The Canadian Council of Muslim Women is predicting that Bill 62, expected to passed by the National Assembly today, will not survive a rights challenge.
The bill will outlaw the wearing of a face-covering while delivering or receiving provincial or municipal government services, including in the education and health sectors and the transit system.
The Council's Samaa Elibyari spoke this morning to CJAD's Leslie Roberts.
She says Muslim women who choose to veil themselves by wearing a niqab or burka do so not as a product of male oppression but as a sign of personal modesty and distinction.
She calls Bill 62 the product of colonial thinking, in which one set of people try to impose their values on others.
She also finds it disturbing that Quebec society is focusing on the relatively few Muslim women who choose to cover their faces.
"It gives the impression that we are a problem,: she says. "We're always being debated in the National Assembly, so what do do with these women who cover their faces?"
She doubts the bill's ban on religious face-coverings in the delivery and reception of government services will withstand a rights challenge if it prevents a veiled women from boarding a bus or receiving medical care.