Let’s talk about the so-called ‘Quebec values charter’ – Blog Central, Canada, Martin Patriquin – Macleans.ca

Now that the hearings have started, more reporting and commentary on the Charter. From Martin Patriquin of Macleans, a good overview of testimony with a good closing assessment:

Yet for all of Drainville’s obstinacy, the PQ is a minority government, and would therefore be ripe for a Liberal filibuster, if there isn’t an election call beforehand. Should that happen, and there is a strong chance it will, the PQ has made no attempt to hide its desire to use the charter as its warhorse of choice. The charter came to the National Assembly today, but it won’t be limited to its walls anytime soon.

Let’s talk about the so-called ‘Quebec values charter’ – Blog Central, Canada, Martin Patriquin – Macleans.ca.

Robert Dutrisac of Le Devoir states the obvious in commenting on Minister Drainville’s threat to make the Charter central to the next election, as if that was not the strategy all along:

La charte pourrait être un enjeu électoral

Lysiane Gagnon in The Globe picks up on Andrew Coyne’s argument:

Actually, there was no need for a secular charter to deal with reasonable accommodations. The Commission des droits de la personne du Québec,the province’s own human-rights commission, which strongly condemned the ban on religious symbols, considers that the charter’s provision about accommodation to be totally unnecessary, since the Charter of Rights and Freedoms already guarantees full protection against gender discrimination.

Despite a handful of spectacular cases that were disproportionally inflated by some populist media, Quebec’s health services and school boards report practically no problems at the ground level. Just 3 per cent of the complaints received by the rights commission over a period of six years are related to religious accommodation. (Of those, the majority came from Jehovah’s Witnesses.)

English Canada certainly doesn’t need a secular charter. All it needs is administrators able to say no to unreasonable requests.

 Secular charter? Just say ‘no,’ English Canada