Alexandre Bissonnette

The Bouchard-Taylor Commission on Reasonable Accommodation (2007–2008) was the first to recommend restrictions on religious dress.

Subsequent governments have sought to place restrictions on religious items of clothing such as Muslim head scarves and Jewish Skull caps through legislation such as the Charter of Quebec Values.

Quebec City has a Muslim population of about 10,000.

It has a low crime rate — in 2015, there were only two homicides in the city – but saw a threefold increase in the number of reported hate crimes against Muslims in 2017.

It also has an active far-right community, compared to other Canadian cities.

A local chapter of Soldiers of Odin said it wanted to conduct safety patrols of neighbourhoods where Muslims live.

A competitive media market of local right-wing radio talkshow hosts features regular attacks on Islam and Muslims as being incompatible with the values of Quebec society.

The Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City's Grande Mosquée de Québec in the city's west-end Sainte-Foy neighbourhood is one of several mosques in Quebec City.

The mosque is close to the Université Laval, which has many international students from French-speaking, Muslim-majority African countries.

In June 2016, during Ramadan, it was the target of an incident in which a pig's severed head was left outside the mosque.

The incident has been described as a hate crime and an Islamophobic attack.

There had been at least seven prior incidents at the mosque.

Because of the incidents, the mosque had installed eight CCTV security cameras.

Two weeks before the shooting, the mosque had finalized plans to install a fortified main entrance and a back escape exit for Ramadan in June.

The Quebec City mosque shooting (Attentat de la grande mosquée de Québec) was an attack by a single gunman on the evening of January 29, 2017, at the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City, a mosque in the Sainte-Foy neighbourhood of Quebec City, Canada.

Six worshippers were killed and five others seriously injured after evening prayers when the gunman entered the prayer hall shortly before 8:00 pm and opened fire for about two minutes with a 9mm Glock pistol.

Approximately 40 people were reported present at the time of the shooting.

The perpetrator, 27-year-old Alexandre Bissonnette, pleaded guilty to six counts of first-degree murder and five counts of attempted murder.

The shooting took place at the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City in the Ste-Foy suburb of Quebec City between 7:54 and 7:56 p.m EST on Sunday 29 January 2017 after nightly evening prayers.

The shooter, 27-year-old Alexandre Bissonnette, killed six people and injured five while firing five 10-round magazines from a 9 mm Glock semi-automatic pistol.

The perpetrator fled the scene and gave himself up to police later that evening, and would plead guilty as charged to six counts of first degree murder and six counts of attempted murder with a restricted firearm on January 30, 2017.

Detailed facts of the attack using witness testimony and six security camera recordings were made public in April 2018 by the prosecution during the perpetrator's sentencing hearing and put to rest conspiracy theories that a second shooter was involved.

Superior Court judge François Huot prohibited publication of the video footage, but allowed the press to publish descriptions.

On February 8, 2019, Bissonnette was sentenced to life in prison, with no possibility of parole for 40 years.

Upon appeal, the Court of Appeal of Quebec found 40 years without parole to be unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment, adjusting the sentence to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 25 years.

Quebec prosecutors sought to reinstate the original sentence with an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The decision was upheld on May 27, 2022, meaning Bissonnette will be eligible for parole in 2042.

The shooting prompted widespread discussion of Islamophobia, racism, and right-wing terrorism in Canada.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the shooting a terrorist attack, but Bissonnette was not charged with terrorism provision of the Criminal Code.

The decision to not charge Bisonette with terrorism was criticized by Canadian Muslim groups.

On the fourth anniversary of the attack, the Trudeau government announced plans to commemorate the day of the attack as The National Day of Remembrance of the Quebec Mosque Attack and of Action Against Islamophobia.

The province of Quebec prioritizes immigrants who speak fluent French, and therefore has many Muslim immigrants from former French colonies such as Senegal, as well as Syria, Lebanon, and the North African countries of the Maghreb.

A number of Muslim French citizens with family origins in the former French colonies have immigrated to Quebec from France.

Arab residents of the province make up a larger share of its population than in any other Canadian province.

Like most immigrants to Quebec, they are concentrated in Montreal, Quebec's largest city.

Muslims and other religious minorities in Quebec have been at the centre of debate about religious dress.

Details were summarized in the sentence handed down on February 8, 2019.

In the month before the shooting, Bissonnette was on leave from his job at Héma-Québec with an anxiety disorder following an altercation with a coworker.

In this month he obsessively visited the Twitter accounts of several right wing media personalities including Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, David Duke, Alex Jones, Mike Cernovich, Richard B. Spencer and Kellyanne Conway.

Bissonnette checked in on the Twitter account of Ben Shapiro 93 times in the month leading up to the shooting.