The Banning Of The Niqab In Canada

In 2010, the controversial Bill 94 was introduced in Quebec. The bill would prohibit women wearing the niqab from accessing any public service and would allow them to be denied access to schools, non-emergency healthcare, daycare facilities, courtrooms and more. Furthermore, government employees would be banned from wearing the niqab to work. The Quebec government is petitioning to ban the niqab because they claim it is a symbol of oppression, that women only wear if forced by a male, and that their needs to be a law to protect women from being oppressed by male relatives. However, many women who choose to wear the niqab who have spoken to the media that what they wear was in fact their choice, (Reynolds, 2010). While only approximately 100
Despite the protests from within the community, polls show that 80% of the Canadian population and 95% of the Quebec population supports the motion to ban those wearing the niqab from government services, (Reynolds, 2010). This bill would be isolating a select number of Muslim women who wear the niqab in Quebec, and instead of rescuing them from oppression, who be denying them of their basic human rights as a citizen of Canada, not only encouraging women not to wear the niqab in public, but if they work for public services also not allowing them to wear the niqab, (Chung, 2010). Considering the fact that Canada is considered a secular nation, as well as being globally renowned as a tolerant, accepting nation, a government ruling which would prevent a specific group pf people to have to choose between expressing their interpretation of their religion or accessibility to public services is seemingly unconstitutional. However, if Canada was truly a secular society, as secular society is considered to be by John Locke in A Letter Concerning Toleration, a bill as such would not be
A national government, Locke argues, is a society “constituted only for the procuring, preserving, and advancing their own civil interests,” (Locke, 1991, p. 17). It is the job of the government to provide its citizens with execution of equal laws as well as ensuring citizens are receiving their right to possessions such as life, liberty, health, and freedom from pain of body, (Locke, 1991, p. 17). Furthermore, Locke strongly supported the notion that the government should have no say in how people choose to celebrate their own religion, for him, an integral part of a secular society is that government has not right to influence religion, and religion has no right to influence government, (Locke, 1991, p. 24). This was due to the fact that Locke felt as though supporting or not supporting a certain religion was claiming that one religion was more valid than another, which is not up to the government to decide, (Locke, 1991, p. 25). Locke goes further to explain that no one in the world, including the government, has the just power to remove peoples’ civil rights upon the pretense of religion, (Locke, 1991, p.