Has anyone seen any conspicuous religious symbol lately?

The Parti Québécois government wants to ban Muslim headscarves, Sikh turbans, Jewish kippas and other “overt” religious symbols from the public service. Among other things, if the ban becomes law, public service employees would not be allowed to wear such symbols.

There is so much to say about this, so I won’t even start.

Instead, I just want to propose the following quiz, which can be adopted as a Rorschach Test for those who apply to public service positions in Quebec:

• Look at the following image of the Fleurdelisé, the flag of Quebec. Can you identify any conspicuous religious symbol?

If you answered “Yes”, too bad. No public job for you.

The correct answer is: “Religious symbol? what religious symbol? I can’t even imagine what religious symbol are you talking about. All I can see are four blue squares with some ornament on them. And the white space in the middle? Oh, that’s an intersection (in the winter), isn’t it? It’s a symbol of Quebec’s heritage of public infrastructure construction scandals, right?”