Quebec: Education charter chill

2013/12/07 Leave a comment

An in-depth piece on recent history of Quebec headgear debates, starting with efforts, under then Education Minister Marois to open up, and concluding with PM Marois’s current focus on the Charter, proposed reversing some of that opening.

Speaking the day after the head of the Quebec women’s federation was booed and heckled at a discussion at Université du Québec à Montréal, McAndrew said the debate is bringing out the worst in Quebec society. She added that it also might encourage teachers to dismiss any efforts to adapt to students of diverse ethnic backgrounds — in the way they teach their history course, for example — or accept different eating habits, or have patience with parents who haven’t mastered French.

“We are encouraging people to say OK we’re done with being open to different religions, but also to different cultures and languages, especially given the early ambiguity of the charter of ‘values’ before coming back to ‘laïcité’ (secularism) and the attitude that we must ‘put our pants on’ to deal with immigrants. …

“There’s so much tension and so much aggression,” McAndrew said. “It’s very worrisome. Will we feel it in the schools? I won’t say this is the end of our openness to pluralism, but we’re taking two steps backward for one step forward. And there are so many other things we should be working on in the schools for both the majority and the minority students.”

Education charter chill.

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Signes religieux: Pauline Marois sur la défensive – and Other Charter Articles

2013/12/07 Leave a comment

Further to my earlier post (Question du voile: «On a plus urgent»), on the record of PQ ministers, and previous PQ governments favouring inclusion and openness on religious symbols (when PM Marois was education minister), fun to see lively debate in the Quebec legislature pointing out the contradictions with the approach in the charter.

And like so many politicians these days, she takes what I can only call the “stupid” approach of denying the shift, rather than being honest and having a discussion on why the change. Even if I don’t agree with the Charter, any good comms person or policy advisor to come up with a few talking points that would sound more credible than:

«Jamais, jamais, dans ce document (the 1988 policy document), nous ne parlons de signes ostensibles. Jamais, parce que, dans les faits, comme je suis très cohérente, ce n’était pas dans ce document, puisque dans la charte nous empêcherons qu’il y ait le port de signes religieux ostensibles, et cela va dans le sens du respect, de chacun et de tous et de toutes», a argué la première ministre.

The more the PQ speaks of coherence, the more incoherent it appears.

And the polls do not appear to show that the political gambit of the Charter has worked; the PLQ maintains a lead of 5 points over the PQ, which appears to have reached a plateau, and support for sovereignty is only 33 percent. Hearings on the Charter start mid-January for a period of two months, and we will see what impact they have.

Signes religieux: Pauline Marois sur la défensive | Martin Ouellet | Politique québécoise.

One of the Quebec nursing unions, La Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec (FIQ), surveyed its members showing 60 percent supported the charter. In contrast, most hospitals and other health associations have come out against the charter, given the large number of employees that would be affected, and the impact on operations that would occur.

La FIQ appuie la Charte des valeurs | Hugo Pilon-Larose | Santé

But a number of the larger unions that are members of the FIQ, particularly two in Montreal, have dissociated themselves from this endorsement of the Charter:

Charte de la laïcité: d’importants syndicats se dissocient de la FIQ | Hugo Pilon-Larose | Politique québécoise

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Des universités disent non à la charte | Le Devoir

2013/12/03 Leave a comment

No surprise. Université de Sherbrooke and Université de Montréal have joined McGill and Bishop in opposing the Charter. Concordia, with its history of politicization and governance issues, has yet to pronounce.

Des universités disent non à la charte | Le Devoir.

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Point chaud – Charte de la laïcité – Duceppe rejoint Parizeau et Bouchard

2013/12/02 Leave a comment

Gilles Duceppe, former leader of the Bloc québécois, opposed to the excessive reach of the proposed Charter, and favouring the Bouchard-Taylor approach of limiting strict application of secularism to officials  in position of authority.

Line of former sovereignists leaders Jacques Parizeau, Lucien Bouchard and Bernard Landry, but not the current position of the Bloc which supports the PQ government’s proposal:

Point chaud – Charte de la laïcité – Duceppe rejoint Parizeau et Bouchard | Le Devoir.

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Question du voile: «On a plus urgent»

2013/11/30 1 Comment

Funny. Jean-François Lisée, PQ Minister for Montreal who has been inflexible on the proposed charter, has been caught out as saying in his 2007 book, Nous, as not having any issues with the hijab in 2007 and showing openness and tolerance.

Rima Elkouri then notes the total absence of any serious documents or studies on the need for the Charter, apart from a poll, which gets this appropriate retort:

Voilà qui est lamentable. En matière de droits fondamentaux des minorités, un gouvernement qui se laisserait dicter ses décisions par la foule fait toujours fausse route. Ça vaut pour les droits des Québécois – ils n’ont pas à être dictés par une consultation menée à Ottawa auprès de la population canadienne. Ça vaut pour les droits des minorités sexuelles. Aurait-on idée de baser un projet de loi sur les droits fondamentaux des gais et des lesbiennes sur un sondage où tout un chacun pourrait nous dire s’il se sent très à l’aise, moyennement à l’aise ou pas du tout à l’aise face à l’homosexualité? Bien sûr que non. Ce serait parfaitement irresponsable.

Question du voile: «On a plus urgent» | Rima Elkouri.

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Tumulte autour de la laïcité – Il faut continuer de débattre | Le Devoir

2013/11/29 Leave a comment

Commentary on the panel discussion of the proposed Charter organized by Lucie Jobin, Présidente du Mouvement laïque québécois (MLQ) (see earlier post Un débat sur un «Québec laïque» dérape | Le Devoir). I tend to believe the earlier account than this justification piece, given that the proponents of laicisme at the debate are as fundamentalist in their beliefs as the people they  are concerned about. People who may have attended may wish to comment.

Tumulte autour de la laïcité – Il faut continuer de débattre | Le Devoir.

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Niqab : acceptez et taisez-vous maintenant! | Le Devoir

2013/11/28 Leave a comment

Not a bad opinion piece on the niqab, nuanced, by Karima Brikh, reminding us of the risks of tolerating anything. The niqab represents separation, not integration, on any number of levels. The fact that the daycare workers who provoked the debate take off their niqab when with the children or the mothers reinforces that point:

Je ne crois pas qu’il faille interdire le niqab partout et suis convaincue qu’il ne faut pas s’en prendre à ces femmes, puisqu’elles ne se réduisent absolument pas à leur voile. Je pense que derrière chacune de ces forteresses de tissu se cache une femme avec un vécu qui mérite d’être connu, ainsi que des rêves et une personnalité singulière. Mais c’est justement pourquoi il nous reste encore le droit, peut-être même l’obligation morale, de ne pas normaliser tous les symboles présents qui sont synonymes d’une oppression à laquelle nous ne pouvons consentir. Avons-nous encore la possibilité de remettre en question publiquement le bien-fondé de telles pratiques au Québec sans risquer l’opprobre ?

Sous la gentillesse, on semble trouver une forme de relativisme et même de renoncement. Quand nous disons qu’« au fond, ça ne nous dérange pas », je soupçonne que plusieurs d’entre nous ne connaissent rien de la vie de ces femmes et n’en côtoient aucune. Ça ne nous « dérange pas », car nous consentons à les marginaliser dans leur différence, pourvu qu’elles ne viennent pas bousculer nos habitudes. Et comme nous souhaitons ne jamais risquer d’avoir l’air intolérants, nous n’osons même plus user de notre sens critique. À ce stade, ce n’est peut-être plus de tolérance dont nous faisons preuve, mais davantage de lâcheté et d’aveuglement volontaire. Et ce, sans niqab ni burqa…

Niqab : acceptez et taisez-vous maintenant! | Le Devoir.

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Freedom of conscience and the Quebec Charter of Values

2013/11/26 2 Comments

Thoughtful commentary by Jocelyn Maclure of Université de Laval on the Charter.

First, we can be bothered by many things in our interactions with employees in the public and parapublic sectors. Putting up with aggravation is a necessary condition of social cooperation and peaceful coexistence. Happily, freedom of conscience and religion do not entail the right not to be exposed to other people’s appearances and beliefs that we may find disagreeable. If that were the case, tolerance and freedom of conscience would be a spur to the segregation of communities, a little along the lines of the “pillarization” model in the Netherlands, where for many years Catholics, Protestants and Social Democrats have all had their own separate social institutions.

Second, although wearing a religious symbol is clearly an expressive act laden with meaning, we must not attribute to that act ana priori unambiguous meaning in conflict with shared public values. For example, we often infer from the struggle of some women in Muslim countries against the imposition of the veil that the veil is necessarily a symbol of the domination of women by men. But this is a false inference. In a liberal democratic society such as Quebec, a Muslim woman may have other reasons for wearing the veil that are bound up with her faith and identity.  And we must not yield to a form of magical thinking that leads us to imagine that barring overt religious symbols from public institutions will somehow help women who are oppressed by men in their daily lives. Not only does the ban restrict the freedom of those who wish, of their own volition, to wear an overt religious symbol, but it does virtually nothing to help the most vulnerable women, who are scarcely represented in the public and parapublic sectors.

The analogy with political symbols does not succeed in justifying restrictions on freedom of religion or equal access to job opportunities in the public and parapublic sectors. Our civil and political rights safeguard our basic political interests, while freedom of conscience and religion protects the religious and secular convictions and commitments that endow human life with meaning. We can rightly be proud that our democratic institutions properly uphold both these rights and freedoms.

Freedom of conscience and the Quebec Charter of Values » Institute for Research on Public Policy.

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Un débat sur un «Québec laïque» dérape | Le Devoir

2013/11/25 1 Comment

For those interested, a good sense of some of the polarization and tensions in debates over the Quebec charter. Not surprising given some of the personalities involved: Djemila Benhabib, fervente militante contre le fondamentalisme musulman, Paul de Bellefeuille, vice-président du Syndicat de la fonction publique et parapublique du Québec, qui s’est prononcé en faveur de la charte de la laïcité, Alexa Conradi, la présidente de la Fédération des femmes du Québec (FFQ), et d’Amir Khadir, député de Québec solidaire.

The article is on the breakdown of civilized debate, not on the substance of what was debated.

Un débat sur un «Québec laïque» dérape | Le Devoir.

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Thomas Jefferson versus the Parti Québécois

2013/11/22 Leave a comment

Globe editorial poking fun at the PQ’s invocation of Thomas Jefferson to defend the Charter, while nevertheless making serious points:

Jefferson’s statute gave birth to the U.S. First Amendment, enacted in 1791: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Were he alive today, he would be railing against a proposal to force people to choose between working in the civil service and professing their faith. The PQ ministers’ evocation of Jefferson’s name shines a light not only on their poor grasp of history, but also on the twisted thinking behind the Quebec Charter of Values. As Jefferson put it in the Statute of Religious Freedom, imposing “punishments or burdens” on a free mind’s religious opinions or practices tends “to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness.” Exactly.

Thomas Jefferson versus the Parti Québécois – The Globe and Mail.

And Minister Drainville indicated that he does not intend to table legislation for private unsubsidized daycare that does not allow the niqab to be worn but that he would encourage them to not allow the niqab (following the publication of a photo of the daycare centre with niqab-wearing staff):

Drainville n’entend pas légiférer | Le Devoir

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