A Muslim woman wearing a hijab put the Parti Québécois on the defensive in a sharp exchange on the first day of hearings over the secular charter that would prohibit public sector employees from wearing overt religious symbols.

Samira Laouni told the minority PQ government that its proposed legislation was creating social tensions unheard of in Quebec until now. Some Muslim women have been spat on and have had their head scarf torn off, she said. “I’ve been here for 15 years. I have never seen it like this until now,” she told the committee.

Ms. Laouni was among the first seven to appear at the National Assembly, but 250 parties have submitted briefs and 200 hours have been set aside for presentations over the next several weeks.

The issue has divided Quebeckers, and opposition parties accuse the PQ of trying to take advantage of the storm of protest to attract enough voter support, especially in predominantly francophone ridings, to win a majority government in an election many expect will be held this spring.

The PQ minister responsible for democratic institutions, Bernard Drainville, went to great lengths to defend the bill he tabled last November. He argued that only 20 per cent of Muslim women in Quebec wear the veil. “That is one in five that won’t be affected by the restrictive measures,” he said.

Ms. Laouni lashed back by reminding the minister that it was his responsibility to protect minorities. “In a democratic country you need to think about the 1 per cent that is affected. You don’t think about the absolute majority, you think about the minority that is being crushed,” she said.

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Past remarks promoting diversity in Quebec’s schools have come back to annoy Premier Pauline Marois as her government tries to pass legislation forbidding the display of overt religious symbols in the public service. But the premier says there’s no contradiction between what she says now and what she said then.

Opposition Liberals raised a 1998 policy on school integration that was signed by Marois when she was the provincial education minister. In it, she encourages the “visibility” of religious diversity “by school personnel.” She goes on to note in the 40-page document, which was co-signed by then-immigration minister Andre Boisclair, that the province’s “common values” include “openness to diversity in ethnocultural, linguistic and religious matters.”

“The credibility of the discussion over the openness of ethnocultural and religious diversity is supported in good part by the visibility of this diversity among school staff,” the document says. The document also states that “the mere wearing of the hijab cannot be prohibited in Quebec schools” because it does not break any laws or the Canadian or Quebec charters of rights.

Under the values charter proposed by Marois’ government, religious headwear such as hijabs would be banned in schools. The charter, which still has to be passed by the provincial legislature, would ban public sector employees from wearing any obvious religious objects or clothing.

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