Systemic Islamophobia, Law 21 and the Threat of Section 33
This lecture will examine the implications of Quebec’s Law 21, which prohibits public sector employees from wearing religious symbols while working. It will argue that the Quebec government’s pre-emptive invocation of section 33, commonly known as the “notwithstanding clause”, of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, to insulate the law from judicial review, serves to legitimize systemic Islamophobia. The talk will also explore how the growing use and threatened application of section 33 undermines the rights and protections of minority communities across Canada.
*The event is eligible for 1 hour of Law Society of British Columbia CPD credit.
Speaker
Natasha Bakht is a Full Professor of law at the University of Ottawa. She held the Shirley Greenberg Chair for Women and the Legal Profession from 2020-2024. She was called to the bar of Ontario in 2003 and served as a law clerk to Justice Louise Arbour at the Supreme Court of Canada. Natasha’s research interests are generally in law, culture and minority rights and specifically in the intersecting area of religious freedom and women’s equality. Her research on the niqab analyzes the unwarranted popular panic concerning Muslim women who cover their faces and explores systemic barriers to inclusion perpetuated by Canada’s legal and political system. Her book In Your Face: Law Justice and Niqab-Wearing Women in Canada was listed in the Hill Times 100 Best Books of 2020 and received the 2020-2021 Huguenot Society of Canada Award. She has been cited by the Supreme Court of Canada in R v NS, 2012 SCC 72, a case involving a niqab-wearing sexual assault complainant. In the area of family law, she has co-written a textbook entitled Families and the Law, 4th ed (Concord: Captus Press Inc, 2024) and has been cited by the Supreme Court of Canada in the cases of Michel v Graydon, 2020 SCC 24 and Colucci v Colucci, 2021 SCC 24, both involving claims of historic child support. Together with her friend and colleague Lynda Collins, she stretched the legal boundaries of family by becoming legal co-mothers of their son, Elaan, though they are not in a conjugal relationship. She is also an award-winning dancer and choreographer.
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