I don't know how I can explain it any clearer. Things have different significations for different people. I fucking know that a cross is a fucking religious symbol. Yes, even that fucking cross in the National Assembly is a religious symbol in itself. But it also represent something that isn't religion for us.

We don't say a cross isn't a religious symbol. We don't say that cross doesn't represent religion. We're saying that cross, for us, represent our history. And our history happens to have a lot of things to do with the Catholic religion. Could have been the Star of David if Duplessis had been Jewish.

To use a very extreme analogy, it's like if Germany kept a swastika in the Bundestag. Not to celebrate the Nazis, but as a symbol representing where they came from, what help shape their nation as it stand today. Except our cross isn't associated with the violent extermination of million of innocent people, hence why it's socially acceptable to keep as a reminder of our history.