Muslim students concerned as Quebec government tables sweeping new secularism rules

MONTREAL — As the Quebec government tables broad new restrictions on religious practices, Muslim students say they feel unfairly singled out by measures that would forbid them from praying anywhere on college and university campuses.

Throughout the day at Concordia University in Montreal, hundreds of students file in and out of two nondescript doors on the seventh floor of a downtown campus building. Just inside the doors – one for men and one for women – are ablution rooms where they can wash before prayers. From there, they pass into one of two prayer rooms – a long, windowless room for men and a smaller space for women.

Muslim students have had a dedicated prayer space at Concordia for decades. For some, its existence is part of the reason they chose to attend the university. But if the Quebec government passes a new secularism bill, tabled Thursday in the provincial legislature, the room will be shut down by the time students return from summer break next year.

“It definitely feels like a personal attack against our community,” said Ines Rarrbo, a first-year mechanical engineering student. “It’s as if we’re not welcome here.”

The new legislation is a far-reaching attempt to extend secularism rules in the province beyond the limits of the state and into public and private spaces. On Thursday, Secularism Minister Jean-François Roberge framed the bill as the latest step in a long march that began with the Quiet Revolution in the 1960s, when the grip of the Catholic Church on Quebec society began to weaken.

“For more than 60 years, Quebec has been slowly but surely moving toward secularization,” he said.

Bill 9 would ban prayer and other religious practices in public institutions, most notably post-secondary schools. Roberge said Quebec institutions have gone “too far” in accommodating the requests of religious communities. “(Colleges) and universities are not temples or churches or those kinds of places,” he said.

It would also deliver on the government’s promise to ban communal prayer on public roads and in parks, except for short events that receive municipal authorization. Fines could be levied against anyone who violates the prohibition.

The legislation would extend the province’s ban on religious symbols to anyone working in daycares, colleges, universities and private schools. It would also prohibit full face coverings, such as the niqab, for anyone in those institutions, including students. Similar bans were passed earlier this fall for elementary and high schools.

Those measures are a marked expansion of the Coalition Avenir Québec government’s first secularism law, Bill 21, which was passed in 2019. That law banned religious symbols, including hijabs and turbans, for public sector employees in positions of authority, such as teachers, police officers and judges. It did not apply to daycares or post-secondary schools.

Bill 21 is the subject of a landmark case to be heard at the Supreme Court of Canada, in part focused on the government’s pre-emptive use of the Charter’s notwithstanding clause to shield it from constitutional challenges. The new legislation also invokes the override clause.

The bill also takes aim at government funding for private religious schools, which Premier François Legault has previously defended. It would forbid government-subsidized schools from teaching religion during classroom hours and from selecting students or staff based on religious criteria. Roberge was unable to say how many schools would be affected by the change, but said they would have three years to adapt before the new rules take effect.

However, prayer rooms at colleges and universities will have to close by September 2026, Roberge said.

Samy Khelifi, president of the Muslim Student Association at Concordia, said the law would create a new problem for the group’s 5,000 members. “People won’t stop praying because there’s not a prayer space,” he said. “What happens to those 5,000 people if they all go pray out on random corners?”

He said the prayer room is an important gathering place for the Muslim community, visited by at least 500 students a day. He added that he was among those who chose Concordia because of the space, which is also open to students of other faiths.

Maryam Laoufi, an adviser at the student association, said she’s alarmed by the new bill. “As a Muslim Quebecer, I feel that we are treated as second-class citizens more and more,” she said.

On Thursday, Roberge rejected the idea that the bill is targeting Muslims, saying that the same rules apply to everyone.

Still, several of the new measures appear to stem from specific incidents involving the Muslim community. The ban on public prayer comes in response to Muslim prayers taking place as part of pro-Palestinian demonstrations, including in front of the Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal.

Roberge called such prayers a “provocation.” People who defy the ban could face fines of up to $375, while groups could face fines of up to $1,125.

The bill would also ban anyone from disrupting a religious practice within a place of worship, which seems to have been inspired by the same demonstrations.

A separate measure to prohibit religious symbols from appearing in communications by public institutions comes following a controversy last year over a welcome poster at Montreal’s city hall that depicted a woman wearing a hijab. Such images will no longer be permitted.

Zainab Karmali, another first-year student at Concordia, said she’ll end up spending less time on campus if the prayer room is closed. “We have so many issues,” she said. “And I don’t know why they’re focusing on this so much.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 27, 2025.

Maura Forrest, The Canadian Press