As of Sept. 1, Muslim students at Québec’s post-secondary colleges, known as CEGEPs, will have no place to perform their daily prayers. Jewish, Christian and Muslim independent schools may lose provincial funding. And group prayer in parks will require municipal permission.

These are key provisions of Québec’s new secularism law, Bill 9. A challenge to Bill 21, meanwhile — a law prohibiting public employees in positions of authority, such as teachers, police officers and judges, from wearing visible religious symbols at work — is currently before the Supreme Court of Canada.

Québec’s new secularism law claims to limit only religious symbols. In fact, it regulates religious obligations.

A religious symbol or an obligation?

As a PhD student researching Islamic legal theory at McMaster University, I believe the public debate has not yet addressed the core of what Bill 9 actually does.

Passed in April 2026 by a vote of 77 to 27 in the Québec legislature, Bill 9 is not simply an extension of the province’s 2019 religious symbols law, Bill 21. It’s a fundamental shift in what secularism is being asked to do.

To see why this shift matters, consider a framework from an unexpected source: Islamic legal theory. The 14th-century jurist Al-Shatibi........

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