#duplessis orphans

In 2019, Québec installed the Laicity Law ("Loi de la laïcitié de l'État"), which stipulates that any authority working for the State cannot show publicly any signs of their religious beliefs. For example, teachers (even private schools), State bankers, State attorneys, etc. can't wear any religious clothing or jewelry. If I were to be working in a museum, I'd have to hide my Rosary necklace under my shirts. It doesn't apply to students or the general public.

Being Gen Z and growing up with the mindset of loving everyone for who they are made me very reticent to the law in 2019, especially as I saw my Muslim friends being stressed out over this. Just this February, a group of people contested the law in court (which was denied). My feelings to that law changed a bit over time, though, especially with that mental exercise:

If I imagine any non-Catholic teacher coming up to school with religious clothing, I'd be okay.

If I imagine a Catholic nun teaching me with their full habit, I'd feel weird.

And it's a common observation amongst the younger Québécois (anecdotal, not proven).

The thing is, that law was made specifically due to the national trauma that we suffered under Catholicism. My parents grew up raised by nuns who would slap their wrists with a ruler, especially my mother as she is left-handed. My grand-parents are from the orphanage generation, the Duplessis Orphans, in which the Cardinal on Montréal signed a treaty with the president to intern all orphans into psychiatric institutions where they were basically enslaved and sexually abused continuously.

And so, of course I feel weird about being taught by an openly presenting Catholic, it's generational trauma! But it wouldn't be fair to just ban Catholics, and we don't want all that trauma to ever happen again... so the Laicity Law applies to every religion.