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Those of us at the Miss G__ Project would like to formally throw our support behind the Non/No Bill 94 Coalition and to join in nation-wide efforts to oppose this proposed Quebec legislation. If passed, Bill 94 would deny women who wear the niqab (or face veil) access to fundamental public services such as health care, day care, legal clinics, and education. As a feminist organization dedicated to equity in education, we are particularly concerned that Bill 94 aims to bar niqab-wearing women from accessing publicly-funded schools, colleges and universities -- as students and employees. To us, equity in education is not congruent with the denial of public education to some women because the government has decided it is going to play an intrusive and coercive real-life game of “What Not to Wear” in our personal wardrobes.

Moreover, in our education activism we have always asserted that governments have the obligation to provide and ensure safe spaces in schools for all students and staff. The groundbreaking 2008 Falconer Report, among other recent studies on violence, bullying and discrimination in schools, emphasized the urgency of this obligation. We are worried about the ways in which this type of legislation engenders a climate of hostility, shame, and Islamophobia within public educational institutions. The perpetuation of this chilly climate denies safe and inclusive spaces in which some women can access education and public life. Bill 94 promotes discrimination and encourages the exclusion of women who wear the niqab or other face or head coverings. Such publicly-sanctioned prejudice could encourage further verbal harassment or violence towards women whose bodies appear marked “Muslim.”

Public debate around Bill 94 has tended to be mired in ideological arguments around "the limits of culture," the role of government in protecting values such as secularism and gender equality, and what these values look like in Quebec and the rest of Canada. However, as feminist individuals, organizations, communities and movements, we must focus on the material effects Bill 94 would have for a group of Canadian women already marginalized and stigmatized within a gendered context of racism, xenophobia and Islamophobia. Regardless of one's feelings on the niqab, religion vs. secularism, or “Canadian cultural values,” all Canadians should be very concerned about legislation that uses the guise and language of “promoting gender equality” to not only limit the personal, bodily and religious expression of Canadian women but also to deny them access to education, employment and social services in a democratic society.

We suggest that if Premier Charest's Liberal government is truly interested in supporting women's autonomy, gender equality and improving the lives of women in Quebec, that it would do better to address problems of gender-based violence, poverty, access to education, and to work toward fostering a safe and inclusive society for all.

For all of these reasons, The Miss G__ Project joins the Non/No Bill 94 Coalition in demanding that Bill 94 be withdrawn immediately and we encourage our supporters to take action to do the same.

The Miss G__ Project for Equity in Education
May 3, 2010