Bill 21 and the Constitutional Boundaries of State Laicity in Québec
By Scott Douglas Jacobsen
How has Bill 21 reshaped the legal and public understanding of secularism, religious freedom, and state neutrality in Québec and Canada more broadly?
Québec’s Bill 21, also known as An Act respecting the laicity of the State, received assent and came into force on June 16, 2019. The key idea: the state of Québec is a lay state.
The principles of Bill 21 are equality for all, the separation of the state and religions, the state’s religious neutrality, and freedom of conscience and freedom of religion. In practice, certain public officials are prohibited from wearing religious symbols while performing their duties.
Religious symbols can include clothing, headwear, jewelry, or items reasonably understood as indicating a religious affiliation. These rules apply to judicial and quasi-judicial personnel, government lawyers and prosecutors, police, peace officers, principals of public schools, etc. Schedule II includes teachers. This was controversial.
People in covered positions on March 27, 2019, were exempt via a grandfather clause. Teachers could be exempt if they remain in the same function within the same school board.
Faces must be uncovered for covered personnel and, when necessary, for members of the public receiving services for identity verification or security. Exceptions exist for disability, health reasons, or job requirements.
No adaptation is permitted for workarounds except as stipulated in the Act itself. It uses the notwithstanding clause twice. The Act does not require Québec to remove existing religious heritage from buildings, place names, or institutional names.
The current challenge before the Supreme Court of Canada is English Montreal School Board et al. v. Attorney General of Québec et al. The docket shows filings in early March 2026, with the hearing scheduled for March 23–26, 2026.
Bill 21 is not symbolic secularism. It defines Québec as a lay state, as noted. The wearing of religious symbols is restricted for certain state employees while shielded by the notwithstanding clause. It is now awaiting final Supreme Court review.
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a flag on a pole, photo by Harry Spink, via Unsplash
A Discussion About Food Security, Food Waste and New Solutions in Manitoba with Ted Dzogan
May 3rd, 2026, at 08:00 PM EDT
At Food Rescue Grocery Store, we think good food should stay out of the landfill. So we’re bringing a new-to-Brandon approach to food security: providing rescued food at a low price for all.
The Food Rescue Grocery Store was established in Brandon, MB, in 2021 as a community response to food waste, community building, food accessibility, and equitable societal participation. We promote and advocate the human right to food, obtained with dignity, respect, and participation; promoting local solutions for food security; reducing food waste; and supporting community growth and integration.
Electricity Grids: The Foundation of Modern Societies with Jason Doering
April 12th, 2026, at 08:00 PM EDT
How do electricity grids work? What are their major components? What is required for an electricity grid to operate 24x7x365 in all weather conditions and always deliver reliable, consistent, dependable, safe, and affordable electricity? What are ancillary services, and why are they so critical to reliable electricity grid operations?
Jason Doering is a recently retired power system engineer who spent much of his career trying to keep Alberta’s electricity system reliable, affordable, and mostly behaving itself. Over more than two decades, he worked across engineering, market, and system operations, and leadership roles at Manitoba Hydro, the Alberta Electric System Operator, and ENMAX.
His experience spans maintenance engineering, market operations, system planning and operations, and a variety of senior leadership roles — confirming his long-held belief that the power business is as much about people and judgment as it is about physics.
Jason holds degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Psychology from the University of Manitoba and is a Professional Engineer. In retirement, he continues to be engaged in discussions on grid reliability, market evolution, and the energy transition. When not pontificating about the power system, Jason can be found riding or working on bikes, enjoying good coffee, traveling, and enjoying not being in meetings.
A Discussion with Bruce Friedrich about His New Book: “Meat: How the Next Agricultural Revolution Will Transform Humanity’s Favorite Food―and Our Future”
June 7th, 2026, at 08:00 PM EDT
Good Food Institute founder and president Bruce Friedrich will discuss themes from his new book Meat, which argues that unless the world leans in on alternative meats, conventional meat consumption will continue to rise, with all of its attendant external costs (e.g., hunger and malnutrition, climate change and biodiversity loss, AMR and pandemic risk).
Nature featured Meat as one of its five “best science picks,” and Publishers Weekly included Meat on its list of the 10 best new releases in science, writing: “This packed account makes food science feel like an urgent and essential undertaking.” Foreign Policy ran an excerpt from the book, and it has been covered favourably by The Atlantic, Guardian, Financial Times, Washington Post, PBS News Hour, and more.
Nobel laureate in economics Michael Kremer states that Meat “contributes to an important and timely global conversation”. SpaceX board member Steve Jurvetson says, “Meat is a fascinating exploration of the consequences of modern meat production and a roadmap to a better future for meat manufacturing”. Jane Goodall said, “Please read this book: it is engaging, informative, and gives us hope for a kinder future”. The Ministry for the Future author Kim Stanley Robinson says that Friedrich’s “presentation is clear, persuasive, and entertaining.”
Come find out what all the fuss is about.
Bruce Friedrich is the founder & president of the Good Food Institute, a global science think tank that is focused on alternative meats. Climate charity evaluator Giving Green has selected GFI as a top climate charity for impact every year for the past five years. Publishers Weekly included Bruce’s new book Meat on its list of the 10 best new releases in science, writing: “This packed account makes food science feel like an urgent and essential undertaking.” The book is also endorsed by Nobel Laureate in economics Michael Kremer, former UNFCCC head Christiana Figueres, primatologist Jane Goodall, scifi author Kim Stanley Robinson, and others.
See MeatBook.org. Here is a seven-minute segment on PBS that provides a concise overview and a one-hour interview.
A Letter to My American CFI Cousin
By Russell Pangborn
A letter to my American CFI cousin
Dear American CFI member,
There are quite a few brutal dictatorships out there. Apparently, a Presidential hunch was an official reason to start a war with one of them, and no one is sure what the real reasons and goals are.
The premier of the Canadian province of Manitoba, Wab Kinew, made an appeal for ending this war while alluding to a reason a lot of us wonder about – distraction from the Jeffry Epstein inquiry. History has taught us that with war, a wannabe tyrant can find good excuses to suppress a democracy. Anybody in favour of a free press and fair elections can now be accused of being a traitor to the nation if they question that leader … So, here is my question:
What are you doing to stop your country from turning into a dictatorship?
Up here in Canada, our democracy is still healthy … but what happens politically south of us can mess that up in a hurry. We all should have learned from the Weimar Republic’s descent into a fascist Nazi state that complacency in our comfortable lives is not a good strategy. If they eventually are going to break down your doors, maybe a stronger response earlier would have been prudent. If you didn’t vote in that last election that gave majorities to each branch of government, facilitating the end of democracy, then shame on you. But there is still some time to redeem yourself. If you did recognize the threat posed and voted accordingly, you were let down by the roughly 1/3 who did not exercise their right to fill out the ballot. If you are out marching in the No Kings Days protest or one of the heroes in Minneapolis pushing back against a masked fascist policing presence, my hat is off to you. If you voted against this government and are not happy with the current government but feel no urgency about convincing the non-voting 36 percent to participate in the next election – you are not really aware of the danger your country is in. CFI members are like any group. There are those who are hyper-aware and those who are oblivious. I would like to believe you skew heavily towards the first.
Canadians are still incredulous that a minority in your country is wielding so much power. We have our fringe groups as well. But we have not handed over the reins of power to them. During COVID, we had a freedom convoy that held our capital prisoner with protests, and we had an anti-vaxer government group at the Ontario Ambassador Bridge blocking trade and traffic. Today, it is ironic that the menace of a bridge blocking threat is coming from your government. The President has uttered threats because Canada is such a nasty country. We supposedly do not play fair. Although completely funding the multi billion-dollar Gordie Howe bridge and ceding half ownership to the U.S. side sounds exceedingly fair to me. This may be coming because of a Canadian-China auto deal. Trump first said it was understandable, then backtracked to hyperbolic anger on it. While the U.S.’s new policies are f….g us on preexisting deals, looking elsewhere is verboten. But it is okay for the U.S. and China to make deals. One of the strangest arguments ever heard about any business deal is how any auto pact with China will destroy our favourite sport: The National Hockey League crushed out of existence by the Chinese, according to your President.
In my neighbourhood, a lot of Canadians are upset. The fact that a once-strong democracy is crumbling so rapidly is part of it, but the threats from a government your people have elected have certainly galvanized us to distrust the U.S.A. as a whole and bring us together. We have had to rethink our assumptions regarding our best friend never invading us for our resources.
I think you get the gist of why so many of my neighbours and countrymen are swearing off travel to your country. Insulting our leaders, dusting off the Monroe Doctrine, encouraging and possibly funding the fringe in Alberta who want to separate, (Texans in the past have wanted to separate, but we never gave them the time of day). Then there is the 51st state joke, then not a joke, then a joke again … etc. We have learned by watching those jokes play out in your country. They are usually testing the waters for actual intentions. The one currently in development for your side of the border is the third-term gag.
Maybe more attention could have been focused on the damage being done by unethical news media outlets. The free speech argument supporting disseminating outright lies has come back to bite your country. Ironic that once the malicious power got consolidated courtesy of misinformation, the first act was to curtail accurate, verifiable news. No freedom of speech where it is most needed. One of the tenets of our organization should be that nothing is sacred from inquiry. Unchecked freedom of speech went through a modification with our hate laws up here. Some of us are debating the purposeful dissemination of outright lies from news organizations.
A lot of us are making a conscious effort not to buy American-made goods. Some of us will even happily pay more for that Canadian-produced product. Our newly elected Prime Minister, Mark Carney, made us proud with his speech at Davos, earning a rare standing ovation when he acknowledged the new world order and a strategy to deal with it. (An interesting aside is that until your side started ramping up on aggressive language and economic policies, we had a Trump-like conservative front-runner leading in the polls.)
There is some sympathy up here from having argued with a few of the cult members who are relatives or former friends. As some scientists have discovered in these debates, you can’t carry the day when peppered with a bunch of half-true facts taken out of context. You have a better chance with the appropriate research, logic and the scientific method, but those who need to hear and understand have an attention span that has already left the debate room by then. Like some of you, I have blown up some relationships, lost relatives and seen some of my Canadian heroes in an unflattering light.
Your system that was once so proud of a multi-faceted approach of checks and balances on levers of power has bent a knee to ultimate Presidential power. What is your self-anointed King planning? Since his decisions have not been stellar, there is the Save America Act, which is voter suppression on steroids to keep the power base intact after the upcoming impactful November elections. There is a ramping up of attacks on journalism, which already was out of hand with the authoritarians labelling objective reporting as treason. I am sure you know about most of this, but again, my question is, how hard are you fighting back? Your loss of a democracy will cross our borders.
Our former Deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland, was recently on a talk show and cited a quote attributed to Winston Churchill.
“Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.”
Things will have to get very bad before you start blowing things up. But if you are going to do the right thing, here is a wish list from your Canadian Cousin:
Get rid of a system that gives small, sparsely populated conservative states equal status and inordinate power over a majority of you. Put in some checks and balances on dark money and gerrymandering influencing elections. And finally, do something about your Supreme Court that initially enabled all this power.
We need to work on some things as well. The notwithstanding clause is Canada’s albatross, providing a legal loophole to upend good government.
I am aware that a few American CFI members will read this. I speak with a lot of people who are angry up here, and at one time, we were just mad at the MAGA people. But as the rhetoric and threats ramped up, some of us are wondering why more of the decent people in your country aren’t pushing back. Some did in Minneapolis and lost their lives for it. When they did, and lies were disseminated about them being terrorists, the Minnesota Governor, Tim Walz, pushed back, calling ICE agents “Trump’s Modern-Day Gestapo’. I also must ask myself, if this rot crosses the border, what am I willing to do? Your turn will have passed, and it will be my turn to step up. Tough decisions… and that brings me back to one of my first points about the Weimar Republic. Staying complacent while the authoritarian infrastructure is built up is not a good strategy. Your country needs saving now before it solidifies all the mechanisms that enable repression of the popular will. Look how hard it is for the Iranians to dislodge a tyrannical theocracy.
Good luck on your next election.
