Canada-Quebec 2026 – Bill 21

Act respecting the laicity of the State

3 June
Carney announces $10 billion for Quebec infrastructure and transit
Premier Fréchette says the province got ‘even more’ than its fair share.
Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a $10 billion federal infrastructure funding package for Quebec Tuesday, which will go toward public transit, hospitals, housing and higher education projects across the province.
The package, which Carney announced alongside Quebec Premier Christine Fréchette in Longueuil Tuesday, among other politicians, will be spread over the next decade.
The biggest chunk — nearly $6 billion — is for transit projects and infrastructure, resolving one of the largest outstanding infrastructure funding negotiations between Ottawa and Quebec. Community infrastructure and housing-related projects will also receive $3.6 billion, plus hundreds of millions more for public transit electrification.
Domestically, Carney has kept infrastructure investments at the centre of his political and economic strategy, making faster delivery of major infrastructure projects a priority. Fréchette, meanwhile, who trails in the polls to both the Parti Québécois and Quebec Liberals ahead of a general election in October, has sought greater flexibility over how federal dollars are spent in Quebec — and to show she gets wins for the province.
… Also announced was a $3.6 billion agreement under the Build Communities Strong Fund.
Carney said those investments would help build housing, university campuses and community centres while also supporting major modernization and expansion projects at 17 hospitals and clinics across Quebec.
Among the facilities expected to benefit are Charles-Le Moyne Hospital, Hôtel-Dieu de Lévis, Chicoutimi Hospital and Montreal’s Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital, whose deteriorating condition has repeatedly drawn public attention.

17 April
New Quebec Premier Christine Fréchette meets Prime Minister Carney in Ottawa
Quebec’s new premier promised to fight “tooth and nail” to defend the use of the notwithstanding clause as she met with Prime Minister Mark Carney in Ottawa on Friday.
(Global) Christine Fréchette said the clause, which allows governments to override sections of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, must not be touched.
“It’s an important tool for Quebec, for our nation,” she said ahead of the meeting.
Quebec has made use of the clause in recent years to shield several pieces of legislation from court challenges, including its secularism law that bans certain public servants from wearing religious symbols at work.
Fréchette’s reaction came after federal Justice Minister Sean Fraser expressed concern over provinces use of the notwithstanding clause and suggested it should be regulated.

9 April
Federal watchdog prepared to challenge Quebec laws on anglophone rights
Andy Riga
Province’s plan to abolish English school boards “has a significant impact on the rights of the anglophone community,” languages commissioner says.
Canada’s new language watchdog says Quebec’s plan to abolish elected English school boards would have a “significant impact” on anglophone education rights — and she says she is prepared to challenge provincial laws that violate minority-language protections.
“The education sector clearly is one of the community’s most powerful tools for the survival of its language and culture, and what I intend to do in my role is to protect official language minority communities across the country,” Kelly Burke said in an interview with The Gazette.
She took over as official languages commissioner on March 30. Her role is to protect the rights of anglophones in Quebec and of francophone minorities elsewhere in Canada.

1 April
The Supreme Court’s Bill 21 challenge
Andrew Caddell
The Bill 21 case is complicated, to say the least, with multiple sections of the Constitution and Charter at play.

29 March
Rights, Freedoms, and the Notwithstanding Clause in a Quebec Election Year
By Daniel Béland
(Policy) Over four consecutive days last week, the Supreme Court of Canada held hearings about Quebec’s Bill 21, the Act respecting the laicity of the State. Adopted in 2019, this provincial legislation forbids public employees in positions of authority such as teachers, police officers, prosecutors, and judges from wearing religious symbols in the exercise of their official functions.
In terms of its impact on the daily lives of Canadians, the case carries human rights implications for freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and equality rights.
But the case is important not only because of the clash of values represented in its core question of constitutionality, but also as a crucial test of the notwithstanding clause, or section 33 of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
And, during a provincial election year when the Parti Québécois is in pole position by default amid upheaval in its rival parties, every story involving provincial powers, identity, and language is highly politicized.
The pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause is not only an issue with regard to Bill 21 and other Quebec legislation, but has also become a key source of controversy in other provinces. …

27 March
6 key moments from the Supreme Court challenge of Quebec’s secularism law
One of the longest SCC hearings in history produced some eyebrow-raising moments
(CBC) Seven judges of the Supreme Court of Canada are now considering the fate of Quebec’s controversial secularism law, Bill 21, which bans some civil servants, including teachers, from wearing religious symbols on the job.
A decision isn’t expected for at least several months.
Four days of arguments — exceptionally long for a Supreme Court case — dealt mostly with complex questions regarding the mechanics of Canada’s notwithstanding clause.
… 1. ‘Mini-Trump in Canada’
Many lawyers at the hearings raised the idea that unlimited use of the notwithstanding clause could potentially empower authoritarian politicians to put extreme limits on fundamental rights.
2. ‘Outrageous’ comments on diversity
Justice Wagner took issue with something raised by Julius Grey, the lawyer for the group TALQ, which represents anglophone community organizations in Quebec.
In Grey’s legal brief submitted to the court, he suggested the English-speaking minority in Quebec is much more diverse than the French-speaking community. … Grey responded that what he was meaning to say in his legal filing was that the English-speaking community had a different view of secularism.
3. Don’t forget real people
In such dense legal arguments, it can be easy to forget the people directly affected by Bill 21.
Sahar Talebi, who represented the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, reminded the court of that.
“Muslim women in Quebec are the face of Bill 21’s exclusion. They face increased prejudice, harassment and hate crimes,” Talebi said. …
4. Extreme examples
Lawyer Guy Pratte, arguing for the attorney general of Canada, raised a fairly extreme example when countering the argument of Quebec and some other provinces that there are no limits on how they can use the notwithstanding clause. …
5. Courts vs. social media
Much of the debate this week centred on whether courts should get a chance to weigh in on controversial pieces of legislation once the notwithstanding clause has been invoked. …
Allan Rock argued that, particularly for minority groups with limited political influence and resources, …
“Most public discussion now takes place on social media, which is contaminated by toxic content and is often exclusionary,” Rock said.
“For many, particularly minority groups, a courtroom is the only forum where evidence matters, where fairness governs, where every voice is heard.”
6. What is secularism anyway?
The court was forced to grapple this week with something that has plagued the debate about secularism in Quebec for years: what is secularism, and how do you define it?
Marc-André Fabien, lawyer for the Hamshuchas Hadoirois International Association, a group representing Hassidic Jewish communities, argued that in Canada, no government can simply declare its society secular without amending the Constitution. … He argued Canada has a tradition of neutrality when it comes to religion, but that secularism is a step too far.
“State employees are no longer allowed to wear religious symbols. We’re no longer talking about neutrality, we’re talking about prohibition,” Fabien said. …
Bill 21 the product of modern identity politics, not the Quiet Revolution
Restrictions on religious symbols are not the culmination of a long-standing secular doctrine but rather a contemporary response to selected expressions of religious pluralism.
By Jack Jedwab
(Montreal Gazette Opinion) Quebec’s Bill 21 is often framed as the natural continuation of the Quiet Revolution — a logical extension of the province’s historic break from the Catholic Church and its embrace of secularism.
At this week’s Supreme Court hearings, justices Malcolm Rowe and Richard Wagner both suggested that the law must be understood through the prism of Quebec’s “very distinct” path toward the separation of church and state. Wagner pointed to the Quiet Revolution in the 1960s, while Rowe likened Quebec’s secular vision to that of France.
This narrative is misleading, and when courts evoke it, they risk doing something they should be especially wary of: revising history to justify present-day policy decisions.

25-26 March
Bill 21: Supreme Court chief justice calls English community’s argument ‘almost outrageous’
The Supreme Court of Canada heard arguments Wednesday over whether Quebec’s Bill 21 violates minority-language rights, with federal and provincial governments divided over the scope of the notwithstanding clause.
By Andy Riga
The chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada delivered a pointed rebuke to the anglophone rights group TALQ on Wednesday, “I find those comments almost outrageous,” Wagner told lawyer Julius Grey, who was representing the coalition of organizations.
Richard Wagner said a document TALQ submitted to the court as part of a challenge to Quebec’s secularism law suggests that the English-speaking minority in Quebec is more diverse than the French-speaking community.
Grey and TALQ later said Wagner appeared to have misread their position.
During the hearing, Wagner said Montreal’s French-language schools are attended by children from many backgrounds, some of whose parents wear religious symbols.
In the exchange, Grey said he agreed with Wagner that the francophone community has become “totally diverse.”
“I agree with you,” Grey said. “But I think the English-speaking community has a different view of secularism.”
He said Quebec’s anglophone community has a “different cultural tradition” when it comes to diversity.
“Section 23 works as a rampart against the complete application (of Bill 21) to a group not only whose language, but whose culture is to be preserved,” he told the court.
“I am suggesting that the particular English view of secularism requires autonomy in hiring, in curriculum.”
TALQ’s position on Bill 21 mirrors that of the English Montreal School Board, the lead plaintiff in the Supreme Court Bill 21 challenge. The board argues that the law infringes on its rights by not allowing it to hire teachers who wear religious symbols.
On Monday, the EMSB told the Supreme Court that Quebec’s English schools have long valued and celebrated religious traditions and diversity, which the board considers central to the culture of the anglophone education system.
Two views on charter protection
At the heart of the case is a dispute over what Section 23 actually protects.
Quebec argues the clause confers rights to instruction in the minority language, and that cultural protections extend only to aspects intimately linked to that language.
The EMSB disagrees, arguing that Section 23 protects cultural traits independently — and that the anglophone community’s approach to secularism and religious diversity is inseparable from the culture that minority-language education exists to preserve.
… On Wednesday, lawyer Marion Sandilands, representing the Quebec English School Boards Association, told the court that teacher hiring decisions are central to protecting the anglophone community’s language rights. …
Because Section 23 is interpreted uniformly across the country, a ruling that narrows its scope in Quebec could set a precedent that weakens francophone minority rights in other provinces.
Quebec anglophones are not the only ones concerned with how the Supreme Court interprets Section 23.
On Thursday, a group representing French-speaking parents in the rest of Canada is scheduled to address the court.In a written submission, the Commission nationale des parents francophones urged the court to interpret Section 23 broadly to protect minority-language communities nationwide. It says Section 23 protects both language and culture. …
Ottawa clashes with Quebec
Earlier on Wednesday, the federal government urged the Supreme Court to clarify limits on the Constitution’s notwithstanding clause, which allows governments to enact laws that override some charter rights, as Quebec did with Bill 21.
Guy J. Pratte, a lawyer for the attorney general of Canada, said the clause gives legislatures broad power to override charter rights — but warned that power is “not unlimited.”

23-24 March
What’s at stake as Supreme Court hears challenge to Quebec’s Bill 21
(Global news) The Supreme Court of Canada this week began hearing a challenge to Quebec’s secularism law known as Bill 21, a case that could spur ripple effects across the country — most notably the notwithstanding clause in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

‘Why don’t you just say it out loud?’: SCC justices grill Bill 21 challengers in historic hearing
Appellants challenged Quebec’s use of the notwithstanding clause on day one of a four-day hearing
(Canadian Lawyer) On the first day of a blockbuster hearing on Quebec’s use of the notwithstanding clause to preempt challenges to a controversial secularism law, Supreme Court of Canada Justice Malcolm Rowe asked a lawyer for one of the parties disputing Quebec’s move: isn’t the province using the legal mechanism, which is embedded in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, precisely as intended?
… For the appellants in the case, English Montreal School Board, et al. v. Attorney General of Quebec, et al., Quebec’s use of s. 33 to shield its secularism law is emblematic of a trend that has emboldened provinces to use a once-exceptional mechanism to override key Charter protections like those offering protections from discrimination or unreasonable search or seizure. For the respondents, including the Quebec government, the sovereignty of provincial legislatures is at stake.
Seven of the Supreme Court’s nine justices will hear arguments over the course of four days this week, including a record 51 intervenors.
The appellants, including the English Montreal School Board, the World Sikh Organization of Canada, the Fédération autonome de l’enseignement, the Lord Reading Law Society, and several individuals, challenged Quebec’s invocation of s. 33 on Monday using a range of arguments. …

20-22 March
Uncharted Territory: A Supreme constitutional clash: Canadians’ rights against government powers
At Supreme Court’s Bill 21 hearings, the constitutional consensus of the 1980s faces a 21st-century test
David Ebner, Globe & Mail Justice Reporter
Thanks in part to the notwithstanding clause, prime minister Pierre Trudeau found common ground with most premiers at 1981’s constitutional conference, but not René Lévesque of Quebec
… Now, starting Monday at the Supreme Court of Canada, the notwithstanding clause is at the centre of one of the biggest top court hearings in the four-plus decades since the enactment of the Charter of Rights.
At issue is Quebec’s Bill 21, which became law in mid-2019. It was Premier François Legault’s legislative foray into laicity – secularism. Bill 21’s goal is a secular public service. It prohibits workers, including teachers, from wearing religious symbols such as a hijab on the job. Quebec shielded the law with the notwithstanding clause from court challenges for infringements on freedom of religion and the right to equality.
Most cases at the top court are heard on a single day. Two days is a long hearing. Bill 21 will be heard over four days – the same length as the landmark 1998 Quebec secession reference case.
It will feature a longer roster of lawyers than any previous case at the top court: six groups of appellants challenging Quebec and Bill 21, alongside the federal and five other provincial governments, and a record 38 outside intervener groups.
… “It is essential, even vital, for Quebec to be able to make its own choices,” Simon Jolin-Barrette, the province’s Justice Minister, said last year when the Supreme Court agreed to hear the Bill 21 case.
Julius Grey, a veteran Montreal lawyer who has fought for civil rights for a half-century and is part of the Bill 21 case, called that “absolute nonsense.”
“Why would civil liberties be different in a place that speaks a different language?”
Mr. Grey respects Quebec’s goal of secularism but rejects the government’s strategy.
“There’s no reason to tell somebody who’s wearing a hijab that you can’t teach or work in a daycare, or if you’re wearing a turban, you can’t work as a policeman.” …

Law of the land
The constitutional challenge to Quebec’s Bill 21 is one of the most important cases in Charter history – and the Supreme Court’s ruling could alter the essence of Canadian federalism for generations to come
Konrad Yakabuski
Twenty years ago this month, the Supreme Court of Canada cracked open a new fault line between Quebec and rest of the country, one that would put the French-speaking province on a trajectory diametrically at odds with the multicultural values Canada had come to embody and disrupt Quebec politics for years to come.
In quashing a Quebec Court of Appeal decision that had prohibited a Sikh boy from wearing a kirpan, or ceremonial dagger, at school, the country’s top court came down squarely on the side of religious freedom as guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and against Quebec’s vision of la laïcité, …the Supreme Court ruling blew the issue wide open, leading supporters of la laïcité to demand legislative action to block intrusions of religion in the public sphere.
This ultimately led to the Quebec National Assembly’s adoption, in 2019, of an Act respecting the Laicity of the State, commonly known as Bill 21.
The legislation, which banned public servants in a position of authority from wearing religious symbols on the job, set parameters for the separation of church and state that went far beyond those ever considered elsewhere in modern Canada. It effectively barred certain religious minorities, such as hijab-wearing Muslim women, from becoming public-school teachers or government lawyers. The measures enjoyed broad public support in the province. Many considered Bill 21 an affirmation of Quebec’s autonomy that the rest of Canada would – like it or not – have to accept.
This is the explosive backdrop against which the Supreme Court will, beginning next week, hear a constitutional challenge to Bill 21. The case brought against the Quebec government by six groups, including the National Council of Canadian Muslims and the World Sikh Organization of Canada, will be one of the most important court challenges in Charter history. The future of the country may well hang in the balance. …

29 January
Stéphane Dion: How the conquest of New France paved the way for co-operation
Mark Carney was right to describe Canada as choosing a different path
(National Post) … French Canadians were able to establish decent relations with the first British governors, Murray and Carleton, who treated them better (or less badly) than they had been under the French regime, especially after the misdeeds of that scoundrel, Intendant Bigot. The preservation of their religion and customs as provided in the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and the Quebec Act of 1774 would enrage the New England settlers. They would take the too-accommodating treatment granted to these papists of the long-hated former New France as one of their grievances to rebel against the British crown.
It should also be added that it was less a conquest than a cession following a war whose outcome was decided on another continent.
If Montcalm had managed to drive Wolfe back on the Plains of Abraham, Montreal would likely have been taken anyway the following year, as the forces were so disproportionate between the belligerents. Amherst arrived with 20,000 troops, while Lévis had only 2,000 to oppose him. The British colonies had 1.6 million inhabitants compared to 70,000 for all New France.
If France had won the war on the European stage, Great Britain might have been forced to cede its conquests in America. One of the reasons France failed was the unexpected death of its ally, Russia’s Tsarina Elizabeth I, in 1761, which led to a reversal of alliances, saved the King of Prussia from a probable defeat, and forced France and Austria to seek peace negotiations from a position of weakness.
… What is exceptional about Canada is not that there was assimilation, but that another model competed with it, which Prime Minister Mark Carney rightly described as cooperation with respect for differences. If the French-Canadian population has been able to maintain itself and grow, it is thanks to its admirable persistence, its faith, its clergy, but also because it wisely leveraged British institutions before helping to give rise to Canadian democracy, one of the oldest in the world. ...

27 January
Via TALQ
National Post columnist André Pratte argues that Prime Minister Mark Carney squandered much of the goodwill he had built in Quebec after delivering a historically inaccurate and politically clumsy speech in Quebec City, despite earlier praise for his Davos address. Speaking on the Plains of Abraham, Carney suggested the 1759 battle marked the beginning of accommodation and partnership between French and English Canada, a claim Pratte calls profoundly wrong and insensitive to French-Canadian history. Pratte, a staunch federalist, says the conquest instead ushered in decades of attempted assimilation and systemic discrimination, with accommodation coming only much later through hard-fought political struggle. He warns that while sovereigntist backlash may seem excessive to many Quebecers focused on everyday issues, the episode has damaged Carney’s credibility in a province crucial to his electoral success and exposed a troubling lack of historical understanding at the heart of his message on national unity.

25-26 January
Un raccourci vers le référendum
Cela ressemblait surtout à un souhait.
(La Presse) Paul St-Pierre Plamondon a accusé Mark Carney d’avoir « déclenché la campagne référendaire » avec son discours révisionniste à Québec jeudi. Ce n’était sûrement pas l’intention du premier ministre libéral. Mais le chef du PQ devance la bataille, quitte à affronter un fantôme.
Il est normal que M. St-Pierre Plamondon riposte à ce révisionnisme historique. Un politicien québécois ne peut pas accepter qu’on dépeigne la bataille des plaines d’Abraham en acte de collaboration. Le général Wolfe lui-même aurait été en désaccord – il promettait plutôt la « famine et la désolation ».

PQ leader says Mark Carney has effectively launched referendum campaign
Paul St-Pierre Plamondon’s comments come as PM’s Quebec City speech stirs controversy
(CBC) Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon says the referendum campaign for Quebec independence is already underway, suggesting it was the Canadian prime minister who launched it.
Speaking to hundreds of party members at a PQ convention in Saint-Hyacinthe, Que., on Sunday, St-Pierre Plamondon blamed recent comments by Prime Minister Mark Carney for effectively launching the federalist “No” campaign.
Speaking earlier this week about the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City, Carney described the 1759 battle as the start of a “partnership” between French and English people in Canada and called for national unity.
“Mr. Carney, Quebec does not exist because of Canada. In fact, Quebec has survived in its difference and specificity despite Canada,” he added, to a standing ovation from a crowd of enthusiastic PQ supporters.
St-Pierre Plamondon sharply criticized Carney on Friday, accusing him of being part of a “long tradition of colonialism” dating back to Lord Durham.
“This tradition is one of falsifying facts and history and constantly feeding us lies through federal institutions,” he said. “We will break with British colonialism and create our own country.”

22-23 January
Carney cancels news conference appearance last minute after Quebec City cabinet retreat
Finance minister took questions after PM had ‘scheduling’ issue

Hanes: Can Carney win over Quebecers like he did the global elite?
After winning praise for a landmark speech in Davos on the breaking of the rules-based world order, the prime minister brings an equally important message to a potentially less receptive audience.
The Citadelle is a highly symbolic location. The fortress was built by the British to repel an American attack that never came. It also overlooks the storied Plains of Abraham, where the English defeated the French in 1759, a painful turning point in history for Quebecers.
Carney opened with this cataclysmic moment in a speech steeped in history, tracing how French Canadians were at first subjugated and oppressed after the conquest of New France before skipping ahead to British overlords eventually softening their approach to make way for the bilingual, bicultural Canada that exists today.
“Two hundred and sixty-seven years ago, this ground was soaked with blood. Two empires had collided, one had prevailed and the question was what would come next?” Carney said. “And the answer that emerged slowly, imperfectly, not without struggle, but unmistakably, was cooperation, partnership, a shared future. That response was not inevitable. That response was chosen.”

22 January
In Quebec City, Carney responds to Trump: ‘Canada thrives because we are Canadians’
His public comments are his first since the speech he delivered at the World Economic Forum in Davos
(Montreal Gazette) Days after a commanding speech that earned him praise on the world stage, Prime Minister Mark Carney was back in the country to hammer the values and choices that have set Canada apart for centuries — but got some backlash from leaders from the Quebec sovereigntist movement.
Speaking at the Citadelle of Quebec on Thursday afternoon, Carney started off by recounting the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in 1759, which saw British General James Wolfe defeat the French troops led by Louis-Joseph de Montcalm and led to the surrender of Quebec to the British.
“Two hundred and sixty-seven years ago, this ground was soaked with blood,” he said. “Two empires had collided. One had prevailed. What would come next? The answer that emerged — slowly, imperfectly, not without struggle, but unmistakably— cooperation. Partnership. A shared future,” he said, surrounded by his cabinet ministers.
That response, the prime minister continued, was not inevitable. He claimed it was “chosen” by British administrators who “eventually saw the wisdom of cooperation” and “chosen by French Canadians who eventually committed to build within the new reality.”
From that emerged, he said, the “growing commitment” that the coexistence of two peoples who fought each other, speaking two different languages, practicing different religions and with two different legal traditions, can “coexistence could make us stronger.”
“In a time of rising populism and ethnic nationalism, Canada can show how diversity can be a strength, not a weakness. In a time of democratic decline, we can show how rights can be protected, and equal freedoms endure,” he said.
In a post on X, Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet slammed Carney for having presented a rather rosy picture of the British conquest of New France.
“The Conquest and its dead, that was an act of collaboration,” he sneered.
“Thank you for giving Quebecers an opportunity to remember who they are (and) what the prime minister, on his cloud, is stubbornly ignoring,” he continued.
Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon accused Carney of falsifying history and said he would be responding to the prime minister at his party convention this weekend.

Building Canada together: Prime Minister Carney delivers remarks at the Citadelle of Québec
Mr. Carney’s  speech at La Citadelle was criticized by all the usual suspects, including former Harper spokesman Dimitri Soudas, but also by such as André Pratte and Chantal Hébert,
Daniel Béland: Beyond le Bonhomme: Why Carney’s Citadelle Speech Backfired in Quebec concludes “Clearly, the political takeaway is that the Liberal party should step up its game by providing better Quebec-related advice to a prime minister who, for the time being at least, seems much more in his element in Davos than in Quebec City.”
Andrew Caddell, offered a strong defense -backed with solid historical references- of Mr. Carney’s key national unity speech,
Bravo to Carney for speaking the truth
The prime minister dared suggest the Plains of Abraham is the symbolic cradle of Canada. And he was right to do so.