The bill pertaining to the banishment of niqab, the head-to-toe veil worn by Muslim women in the Canadian province, Quebec is getting much support from Canadians. With this ban, Quebec becomes the first North American province to have restrictions in Muslim women wearing burqas, after France.

The French-speaking province, Quebec’s announcement on niqab ban was propelled by the case of Egyptian woman (https://blog.abhinav.com/?s=niqab&x=0&y=0) who refused to remove her veil in a French language class in a Canadian college. Reportedly, all accommodation had been done according to the woman’s comfort, as she demanded not to face her male classmates during lectures. Things were okay until one day when she refused the authority’s instruction to remove the veil in order to converse around a U-table for getting proper French pronunciation.

With the refusal the woman then appealed the human rights commission of Quebec against the institution on the ground of invading her religious rights. But, last week the provincial government ordered that the women who wear the veils are required to uncover their face in order to confirm their identity and if they do not, they would be prohibited from accessing government services, health care, schools and other educational institutions.

When Canadian Muslim leaders are calling the bill a ‘knee-jerk’ reaction of the government, Canadians are in full support of the law, apparent from a survey conducted by the Montreal Gazette and Angus Reid. Ninety-five percent of Quebec population supported the law, while across Canada, four out of five people are in support of the ban.

Interestingly, Canada boasts near about one million of Muslim population of its total population of thirty-four million. Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto are the cities that are highly concentrated with people from Muslim community and in these cities, those women are mostly seen with niqab who are from orthodox Muslim countries like Ethiopia, Middle East and Somalia.