps this situation is just the kind of scenario the good citizens of Hérouxville were envisioning in 2007, and it would not do to dismiss Quebecers’, or other Canadians’, legitimate concerns. On March 19, the intersection of Yonge and Bloor in Toronto was shut down to traffic as hundreds of Muslim male participants at an anti-Israel demonstration laid down prayer mats to take part in evening prayer in a busy public space. Similar scenes have played out in downtown Montreal.
‘The secular nature of the State,’ Bishop Laliberté wrote, ‘does not require the secular nature of society. Society is made up of individuals, families and groups who freely associate with one another for a variety of legitimate reasons and purposes. One of these is the collective expression of religious beliefs.’
But the approach of the Quebec government seems to play a kind of legislative whack-a-mole that threatens to privatize religious belief to a degree that strips believers of any corporate or public agency. Legault said a ban on public prayer would help to combat “Islamism” but went further to suggest the matter touched on the “fundamental values” of Quebec, values like “secularism” and “equality between men and women.”
Immediately following, Trois-Rivières Bishop Martin Laliberté, president of the Quebec Bishops’ Assembly, published an open letter asserting that “prayer is not dangerous” and drawing a line between functions of the state and fundamental freedoms. “The secular nature of the State,” Laliberté wrote, “does not require the secular nature of society. Society is made up of individuals, families and groups who freely associate with one another for a variety of legitimate reasons and purposes. One of these is the collective expression of religious beliefs.”
Laliberté’s concerns are evidently falling on deaf ears. When the Supreme Court announced it would hear the Bill 21 challenge, Simon Jolin-Barrette, Quebec’s Minister of Justice, and Immigration Minister Roberge, who is also responsible for secularism, issued a joint statement saying Quebec would defend the law “until the end…It is primordial, even vital, for Quebec to be able to make its own choices, choices that correspond to our history, to our distinct social values and the aspirations of our nation.”
On March 10, Roberge announced a government committee will be struck to investigate how to further strengthen secularism in the province. Roberge reiterated that the government was considering a ban on prayer in public spaces, including during protests, and said the new committee would also “document the phenomenon of infiltration of religious influences.”
What is a Quebecer? Flirting with Ethno-Nationalism
In 1905 Thomas Chapais, a Quebec journalist and politician, declared, “A non-Catholic French Canadian is an anomaly. A Canadien [français] who is no longer Catholic after having been Catholic is a monstrosity.”
Such a view is obviously untenable today. Still, it serves as a reminder of the central question: in the CAQ’s brave new world, who – or what – is actually a Quebecer? The fathers of Quebec laïcité necessarily and rightly rejected the idea that being Catholic is part of what it means to be a French Canadian, but they then insisted with an ultramontane vigour that their new secular faith is a necessary condition of citizenship.
Necessary, but not sufficient; recall the other two pillars mentioned above: language and a common national identity. Where might the suitable material – i.e., the right sort of people – be sourced to construct these? We already know that people of faith are excluded from this new conception of citizenship. But the sorting, sifting and ranking isn’t going to stop there.
How does Quebec Bill 84 redefine the province’s “common culture”?
Quebec Bill 84 defines common culture as centred on the French language, secularism, gender equality, and specific social values. French is the official language and the “main vehicle of Quebec culture”. Immigrants must adhere to this culture, including learning French immediately upon arrival. Critics say it creates a new and narrow idea of citizenship that excludes non-Francophones and religious minorities.
Quebec is looking to put the French language at its centre in a way that excludes others as well. Quebec Bill 96, the government’s 100-page modification of Bill 101, the Charter of the French Language, amends Canada’s Constitution Act – unilaterally – to change the language of nationhood from “Quebec forms a nation” to “Quebecers form a nation.”
In common parlance, “Québécois et Québécoise” are those who are by birth French-Canadian, descended from the first settlers of what was then called New France in the 1600s. These descendants were long known as the pure laine, or dyed-in-the-wool, Quebecers. Bill 96’s seemingly subtle change in language therefore raises fundamental questions around identity and belonging.
In a telephone interview, aforementioned constitutional lawyer Sandilands said that while the amendment mirrors the language of a 2006 motion in the federal House of Commons, in the Bill 96 version, “it’s not clear that ‘Quebecers’ is synonymous with everybody who lives in Quebec.” Sandilands said a new idea of Quebec citizenship is emerging, and “there’s a tension between whether you [are] born into it or can you adopt it?” It sounds ominously akin to some form of ethno-nationalism, with its horrific implications.
Thankfully for opponents of ethnic nationalism, there simply aren’t enough “real” Quebecers to populate such a state. And given the incredibly low birth rate among those ethnically French Canadians – recent statistics from the Institut de la statistique du Québec show that in 2023 Quebec had the lowest fertility in nearly 20 years, 1.38 children per woman, far below the replacement rate – there aren’t too many more on the way. The nation’s cradles are empty. Accordingly, “real” Quebecers will need to be forged through state policy, the raw material sourced from outside Canada and imported in the form of immigrants, particularly from French-speaking countries.
The province’s latest immigration and integration law, Quebec Bill 84, attempts to answer the above question about whether one is born into citizenship or may adopt it, and to lay the associated concerns over ethno-nationalism to rest. It reads: “The common culture, to which all are called upon to adhere and to contribute, is characterized in particular by the French language, the civil law tradition, specific institutions, distinct social values, a specific history, and the importance given to equality between women and men, to the laicity of the State and to the protection of Québec’s only official and common language.” This common culture, the bill states, is the “crucible that enables all Quebecers to form a united nation.” French is the official language and the “main vehicle of Quebec culture.”
For Quebecers who are not perfectly fluent in French, the new Quebec values of an atheistic, hardline secularism and a national project and definition of Quebec citizenship founded on a difficult-to-access, narrowly-defined common culture, have little to do with a return to common-sense.
Even a charitable reading of the above passage requires ignoring the statist and left-leaning ideology implicit in several key terms. Recall Lisée’s listing of “progressive…positions on abortion, gay marriage, end-of-life issues.” More exclusion: conservatives seemingly can’t be real Quebecers.
Perhaps even worse is that the evidence to date suggests that, far from being the means of inclusion into that common culture and citizenship, the French language will be wielded as a tool of hierarchy and exclusion. For the experience of “old-stock” Quebec anglophones and generations of Irish, West Indian, Jewish and Italian immigrants is that there is a closed door at the end of the French hallway.
For example, despite their high rate of bilingualism, a mere 1 percent of mother-tongue English-speakers are employed in the Quebec public service. The Quebec Community Groups Network, a non-profit organization that advocates for the province’s English-language minority, submitted a brief on Bill 84 stating that the law “appears to narrow the definition of Quebec’s heritage and culture to one that is exclusively French, despite the enormous contributions non-Francophones…have made to Quebec’s arts and culture, intellectual life, economic development and formidable institutions.”
The question of integration is coming to an inflection point. Quebec will need continued immigration to keep its population stable, hence the urgency to provide a pathway for immigrants to full inclusion. But that pathway is narrow and, in the case of “closed” secularism, at odds with many Quebecers’ – even French Canadians’ – understanding of what it means to be a person of faith in a secular context. One possible outcome of this policy is the creation of a privileged class of Quebec citizens, a kind of ideological rather than racial pure laine.
Commentators who see something admirable in Quebec’s efforts at defining or preserving a common culture are engaged in the kind of thinking encapsulated in that old adage, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Canadians are rightly worried about the effect of mass immigration on Canada and the federal political class’s obeisance to a certain strain of global-elite rhetoric and praxis. When Quebec speaks of “heritage” and “nation”, it may sound like a distant echo of Meloni’s Western values speech.
It is a deceptive echo. The new Quebec values of an atheistic, hardline secularism and a national project and definition of Quebec citizenship founded on a difficult-to-access, narrowly-defined common culture, have little to do with a return to a common-sense appreciation for Canadian history, polity, and mores.
The new, CAQ-forged Quebec portends a hierarchy of citizenship. At the very top, fully secularized ethnic French Canadians. In the middle ranks, various combinations of French-speaking, left-leaning, secularized adoptive Quebecers – some perhaps with one ethnically French-Canadian parent, others brand-new immigrants, or the children of immigrants. Lower down, conservatives and religious believers resigned to practising their faith purely in private. At the very bottom, Quebec’s dwindling population of English-speakers and religious believers who insist upon a legitimate public role for their faith traditions. It is a profoundly unjust, bleak and immeasurably sad vision for building a “nation”.
Anna Farrow is a Montreal-based journalist for The Catholic Register.
Source of main image: The Canadian Press/Graham Hughes.
