Five years after Montreal city hall removed a crucifix, it has reopened an image of a woman with a hijab, prompting criticism from some, and support from others.Visitors to city call now encounter the message “Bienvenue à L’Hotel de Ville de Montréal“ in an image two metres high. The picture includes a sketch of a young man wearing a hoodie and ballcap, a woman wearing a hijab, and a male senior citizen.City hall opened to the general public in June for the first time since it was closed for restoration and renovations in 2019. Back then, Mayor Valerie Plante said the crucifix that had adorned the location would be removed to “establish the secular nature of the city council.” A crucifix was also removed from the National Assembly in Quebec City.In June 2019, the State Secularism Act Bill 21 barred public servants from wearing religious symbols, including turbans, hijabs, and kippahs while working and said people who received government services had to have their face uncovered while doing so. Section 33 of the Charter was invoked to allow for this restriction on religious freedoms.Daniel Baril, President of the Quebec Secular Movement, called for the mural to be removed “immediately” in an open letter posted to Tolerance.ce, saying its presence was “astonishing” and “a surprise.”“The Plante administration has therefore switched from the crucifix to the hijab, thus denying its desire to ensure the secularity of the place,” he wrote.“The presence of this veiled woman, representing the female population of Montreal, goes against the Montreal Charter of Rights and Responsibilities, which states that ‘in order to promote the participation of citizens in the affairs of the City, the City of Montreal undertakes to […] support equality between women and men’ (Article 16, g). How can liberal Muslims and non-Muslims feel supported, included and welcome by such a poster?”Baril said the “Islamic veil is a symbol of profound inequality between the sexes” and defies Bill 21’s requirements that municipalities have “religious neutrality in fact and appearance.”Columnist Sophie Durocher said she expected better from a $211 million renovation. Valerie Plante is making fun of us! Durocher wrote in Le Journal De Montreal.“The one and only representation of a citizen of Montreal who has favor in the eyes of the Plante administration is the one who wears an ostentatious religious symbol?” asked Durocher.Durocher found the crucifix enclosed in a glass cube in section of the hall called “Religious Montreal.” “The crucifix is taken out through the back door, but the veil is brought in through the front door,” she commented.“On the ‘Laïcité montréalaise’ poster, we are told that Montreal was founded by ‘pious people’, that it is ‘the city of a hundred bell towers’, but that ‘since the Quiet Revolution’, ‘religion has become more of a private matter’.“On the ‘Symbols’ card, we are informed that in 2002 the symbol of the crucifix ‘was questioned in society’ and that it was removed in 2019 ‘following the adoption of a law on secularism by the government of Quebec’.”Meanwhile, a “Pioneers” card said mentalities had evolved and that “feminist struggles” led to the election of Plante. A segment devoted to the “visibility of Montreal women” did not ring true to Durocher.“I ask Valérie Plante: how can you, on the one hand, celebrate the ‘visibility’ of women and, on the other, glorify a symbol (the veil) which, on the contrary, erases them and makes them invisible?” Durocher wrote.The city says the mural is a ‘representation of citizens … and in no way calls into question the secularism of the institution.” In a special to the Montreal Gazette, Toula Drimonis agreed.“It’s a disingenuous argument at best…Unlike the cross, once meant to signify the city’s connection to and support of Catholicism, this image doesn’t represent religion, but a human who just happens to be religious. It’s meant to signal that city hall belongs to all Montrealers. Young or old, Black or white, secular or faithful,” Drimonis argued.“Montreal’s administration isn’t endorsing or promoting the hijab. It’s merely reflecting the city’s diverse reality, whether that diverse reality displeases some or not.”
