Just because everybody is cheering doesn’t always mean it’s the right thing to do. Take, for example, Quebec’s recent legislation banning niqab-wearing women from receiving government services, including education and non-emergency health care.

There are few pieces of legislation anywhere in this country which are as popular as this one is. Public opinion polls show approval ratings practically off the charts, both in Quebec and everywhere else in Canada.

Not here, however.

Not here, however.

The whole thing began after an uproar in March when a completely veiled Muslim woman was booted out of a French-language class after she insisted that male students in her class could not see her face. The same woman was tracked to another college where the same thing happened because she would not remove her niqab.

And so it goes.

Quebec Premier Jean Charest claims his bill establishes guidelines for the “accommodation” of religious minorities and draws the line in the sand to show that “gender equality” is a paramount Quebec value.

“If you are someone employed by the state and you deliver a service, you will deliver it with your face uncovered,” he said. “If you are a citizen who receives services, you will receive them with your face uncovered.”

And the crowd cheers. And cheers.

My question is simple: Why? What’s the problem here?

To start with, there are only a handful of cases in the entire province where this has ever been an issue. No doubt if you need a picture for identification purposes, e.g. a driver’s licence or your OHIP card, you have to show your face. That only makes sense.

But, given the fact that it’s an issue which only rarely comes up, if Charest were truly interested in “accommodation” he would do what Ontario does, i.e. allow the woman to go into another room and have her picture taken by another woman. Surely that’s not the end of civilization as we know it.

You realize, of course, that Canada’s chief electoral officer has already ruled that under current law, veiled women can cast ballots. So they’ll be able to vote in federal elections in Quebec, but they won’t be able to take French lessons in school unless they remove their veils. Does this really make any sense? Is this really what Quebec’s government means when it says this is “a core value?” There are an estimated 200,000 Muslims in Quebec, and Salam Elmenyawi, head of the Muslim Council of Montreal, says that only about two dozen of them wear a full veil. Two dozen? And they bring in a law as if those few women are a threat to Canadian values or - and here’s the most absurd argument at all - a threat to the equality of women.

You know the argument. You may even agree

with it. Those women who do wear veils as part of their religious observances really don’t want to wear them, you understand.

Oh no, they’re being forced to - brutalized, actually - by an overbearing husband.

So forcing them to take off their veils in order to get public services is freeing these women from the oppressive yoke of their nasty hubbies.

This, of course, assumes that these women are completely unable to make any decisions on their own behalf, a rather patronizing view which, alas, has been put forward by women’s groups claiming to be acting in the interest of gender equality.

There’s no equality here. Equality would be allowing these few women to wear the veil if that’s what makes them comfortable or suits their notion of their own particular religious values.

It’s not as if they are harming anybody. That would be different.

Yet, despite this horrendous assault on the freedom of these women - most of whom, keep in mind, are Canadian citizens - Charest is hardly the only politician applauding this move. All the federal party leaders are cheering as well, right along with the vast majority of Canadians.

Daniel Weinstock, a philosophy professor in Montreal, was quoted in newspapers at the time saying that Quebec is addressing issues which are being ignored in the rest of Canada. “This is a very good thing,” he said. “...whatever the final form of this bill... we are having a very interesting societal debate here in Quebec that has to do with issues that are not specific to Quebec.”

That part is true, alas. And the main issue - the unspoken reason why so many are cheering - is rather obvious: it’s plain, old-fashioned racism done up in a rhetorical bow.

We shouldn’t be applauding. We should be outraged.