Trudeau says it’s not up to federal government to challenge Quebec veil-ban law
OTTAWA — Justin Trudeau offered relatively mild criticism on Thursday of a new Quebec law that bans people from providing or receiving public services with their faces covered and asserted that it’s not up to the federal government to challenge its constitutionality.
The prime minister’s response to Bill 62, passed Wednesday by Quebec’s Liberal government, is in stark contrast to his swift, vehement and unrelenting attacks on the charter of Quebec values proposed by the former Parti Quebecois government four years ago.
The PQ proposal would have banned public servants from sporting any ostentatious religious symbols. Trudeau once equated the fight against it to that of Martin Luther King’s fight against segregation, discrimination and the notion that there are second class citizens.
Trudeau’s response to Bill 62, widely seen as targeting Muslim women who wear the niqab or burka, is also a far cry from his unequivocal denunciation during the 2015 election campaign of former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper’s insistence on banning face coverings for anyone taking the oath of citizenship.