maybe another way to look at the differences between bill 21 and the ban on face coverings at citizenship ceremonies is to ask yourself what kind of voter is likely to be attracted to the different policies, and realize that there's a standard right-left divide at play, even in a basic liberal v conservative concept of the separation of church and state.

so, i called the citizenship ceremony "trivial", which would be more of a standard leftist position. conservatives may not think such a thing is trivial, because they're all into pledges and oaths and shit. they care about flags and they stand for anthems and the whole thing; symbolic gestures are important to them. i don't give a fuck about any of that - imagine there's no countries. and, no religion, too. so, conservatives may see a valid role for the state to play here, while leftists mostly wouldn't think this is very important, even if they don't like the actual garments very much.

when you introduce the question of power, you change the scenario. and, i hate foucault, actually. but, when you bring in the power dynamic, you're now entering an arena where liberals and leftists tend to want to enforce a firewall of separation and conservatives want to uphold state institutions. so, leftists don't want the ten commandments at the courthouse or in the schools, and we wouldn't want other religious symbols, like niqabs, on display, either; conservatives may argue that such things are foundational and cultural and should be preserved.

by reducing the issue to identity, or "racism", you're just cutting the actual substance out of the debate. it's both a strawman and a red herring and a pejorative. but, it's the level of discourse we should really expect.

is it a ballot issue? i don't want it to be this cycle - i want to vote for climate action, and the sitting government's lack of meaningful movement on it. the political configuration to make it a ballot issue isn't in front of me. in another scenario, i could see it as a wedge issue, and i could see it as a swing ballot issue, absolutely.

if faced with a choice between two parties with similar climate change platforms, i would vote for the party that supports bill 21, not the one that opposes it.