Secularism has long been employed by states to signal their emancipation from “religion,” itself often positioned as unmodern and undemocratic. In this paper, we examine the ways in which secularism is understood in contemporary debates in Quebec. While secularism is typically employed to regulate religion, often with a focus on Islam, we show that with An Act Respecting the Laicity of the State (2019) its usage is mobilised to articulate the distinctiveness of the “Quebec nation.” Based on our discourse analysis of the 35 public briefs in favour of the Act, submitted to the Quebec legislature prior to its enactment, we show how most of these submissions define laïcité as a necessary tool to emancipate the Quebec nation from the rest of Canada. Laïcité is thus conceptualized as central to Quebec’s identity and constructed in opposition to a Canadian liberal-multicultural-Anglophone Other.
