Quebec | Humanist Heritage Canada

On February 10, 2026, Amnesty International released a statement in opposition to Québec’s Bill 1. You can find the organization’s full statement on their website.

Bill 1, the Quebec Constitution Act, 2025 was tabled by the government of Quebec on 9 October 2025. From a humanist standpoint — one that prioritizes human dignity, individual rights, and inclusive democracy — Quebec’s Bill 1 appears to raise serious concerns. To what extent these concerns might be genuinely problematic for the people of Québec and Canada is not yet clear. With law, it is a very reasonable approach to give serious thought to the potential for unintended consequences before jumping wholly in or wholly out of the bandwagon.

Amnesty International’s objections are championed by Agnès Callamard, global Secretary General of Amnesty International. Callamard is a French (not Québecoise) human rights advocate. According to the OHCRH website, Dr. Agnes Callamard was the UN Special Rapporteur on Extra-Judicial summary or arbitrary Executions from August 2016 to March 2021. She is the Director of Columbia University Global Freedom of Expression. Dr Callamard spent nine years as the Executive Director of ARTICLE 19, the international human rights organization promoting freedom of expression globally. She also founded and led Humanitarian Accountability Partnership (now CHS Alliance), the first international self-regulatory body for humanitarian agencies. Prior to this, she taught and conducted research on international refugee movements for the Center for Refugee Studies at York University in Toronto. She has led human rights investigations in more than 30 countries and published extensively, in both English and French, on human rights, women’s rights, freedom of expression, refugee movements and the methodology of human rights investigation.

Following is condensed bullet list of the organization’s assertions regarding the bill:

several articles jeopardize the rights of linguistic and cultural minorities and Indigenous Peoples in Québec.
it lacks any legitimacy as no public consultation of any kind was conducted.
it contradicts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948
the bill diminishes Québec’s Charter of Human Rights by imposing new limits on it.
it weakens individual and collective rights by placing them in a hierarchy.
it denies the rights of Indigenous Peoples and further marginalizes their economic, social and cultural rights.
It restricts access to justice, creating barriers to defending the rights of the most vulnerable.
It ignores the procedural requirements that arise from human rights law
If Bill 1 is adopted and enters into force, not only will Québec be in breach of its international human rights commitments, but it will also place Canada in the same position.
By including an absolute derogation clause that allows all fundamental rights to be overridden without justification or contextualization, Bill 1 violates international law, which allows for such provisions only in extremely limited circumstances and requires that, for certain specific rights, all such derogations – regardless of the severity of the situation – must be justified on their merits.
Several provisions of Bill 1 fail to recognize bearers of Indigenous rights and their own representative institutions and contravene Indigenous Peoples’ rights to self-determination, participation and free, prior and informed consent, which are enshrined in international and Canadian law.
The rights of linguistic and cultural minorities are absent from Bill 1
Bill 1 includes measures to restrict many organizations’ ability to challenge laws and would place Québec in clear violation of international law by effectively preventing the implementation of the appeals mechanisms required by its instruments.
No adequate and effective public consultation process was held before tabling Bill 1, therefore the bill is devoid of legitimacy and stands in complete contradiction to international law on civic engagement.

This is a long and not insignificant set of concerns that should be examined by all citizens of Canada, including those in Québec. Humanists in particular should examine these criticisms, determine if they are a valid basis of concern on their own and in application to the language of Bill 1.

There is a long and complicated history in Canada and Québec of inconsistent, if not always completely incompatible, approaches to human rights and secularism. Concerns championed by Dr. Callamard and Amnesty International may have responses or counter-arguments from other legal, secularist, constitutional and human rights experts.

For now, let us present one version of a humanist perspective on Bill 1 informed by both its critics and a preference to avoid potentially significant harmful unintended consequences. A history of seemingly contradictory and implacable perspectives suggests that there may be very significant gaps and blind-spots in each of the entrenched attitudes.

Bill 1 establishes a clear hierarchy between collective and individual rights. If enacted, the Constitution of Québec would enshrine the “intrinsic and inalienable rights” of the francophone majority. This seems to contradict a perspective that human dignity and equality belongs to every person, not just those who fit a dominant cultural identity.

A humanist framework would expect that a constitution would emerge from broad, inclusive public engagement. Yet Bill 1 was introduced with no public consultation between the Proulx-Rousseau Report (November 2024) and its tabling . A legitimate constitution should guarantee fundamental rights and prevent authoritarian tendencies.

Bill 1 would allow the National Assembly to invoke the notwithstanding clause without justification, and would block judicial review of laws framed as protecting the “Quebec nation”. Independent courts are a vital safeguard against majoritarian overreach — removing that check concentrates power dangerously.

We can acknowledge a legitimate desire of Québecers to protect a genuinely distinct language and culture on the North American continent. The tension between cultural preservation and individual rights is real. But the means matter: a constitution that would protect one group by subordinating others would contradict the universalist and progressive core of humanist ethics.

We look forward to learning what Canada’ individual and collective humanists think about Québec’s Bill 1.

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This article was drafted using a process that included artificial intelligence tools. If you have any stylistic concerns or find any factual errors or omissions, please let us know.

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If you’re interested in analyzing and discussing this issue, there are actions you can take. First, here at Humanist Heritage Canada (Humanist Freedoms), we are open to receiving your well-written articles.

Second, we encourage you to visit the New Enlightenment Project’s (NEP) Facebook page and discussion group.

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The views, opinions and analyses expressed in the articles on Humanist Freedoms are those of the contributor(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the publishers.

On January 23, 2025, the Supreme Court of Canada announced that it would hear challenges to Québec’s secularism law, commonly referred to as “Bill 21”.

While this news may have been missed due to the political and economic uncertainties resulting from such situations as the trade relations between Canada and the United States of America (as led by its current President), the federal Liberal Party’s leadership race or even the Ontario provincial election, this is indeed significant national history in the making.

Here is what the Supreme Court has to say: “The Act respecting the laicity of the State was passed and assented to on June 16, 2019. Its purposes include affirming the laicity of the Quebec State and specifying the general obligations arising therefrom, prohibiting the listed persons from wearing religious symbols in the exercise of their functions and requiring those persons to perform their functions with their face uncovered. The Act also contains provisions through which the legislature exercises the override power granted to it by s. 52 of the Quebec Charter and s. 33 of the Canadian Charter and permits the Act to apply notwithstanding certain rights and freedoms.

Once the Act came into force, a number of persons, groups of persons and organizations brought separate proceedings challenging the constitutionality of the Act or certain of its provisions. They raised constitutional grounds, some of which were related to the Canadian Charter or the Quebec Charter. The Superior Court largely dismissed the challenge, except on two points. The Court of Appeal arrived at the same conclusions except as regards the educational language rights that s. 23 of the Canadian Charter guarantees to Canadian citizens belonging to Quebec’s English linguistic minority. Unlike the trial judge, the Court of Appeal found that the Act does not infringe s. 23.“

Since that January 23 announcement, a number of parties have requested intervenor status, including the Government of Canada and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

Meanwhile, Québec’s justice minister has, “criticized the federal government for appointing Robert Leckey — a vocal opponent of the province’s secularism law and French language reforms — as a judge on the Quebec Superior Court.” The federal Liberal party has clearly set itself against Quebec’s secularism law.

Québec launched a Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms in 1975, approximately seven years before the Canadian charter. Meanwhile, the recent history of controversial secularism (laicité) laws dates to 2013’s proposed Charter of Values. You may wish to review our timeline to review this and other major events in the advancement of human rights in Canada, including Québec.

The latter (failed) proposal was a source of disagreement among many humanist and secularist organizations and opinion leaders in Canada.

Whether Bill 21 is an un-constitutional law or not is a serious matter which deserves significant consideration not only by the Supreme Court of Canada but also by humanists and all Canadians. Humanist Heritage Canada encourages earnest and forthright analysis and discussion of the various arguments and claims both for and against this law and all laws regarding secularism in Canada.

Up For Discussion

Second, we encourage you to visit the New Enlightenment Project’s (NEP) Facebook page and discussion group.

Citations, References And Other Reading

The views, opinions and analyses expressed in the articles on Humanist Freedoms are those of the contributor(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the publishers.

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Tag Archives: Quebec

Québec Bill 1: What Do Canada’s Humanists Think?

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Supreme Court of Canada Will Hear Challenges to Québec’s Secularism Law

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