A new survey published by Concordia and McGill, Montreal’s two main English-language universities, aims to discover how Quebec’s secularism law, Bill 21, is affecting the career choices and experiences of discrimination of students.
The law, which was enacted in June of 2019, prohibits many of Quebec’s public servants, public-school teachers, and prosecutors from wearing any religious symbols at work.
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For the survey, conducted between mid-October 2020 and early November 2021, researchers sent out an online bilingual questionnaire. Volunteers were asked to send in written comments as well as survey responses.
“We noticed many students shared their deep distress at witnessing the impact of the Law’s passage on their classmates, family members, friends and fellow students,” said Elizabeth Elbourne, an associate professor in the Department of History and Classical Studies at McGill co-author of the recently published study. “A number of students in Education left comments indicating that they were unwilling to teach in Quebec because of Law 21, despite not being directly personally affected.”
According to survey results:
- 34% of respondents reported experiencing increased discrimination since the law passed. Slightly more than half of this group reported wearing a religious symbol.
- 51% of students surveyed indicated that they would look for work outside Quebec because of Law 21. Slightly more than half of these students were in education.
- 70% of those surveyed said they have a more negative perception of the province since its secularism law passed – even those who don’t wear religious symbols.
Students who completed the survey expressed doubts about the likelihood of getting a job in Quebec, with 44.4% saying the law would limit job prospects.
Interestingly, there was also a notable distaste for the provincial statute among francophone students. Nearly 42% of participants were either attending or had graduated from a French-language institution.
Finally, students reported increased harassment and discrimination in their daily lives since the passing of Bill 21. Out of the 84 respondents who identified as women who wear a head covering as a religious symbol, 76% of them reported experiencing discrimination since the law was passed. Their responses included accounts of public verbal harassment, comments about hijabs being illegal, and conflict in schools.
Survey results show us that Jewish students also reported experiencing increased instances of antisemitism in the same timeframe.
Of the total respondents who said they wore a religious symbol, 56.5% of them said they experienced some form discrimination after Bill 21 was adopted.
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