Two distinct interpretations of secularism are discussed by Leslie Rosenblood, Secularism Chair of the Centre for Inquiry Canada, and Michel Virard, President of the Association Humaniste du Québec. Moderator: Robert Hamilton, Vice-President of The New Enlightenment Project.
Michel’s position
Secularism (laïcité) requires strict state neutrality, especially visible neutrality. Public servants exercising state authority—teachers, judges, police—must not display religious symbols at work, as they incarnate the state. Visible symbols project religious endorsement, breach appearance of neutrality (per 2015 Supreme Court ruling), and exert subtle influence (“passive advertisement”). Teachers model values for children over long periods, normalizing religious concepts and potentially conflicting with parental/worldview convictions. Harm is preventive: brand recognition and positive attitude formation toward religion, akin to commercial advertising. Bill 21 is minimal interference (work hours only, grandfathering clause), justifiable under Charter s.1, and protects freedom of conscience (inner) by separating it from religious practices (outer). Freedom of religion is a misleading term that conflates absolute inner conscience with limitable external acts.
Leslie’s position
Political secularism demands government neutrality: neither favoring nor suppressing religion. State must not take positions on religious truth, must treat religious and non-religious citizens equally, and maximize freedom of conscience and expression. Religious symbols on public servants are individual expressions, not state endorsement (like churches on public land). Government deciding what counts as a “religious symbol” intrudes into religious affairs, violating separation of church and state. Bill 21 is disproportionate interference and suppression, not minimal. It invokes notwithstanding clause to avoid justification under Charter s.1, bypassing “reasonable limits in free democratic society” test. No strong evidence shows passive harm from symbols; active proselytizing is already illegal and separate from Bill 21. Neutrality protects pluralism, not promotion of atheism/humanism. Restrictions justifiable only for clear health/safety or active coercion, not hypothetical normalization.
Key agreements
Both affirm freedom of conscience as absolute, state impartiality, equal civic standing, no theocracy, and Charter s.1 reasonable limits. Both oppose active proselytizing in public institutions and agree rights can be limited when demonstrable or highly probable harm exists (Mill’s harm principle).
Conclusions / takeaways
No consensus reached on Bill 21. Michel views it as necessary preventive protection of state neutrality and children’s minds. Leslie sees it as overreach, unjustified infringement, and tactically counterproductive to secularization goals. Both emphasized good-faith principled disagreement within secular humanism, condemned mutual demonization (Islamophobia vs. “closet Islamist” smears), and praised respectful, evidence-based dialogue. Hamilton closed stressing shared humanist aims—conscience freedom, equality, cohesion—and value of reasoned disagreement over slogans.
2 thoughts on “Two Solitudes of Secularism”
** I agree with Michel that a state representative on service duty, where he is actively engaged with citizens, must not exhibit any religious affiliations.
** I also agree with Leslie that Bill 21 or regulating the above through state laws is an unjustifiable government outreach and (if I may add) an ugly and impractical tool for doing that..
The solution is not reinventing the wheel but to have and follow professional ethics. Any business has a written and unwritten code of professional ethics, which among other things includes apparel. It can be driven by safety, presentation to a client, or any other professional needs, considerations and social norms. For an on-duty government employee. like teacher, policeman or judge, such a code must include not coming across as a visible member of a particular ideology/cult/religion.
A policeman showing to work with Sikh’s dagger should be treated roughly the same as for forgetting his badge at home; a high school teacher in burqa deserves no less rebuke than the one in yoga pants exhibiting a pronounced camel toe; a judge wearing kippah is as much of a doofus as the one wearing clown’s nose to a hearing (although I admit the latter to be debatable and perhaps even justifiable to be mandated by law as an essential part of judge’s attire).
In the normal/real (aka non-government) world, not adhering to codified or implicit professional standards for conduct, apparel, etc. would typically result in escalating warnings followed by termination of employment/contract, whereas when managed by a Bill that situation would tend to linger and exacerbate until it turns into a heavy, ugly and lengthy legal matter. Professional code is a well-established practice, often governed by respective professional colleges, so there is no need to invent a law for which inevitably there will need to be a committee or extra judicial capacities to decide what’s vividly religious and what’s not, or other extra bureaucracy funded by the taxpayers. Any grey area would be tackled by a superior through softly reminding his subordinate to please step outside of that grey zone, thus making the process (alas, still not perfect and subjective) lighter, gradual and altogether more manageable.
But the most important difference in the professional code approach vs. law, however, is that in the former the mutineer won’t be punished for “being religious” but for being unfit professionally. Wearing kippah strongly suggests that the judge does not understand what message he is sending to e.g. a muslim plaintiff. That in turn means the judge’s judgment is compromised, thus making him unsuitable for the job. The kippah is just flagging it, but likely there are other signs of non compos mentis too. So, he gets fired on the grounds of being professionally unsuitable for the job – not for being a devout jew and exercising his “religious freedoms”. Same applies to the aforementioned teacher and policemen – religious or not, we don’t need loonies in those fields.
The judicial system could still play part in escalation of any disputes through Human Rights Tribunal or whatever (with the fading hope that this institution manages to make itself useful one day), but the state won’t have to butt in for every pity matter.
As for the debaty part of the conversation, Michel won that.
Michel provided multiple forms of evidence for passive influence while Leslie demanded an impossible standard of proof. Michel’s preventive logic (we don’t wait for advertising to harm children before regulating it) is sound policy reasoning. Leslie’s “show me the studies” effectively denies the legitimacy of preventive regulation in areas where controlled studies are impractical. In debate terms, Michelle met his burden; Leslie’s burden-shifting was rhetorical evasion.
The conscience (absolute) vs. practice (limitable) distinction is conceptually sound and well-established in liberal theory. Michel brought this distinction to light from the start as foundational. Leslie acknowledge but never engaged with it, and just kept asserting “suppression” without addressing why external practice should be absolutely protected.
Leslie invoked motorcyclist without a helmet (in a turban) example a few times, which is a non sequitur. For that example alone, Leslie lost the debate.