March 2025 | In a 2024 policy brief for the Collectif québécois pour la prévention de l’itinérance (CQPI), Pearl Eliadis, alongside Melissa Shemirani and Angelina Freeman, highlights the urgent need for increased investment in second-stage shelters for women and children fleeing domestic and intimate partner violence. Building on a 2022 recommendation from CQPI’s Gender Research Stream, the team conducted a rapid literature review that found second-stage housing plays a vital role in bridging the gap between emergency shelters and permanent housing.

March 21, 2025 | Professor Pearl Eliadis on banning of religious symbol in schools explains that the government’s use of the notwithstanding clause indicates it is aware the bill would not survive a Charter challenge. “This is a government trying to out-PQ the PQ,” Eliadis said, referring to the rival Parti Québécois and its focus on identity politics.

January 23rd, 2025 | In an interview on Let’s Go with Sabrina Marandola on CBC, Pearl Eliadis discussed the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision to hear a legal challenge against Quebec’s Bill 21. Eliadis emphasized the significance of the Court’s move, stating, “It’s the Supreme Court saying that it’s important and an issue of national significance.”

January 25, 2025 | The Supreme Court of Canada will decide whether a law that Quebec enacted in 2019, barring public-sector workers from wearing religious symbols, violates their rights. Professor Pearl Eliadis said that while one of the main tenets of Quebec’s secularism was the idea that the state should be a neutral actor, she thought the law had imposed the government’s viewpoint of what nonreligion ought to look like in the public service.

January 24, 2025 | The Supreme Court of Canada has agreed to hear a challenge against Quebec's controversial secularism law that prohibits certain public workers from wearing religious symbols while performing their duties. Professor Pearl Eliadis joined for an interview with the CBC to discuss the nature of the issues at stake, by the very fact that the court has agreed to hear the case. 

In Concordia University's latest Researcher-Member Portrait, Pearl Eliadis talks about effective ways of educating the public about their rights and details her work related to the rights and interests of Quebec's English-speaking community. The Quebec English-Speaking Communities Research Network (QUESCREN) is a dynamic alliance of researchers, community members, and institutions that develops research capacity in English-speaking Quebec.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland will present the next budget in the House of Commons on April 16, with the government facing considerable political pressure over the economy. Ms. Freeland says the economic plan will be about “building more homes, faster, making life more affordable and creating more good jobs.” (The Globe and Mail) 

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