QUEBEC CITY, QC: The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms announces that a demand letter has been sent to the Premier of Quebec, François Legault, who recently threatened to ban prayer in public spaces and to shield any constitutional challenges to the ban by invoking the Notwithstanding Clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Such a ban is a totalitarian suppression of the freedoms of expression and of conscience and religion.
On December 6, 2024, Premier Legault stated publicly that his government is considering a ban on prayer in public. This followed upon media reports of Muslims praying in classrooms at a school in Laval, Quebec. Similar stories from around the province over the last year have prompted investigations by education officials in 17 schools.
Premier Legault was quoted in a December 6 CBC story saying, “Seeing people praying in the streets, in public parks, is not something we want in Quebec…When we want to pray, we go to church, we go to a mosque, but not in public spaces. And yes, we will look at the means where we can act legally or otherwise.”
Premier Legault further indicated that his government was willing to invoke the Notwithstanding Clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which would shield the ban from constitutional challenges for a period of five years.
In a demand letter to the Premier, constitutional lawyer Olivier Séguin wrote that, far from reinforcing secularism, the ban on praying in public places would contradict the principles on which the secularism law is based: “(1) the religious neutrality of the State, (2) the equality of all citizens, and (3) freedom of religion.”
“Your approach to the situation,” stated Mr. Séguin, “suggests a militant, anti-religious and dogmatic conception of one of the healthiest and oldest practices that human beings have maintained in their relationships with their fellow human beings and with a higher power.”
Mr. Séguin continued, “The ban on prayer announced by the Premier borrows from the intolerant overtones of a state atheism that flourished east of the Iron Curtain during the twentieth century, and of which history has retained only sad memories. In so doing, our government would be violating the principles of religious neutrality, equality and freedom of religion on which the secular state is supposed to be based.”
