Overview

• Secularism Minister Jean-François Roberge announced plans to introduce legislation this fall to prohibit praying in public spaces, calling street prayer a serious and sensitive issue.
• He said Premier François Legault tasked him with strengthening secularism and that the forthcoming bill would specifically ban street prayers.
• The government’s direction diverges from a nearly 300-page advisory report that recommended leaving regulation of collective prayer to municipalities rather than imposing a province-wide ban.
• The same report urged expanding Bill 21 to prevent early childhood educators in subsidized daycares from wearing religious symbols.
• Legault has previously backed a public-prayer ban and expressed willingness to invoke the notwithstanding clause to defend it, as his Coalition Avenir Québec struggles in polls after recent byelection losses.