Is teachers’ union opposition to Quebec values charter a sign PQ policy is in trouble?

Media outside Quebec have seized on a decision by a teachers' union to oppose provisions of the Parti Quebecois' proposed values charter as a sign the controversial policy may be in trouble.

But that may be premature, given most of the hot air expended in the last week has been based on only partial elements of the proposal, likely leaked as a trial balloon, and not the detailed legislation itself.

The Fédération autonome de l’enseignement, which represents about 32,000 Montreal-area teachers working in the francophone school system, announced Wednesday it won't back any law that bars teachers from wearing religious symbols or headgear at work.

“We won’t go on a witch hunt to see who wears a hijab, kippa or cross,” Sylvain Mallette, president of the union, told the Globe and Mail. “We will defend the right of our members to work.”

If the legislation passes and a teacher is threatened with dismissal for displaying religious symbols or garb, the union would take the case to court, the Globe said.

The union represents about a third of the province's teachers and its members work in a region that's home to most of the province's immigrants, the Globe said.

[ Related: Chicoutimi, Que., mosque vandalized as debate over religious symbols heats up ]

It's the first public sector union to take a position on the proposals. Quebec's other teachers' union has not yet announced its stance, saying it will wait for the government to reveal its proposals next week, the Globe noted.

The Syndicat de la fonction publique du Québec, which represents provincial employees, has already come out in support of a ban on religious headgear for anyone working in the public sector.

And even the federation supports the government's policy on secularization in principle — it just sees the ban on personal religious symbols as going too far.

“Preventing someone from wearing a hijab or kippa isn’t a way to ensure the secular nature of the state and its institutions,” Mallette told the Globe. “For us, respecting secularism has nothing to do with whether you wear religious symbols or accessories.”

The federation's three-year consultation with members on accommodating diversity produced several recommendations, including abolition of the Education Ministry's committee on religious affairs, and a withdrawal of funding for private schools, half of which are religiously based, the Montreal Gazette reported.

It also wants clarification on when employees and students can be absent for religious holidays, seen as a matter of inequity because it means atheists get fewer days off. And it wants an end to granting students exemptions from certain courses on religious grounds, the Gazette said. For example, Jehovah's Witnesses have been allowed to opt out of science classes that teach evolution or the Big Bang theory of the creation of the universe.

[ Related: Why is Calgary Mayor Nenshi sounding off about Quebec’s Values Charter? ]

Promoting so-called Quebec values was part of the PQ's election campaign that produced a minority government a year ago Wednesday.

Despite outrage outside Quebec, the polls suggest a large proportion of Quebecers, including a majority of francophones, support the government's approach to religious accommodation.

There's little evidence so far Premier Pauline Marois has misjudged the province's residents but it would not be surprising to see the formal legislation tweaked a little to address critics' concerns.

Meanwhile, the PQ can use the adverse comments of politicians outside Quebec as fodder for its argument Quebec really needs to be a separate country.