Legault only politician willing to call out threat of mass prayers

Even if the notwithstanding clause is required for its execution, the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) is poised to pass a bill “to strengthen secularism in Quebec” — an expansion of Bill 21 — that will ban mass prayer in public areas. The law will also require immigrants to adopt Quebecers’ “shared values.”

Last December at a press conference, Premier François Legault announced his intention to confront the mass prayer issue head on. “I want to convey a very clear message to the Islamists,” Legault said. “The fundamental values we have in Quebec, like secularism, like equality between men and women, we will fight for them, and we will never, ever accept people disrespecting those fundamental values.”

On the weekend following this challenge, by real or opportunistic coincidence, a mass Is