Trudeau says it's not just governments who can fight Quebec secularism law

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says citizens, not just governments, must play a role in ensuring that fundamental rights are defended after a Muslim teacher in Quebec was removed from her teaching position for wearing a hijab in class.

In a wide-ranging year-end interview with Rosemary Barton, CBC's chief political correspondent, Trudeau defended his government's response to Quebec's secularism law, known as Bill 21, which bans the wearing of religious symbols on the job by public servants in positions of authority. 

"I disagree, and I always disagree, with Bill 21," Trudeau said in an interview airing today on Rosemary Barton Live. "I have also stated that I am not taking off the table intervening, at a future date, in a legal challenge." 

Pressed by Barton about why his government has limited its opposition to words rather than taking that action against the law, Trudeau said defending rights is not just the job of governments. 

"The challenge we have on this one is making sure that people understand that fundamental rights need to be defended," he said. "Governments can and should defend them and have a role in it, but our fellow citizens can also be standing up for each other."

Trudeau went to to say "that's what we're seeing in Chelsea, where the community, where the families, where the kids, where everyone is saying, 'Hey this is wrong, that a young Muslim teacher loses her job just because she's Muslim.'"

After working several months as a substitute teacher with the Western Quebec School Board, Fatemeh Anvari said she was asked to apply for a more permanent position teaching a Grade 3 class at Chelsea Elementary School.

Anvari began that job earlier this fall. But she said after just one month into her new position, the school principal told her she had to move to a posting outside the classroom because she wears a hijab.

On Tuesday about 150 parents, students and other community members in the small community of Chelsea, Que., held a protest over her removal at the office of Robert Bussière, the Quebec MLA who represents Gatineau.

"A whole bunch of Quebecers are now wondering about what happens in a free society when you tell a Muslim woman she can't keep her job because she's Muslim," Trudeau said. 

Trudeau has defended his government's decision not to intervene in the case, saying that Quebeckers are already challenging the province in court and that he will first let that process play out before making any legal moves of his own. 

Early last week, Quebec Premier François Legault said he didn't understand how Trudeau could intervene in a challenge to a bill that is supported by a majority in the province.

"Bill 21 was voted democratically, was supported by the majority of Quebecers," he said. "I don't see how the federal government can intervene in so touchy a subject for our nation."

Legault said the law does not contradict the principles of a free and open society "because people are free to wear, or not, a religious sign."