Mayor Plante and opposition passed a unanimous resolution saying municipal government is already secular and does not need a provincial dress code that will chip away at individual liberty.
Political adversaries at Montreal City Hall have joined forces in a rare show of unity against Quebec’s plan to ban the wearing of religious symbols in certain public-service functions.
Opposition leader Lionel Perez, who wears a kippa, choked back tears as he stated his support for the motion and thanked Ms. Plante for joining his proposal to oppose the province’s Bill 21.“I was born in Montreal from immigrant parents who chose Quebec because it is open, because of the French language and the promise of a better future,” he said. “I’m as much a Quebecker – we are as much Quebeckers – as anyone, whether I wear a kippa or a veil or not. My kippa is not an affront to secularism.
Mr. Perez said City Hall’s motion shows no consensus is possible on a law that would harm individual minority rights for people whose religious beliefs have never been an issue. The government has provided no evidence that religious people are less capable of performing their jobs, he said. The heat of the rhetoric surrounding Bill 21 has increased rapidly in the two weeks since its introduction. Most of the province’s politicians and pundits spent much of the past week demanding an apology from the mayor of the small Montreal island municipality of Hampstead, William Steinberg, who described the dress code as peaceful ethnic cleansing. He refused to apologize.Ms. Plante said such talk is not helpful.
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