Watch: Canada’s Mounties Can Wear Hijabs Now
While France cracks down on burkinis, Canada will allow its Mounted Police officers to wear hijabs for the first time.
Carl Court/AFP/Getty
At a time when French police are patrolling beaches for non-"secular" swimwear, Canada has decided to allow its most iconic police officers—the Mounties—to wear the hijab.
Female Muslim officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police—those Canadian cops on horses—may now choose to wear a hijab instead of the Mounties' traditional Stetson hat, thanks to a change in uniform policy announced last week.
“The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is a progressive and inclusive police service that values and respects persons of all cultural and religious backgrounds,” a spokesperson for Canada’s public safety minister, Ralph Goodale, told CBC.
The RCMP has included women since the 1970s, and allowed officers to wear turbans since 1990, following a lawsuit by a male Sikh recruit.