In 2019, the Quebec National Assembly passed Bill 21. It prohibits, among other things, certain state employees in positions of authority (including teachers, prison guards, police officers, and justices of the peace) from wearing religious symbols when providing public services. Many political commentators denounced the move as running counter to Canadian multiculturalism and human rights. Why did the government adopt this form of state secularism? And why did it garner public support? The Challenges of a Secular Quebec provides illuminating answers to these questions and explores why many Quebecers consider the law legitimate. Contributors analyze the statute from different angles to provide a nuanced, respectful discussion of its intentions and principles. Given the province’s singular history in North America, the merits of the initiative to separate church and state must be considered within the Quebec context. The Challenges of a Secular Quebec calls for a legal interpretation of Bill 21 that is sensitive to this difference.

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François Rocher is Professor in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa. He has held a similar position at Carleton University, where he was also director of the School of Canadian Studies. He is the co-editor, with Miriam Smith, of New Trends in Canadian Federalism (University of Toronto Press, 2003) and has extensively published on constitutional politics, intergovernmental relations, immigration, and citizenship in Canada.

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George Tombs is an award-winning journalist, and has worked for TV, radio, newsmagazines, and newspapers, in both English and French. He has reported first-hand on disappearances, refugees, hostage-takings, terrorists, aboriginal societies, desert nomads, Nobel-winning scientists, inventors, and heads of state and government. He served as editorial-writer at The Montreal Gazette, has produced several documentary series for CBC and Radio-Canada, and has a PhD in history from McGill University. He teaches journalism and history at the State University of New York and Athabasca University.

Tombs is a contributor to The Guardian about Conrad Black, and has spoken about Black on CNN, BBC, CBC, CTV, and Global News.

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