Conservatives' niqab ban shaped by Quebec's secular charter battle On Parliament's last sitting day before the election, Tories move to ban niqabs at citizenship ceremonies
Ahead of last year's Quebec general election, the Parti Québécois government introduced its secular charter.
The stated purpose was to ban the wearing of "overt" religious symbols for those working in the public sector, in order to demonstrate the government's "secularism and neutrality."
The political purpose was to distract from a poorly performing economy and wedge the opposition ahead of the election.