Nine years after signing a report that called for a ban on religious symbols worn by public servants in positions of “coercive” authority -— police and judges — McGill philosophy professor Charles Taylor says times have changed and Quebecers have changed along with them, and that he no longer endorses the recommendation.
In an open letter published Tuesday in La Presse, Taylor, who with sociologist Gérard Bouchard co-chaired a commission on reasonable accommodation of cultural communities in Quebec, wrote that his support for the measure was never more than qualified, but added that at the time, “to not impose these restrictions would have shocked public opinion to the point of jeopardizing our proposal for open secularism.”
But Taylor writes now that “things have very much changed since then, and that’s more than just my opinion.”
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