Protest or Prayers - Group Street Prayers in Front of Churches? Bye Bye Canada's Franco-Anglo, Christian, Commonwealth Foundation, Culture and History

 https://nationalpost.com/opinion/leslie-roberts-quebec-calls-street-prayer-what-it-is-intimidation

In recent months, Islamic prayers have also spilled into parks and downtown streets, with worshippers rolling out mats outside shopping districts and public offices. What began occasionally has become a regular source of tension.

The pushback has been visceral. Downtown merchants complain that prayers outside their storefronts drive away customers, creating bottlenecks of foot traffic. One caller to the radio talk show remembered feeling “trapped” when sidewalks suddenly filled with rows of worshippers, unsure if she was intruding or even welcome to pass through.

Elsewhere, motorists have reported frustration when intersections were partially blocked. Even if only briefly, the sight triggered confrontations: honking, shouting, accusations of disrespect. For a segment of Quebecers, the sudden visibility of religion in public sparked not only annoyance but genuine fear — that what is happening in Montreal could echo the social frictions seen in European 

And sometimes recently, these prayers came with a political message — critical of Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza, calling for a “free Palestine.” To critics, that only heightens the outrage, saying, “these are really protests, not prayers.”

Quebec’s uneasy relationship with religion is deeply rooted. For generations, the Catholic Church dominated social life, urging families to “fill the pews with many children” over education and advancement, seen by critics as self-serving. The Quiet Revolution of the 1960s was, in many ways, a revolt against that grip, as francophones built their own schools and universities to finally match the English institutions that had long flourished. Out of that history emerged Quebec’s modern embrace of laïcité — secularism — which took form in laws like Bill 21, prohibiting government employees in positions of authority from wearing religious symbols. That includes doctors, nurses and teachers. To many Quebecers, it was not an attack on faith but a continuation of the push to free the state from clerical influence; to critics, it crossed into discrimination under the guise of neutrality.

Now, Quebec is positioning itself as the first province in Canada to tackle the issue of street prayers head-on. The central question is this: Is it appropriate to conduct religious prayer in public, and at what point does expression become disruption? How do you balance that with the right to freedom of religion guaranteed in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms?

But is it that black and white? Or is Quebec being proactive in addressing a sensitive issue before it spirals into the kinds of confrontations seen in Paris, where such a ban is already in place."