Diversité et inclusion: malaise au sein de CBC/Radio-Canada

2022/07/11 Leave a comment

Of note, and the difference between Radio Canada and CBC:

L’hésitation de CBC/Radio-Canada à se prononcer sur la récente décision du CRTC concernant le mot en n s’inscrit dans un contexte de transformations plus profondes au sein de l’institution. Sous l’impulsion de la présidente-directrice générale Catherine Tait, la société d’État a accéléré depuis 2018 son virage diversité et inclusion. Mais dans la salle de rédaction du service français, certains dénoncent « l’obsession » de la haute direction pour les questions identitaires.

« C’est comme si on voulait nous imposer le contexte sociopolitique de Toronto à Montréal. À Toronto, le multiculturalisme, c’est une réalité. Alors qu’au Québec, je regrette, mais ce n’est pas un concept politique qui est partagé par tout le monde. C’est un concept qui fait débat et il faut rendre compte de cette réalité », résume une personnalité bien connue de Radio-Canada qui tient à garder l’anonymat par crainte de représailles.

Le Devoir a pu s’entretenir dans les derniers jours avec cinq employés de la société d’État qui s’interrogent sur certaines initiatives de la haute direction pour promouvoir la diversité et l’inclusion. Certains sont plus critiques que d’autres, mais ils s’entendent sur une chose : CBC/Radio-Canada doit absolument faire appel de la décision du CRTC, qui a blâmé la semaine dernière le diffuseur public pour un segment dans lequel le chroniqueur Simon Jodoin et l’animatrice Annie Desrochers ont cité à quatre reprises le titre du livre Nègres blancs d’Amérique, de Pierre Vallières. Le CRTC oblige entre autres Radio-Canada à s’excuser.

« Je ne me fais pas d’illusions. Je vois mal comment la haute direction de Catherine Tait pourrait faire appel de la décision du CRTC après ce qui s’est passé avec Wendy Mesley », anticipe l’une des personnes qui ont accepté de parler au Devoir.

Wendy Mesley, c’est cette animatrice vedette de CBC qui avait été suspendue pour avoir cité le nom du livre de Pierre Vallières lors d’une réunion de travail. Cette journaliste d’expérience avait dû s’excuser à la suite de cet épisode, avant d’annoncer sa retraite l’an dernier. « L’histoire de Wendy Mesley nous a marqués. Ça a beaucoup choqué à Montréal, et il y a comme une incompréhension. Bien sûr, on en parle entre nous, mais pas trop fort. Car veut, veut pas, il y a un climat de suspicion qui s’est installé depuis cette histoire », ajoute notre source.

Prioritaire pour la haute direction

Pour certains, l’affaire Wendy Mesley est le point de départ d’un malaise qui n’a cessé de prendre de l’ampleur depuis.

L’année dernière, une formation obligatoire sur les privilèges et les biais inconscients a soulevé l’ire dans la salle de rédaction du service français. On y disait notamment qu’il était stigmatisant de décrire un secteur comme un quartier chaud parce qu’il a un fort taux de criminalité. Un exercice « infantilisant », « digne d’un cours de pastorale », s’insurge une autre employée qui a suivi la formation.

« C’est un objectif très louable de vouloir plus de diversité, et effectivement, il faut plus de diversité à Radio-Canada. Mais le problème, c’est la manière dont on s’y prend », nuance-t-elle.

Certaines déclarations de la p.-d.g. de la société d’État, Catherine Tait, ont aussi fait sourciller dans les dernières années. Après la découverte de potentielles tombes anonymes sur le site de l’ancien pensionnat de Kamloops, cette dernière avait envoyé un mémo aux employés pour les inviter à observer un moment de silence de 215 secondes, une seconde correspondant à chaque enfant autochtone disparu.

À la suite du prononcé de culpabilité d’un policier pour le meurtre de George Floyd à Minneapolis, elle a aussi reconnu explicitement le concept de « racisme systémique » dans une lettre signée par quatre directeurs et conseillers sur les programmes de diversité et inclusion. « Le racisme systémique existe toujours au Canada et au sein de plusieurs de ses institutions, y compris son diffuseur public », écrivait Catherine Tait, qui a fait toute sa carrière au Canada anglais.

Est-ce le rôle de la dirigeante de CBC/Radio-Canada de prendre parti dans des événements qui font l’actualité et que les journalistes de la boîte sont censés traiter ensuite de la manière la plus objective possible ? Pour certains, les prises de position de la haute direction n’affectent pas la manière de couvrir l’information. Mais d’autres sont d’avis que la politique officielle de l’entreprise empiète sur la sacro-sainte objectivité journalistique.

« Sur le concept de racisme systémique, par exemple, il y a un malaise. On peut être pour ou contre, mais ce n’est pas à une entreprise de presse de reconnaître quelque chose que le gouvernement du Québec refuse de reconnaître », illustre une personne qui évolue au sein de Radio-Canada.

Inclusif ou objectif ?

Ce principe d’objectivité journalistique a d’ailleurs été revu du côté anglophone. En juin 2020, dans la foulée de l’assassinat de George Floyd, le rédacteur en chef de CBC a proposé d’ouvrir le débat sur les Normes et pratiques journalistiques dans l’optique d’offrir une couverture plus inclusive. « Nos définitions de l’objectivité, de l’équilibre, de l’équité et de l’impartialité — et notre insistance pour que les journalistes n’expriment pas d’opinions personnelles sur les histoires que nous couvrons — vont-elles à l’encontre de nos objectifs d’inclusion et de faire partie de la communauté et du pays que nous servons ? » s’interrogeait Brodie Fenlon dans son blogue sur le site de CBC.

Côté francophone, ce raisonnement suscite beaucoup d’appréhensions. Des voix se sont fait entendre à l’interne pour implorer Radio-Canada de ne pas suivre la même voie que CBC.

Deux ans plus tard, les normes journalistiques n’ont finalement pas changé en soi, indique Chuck Thompson, chef des relations publiques de CBC, mais leur interprétation, oui. L’exercice en cours pour rendre les pratiques journalistiques plus inclusives porte « sur la façon dont nous interprétons ces principes, et sur l’identification des obstacles qui limitent notre journalisme en excluant des perspectives, des points de vue ou des expériences vécues », confirme M. Thompson. « Ce travail couvre toute une gamme d’actions, des stratégies d’embauche et de promotion aux meilleures pratiques pour couvrir la criminalité et la police, en passant par de la formation sur les préjugés inconscients et l’inclusion. »

Deux solitudes

À l’automne 2020, l’affaire Lieutenant-Duval à l’Université d’Ottawa a aussi mis en évidence des visions divergentes entre Radio-Canada et CBC quant à l’usage du mot en n. Lors d’une rencontre de la haute direction le 14 octobre, Catherine Tait a demandé pourquoi une émission sur le mot en n avait été proposée sur une plateforme de CBC plutôt qu’en français à Radio-Canada, une discussion qui aurait provoqué de vives tensions.

Interrogé à ce sujet il y a plusieurs mois, le bureau de Mme Tait a précisé au Devoir une partie des propos de Catherine Tait pendant cette rencontre : « Je me suis demandé pourquoi cette émission était produite en anglais et non en français puisque [les personnes qui l’animent sont francophones]. Et elles m’ont répondu que l’émission aurait été différente en français, que la conversation sur le racisme n’est pas aussi avancée au Québec. Ce que je veux vous dire aujourd’hui, c’est que c’est notre moment à Radio-Canada, c’est une occasion en or, pour nous, en tant que diffuseur public de vraiment servir tous les Canadiens et d’assurer notre pertinence pour l’avenir », aurait-elle déclaré.

À l’heure de mettre sous presse, le bureau de Catherine Tait n’avait pas donné suite à nos questions. Radio-Canada pour sa part n’a pas souhaité réagir.

La promotion de la diversité fait partie des conditions imposées à la société d’État par le CRTC, l’organisme responsable de lui accorder une licence de diffusion, et ces exigences ont été rehaussées lors du plus récent renouvellement, en juin.

Source: Diversité et inclusion: malaise au sein de CBC/Radio-Canada

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Federally funded Canadian group used by China to spread propaganda on Uyghurs: report

2022/07/08 Leave a comment

Need for greater due diligence in funding and in all areas:

Two Canadian community organizations — one of which has received thousands of dollars in federal funding — are prime examples of how the Chinese government has tried to covertly shape opinions worldwide about human rights abuses in Xinjiang province, says a new report by Australian academics.

A profile of the Xinjiang Association of Canada and the Ontario-based Council of Newcomer Organizations — which was co-founded by a former Liberal MP — forms one of four case studies in the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Cultivating Friendly Forces report.

The two groups and their leaders have consistently promoted Beijing’s talking points on the region in the face of growing evidence of mass human rights abuses against Xinjiang’s Muslim populations, says the working paper by James Leibold, a professor at Melbourne’s La Trobe University, and Lin Li.

The groups have been supported by China’s diplomatic missions in Canada, while at least two of their directors were invited to attend events in China as privileged “overseas Chinese” leaders, says the report, based mostly on Chinese-language media reports and other open source material from the internet.

“The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) uses these organs as conduits for the spread of propaganda about the ‘harmony, prosperity and happiness’ of people in Xinjiang while deflecting and denying international criticism of its well-documented human rights abuses in the region,” the analysis charges.

Such groups “can sow distrust and fear in the community, mislead politicians, journalists and the public, influence government policies, cloud our assessment of the situation in Xinjiang and disguise the CCP’s interference in foreign countries.”

The report urges more efforts by the media, academia and government to expose the Chinese government’s global interference, including with the use of effective foreign-influence registries.

The National Post contacted leaders of the two groups and China’s Ottawa embassy for comment on the report but had not received a response by deadline.

The report came as no surprise to Mehmet Tohti, head of the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project.

The Chinese influence campaign against the Uyghur diaspora has several facets, including intimidation of community members and “hostage taking” like the 2006 imprisonment of Canadian activist Huseyin Celil, as well as “disseminating disinformation and fake narratives,” he said by email.

“We may see more vigorous moves from China by awakening its sleeper cells in Canada and around the world to promote its narrative on Uyghur genocide and forced labour,” Tohti added.

Human rights organizations, media outlets and the United Nations have revealed large-scale repression of Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang, including forced labour, mass sterilization and re-education camps believed to hold more than a million people.

The Canadian parliament, the U.S. and other countries have accused China of genocide, though Beijing denies the charges and insists it is simply bringing peace to a region afflicted by unrest and terrorism.

The report documents how China is trying to counter the charges, partly through the use of local community groups that purport to represent immigrants from Xinjiang or that simply promote Beijing’s line on the issue. It says the effort is spearheaded by the United Front Work Department, a party branch dedicated to extending China’s influence abroad and greatly expanded in recent years.

The 12-year-old Xinjiang Association of Canada is a good example of ties between such groups and China’s colonizing efforts in the region, says the report.

It’s made up mostly of Han Chinese — the country’s dominant group — and its launch was attended by the consul general and other Chinese diplomats in Toronto. The group invites local politicians and consular officials to events celebrating Uyghur and Han festivals, “then uses these public events to present a harmonious picture of Xinjiang and its diasporic population,” the working paper says.

Founding president Zhu Jiang’s parents migrated to Xinjiang from China proper as part of efforts to change its ethnic make-up and he joined the People’s Liberation Army at age 15. The report includes a photograph of Zhu in PLA uniform while a player for the Xinjiang Military Command.

He immigrated to Canada in 2001 and in 2019 was invited by the United Front Work Department in Xinjiang and China’s Toronto consulate to attend the lavish celebrations of the People’s Republic’s 70th anniversary. One local news outlet quoted him as saying the event’s military parade made him realize how much he “loved the motherland,” the National Post reported at the time.

Zhu has consistently defended China’s actions in the region, with state-run China News quoting him in 2019 as criticizing the U.S. House of Representatives’ Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act.

Zhu was also for a time head of the Council of Newcomer Organizations, an umbrella group that included his Xinjiang association. As also reported previously by the Post, the council issued a statement last year decrying the House of Commons’ Xinjiang genocide motion, saying it was based on “unsubstantiated rumours.”

“The council’s statement was then reported by China’s state media to prove that members of the Chinese diaspora disagree with the Canadian parliament’s decision,” noted the report.

By last year, the council had received at least $160,000 in grants from various federal government departments, the most recent for an elder-abuse program.

Zhu was succeeded as head of the newcomer council by Han Jialing, who also has publicly documented ties to Beijing. As Zhu was at the anniversary celebrations in 2019, Han was “class captain” of a “carefully selected” group of overseas Chinese leaders invited to a seminar in China on the nation’s “great achievements” and thoughts of President Xi Jinping.

Leibold acknowledged in an interview that China is not alone in trying to shape opinion abroad. But its influence campaign differs from others in sheer scale — it has more diplomats registered in Canada than any nation other than the U.S. and more missions globally than anyone else — as well as the co-opting of community groups and the fact its efforts are largely covert, he said.

“What distinguishes it … is the tendency to operate in the shadows: the clandestine work that occurs behind the scenes, out of the public eye,” said the politics professor. “It’s … really quite different than what we see amongst free and democratic societies.”

Australian and New Zealand scholars such as Leibold have largely dominated academic attempts to investigate Beijing’s foreign influence efforts. But the work is becoming increasingly difficult as much of the information that was once freely available online is falling off the internet, he said. Indeed, the Council of Newcomer’s Organizations’ extensive website has disappeared.

And the research comes at a personal cost, said Leibold.

He said he’s been denied visas to visit China — the main subject of his research — while Li is “very worried” about possible retaliation against her friends and relatives in China.

Source: Federally funded Canadian group used by China to spread propaganda on Uyghurs: report 

Filed under disinformation, foreign policy, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Historian Irving Abella said the struggle for Jewish equality changed Canada for the better

2022/07/08 Leave a comment

Worth reading:

The Canada of the first half of the last century, and particularly from the 1920s through the 1940s, was a foreboding place for Jews, as it was for most immigrants. Closed to most of the world by racist immigration laws that divided the peoples of the world into preferred and (mostly) non-preferred, Canada was a country permeated with xenophobia, nativism and antisemitism. The Jew was the pariah of Canadian society, demeaned, denounced and discriminated against.

For Canadian Jews in these years, quotas and restrictions were a way of life. According to a 1938 study by the Canadian Jewish Congress, few of the country’s teachers and none of its school principals were Jewish. The banks, insurance companies and the large industrial and commercial interests, it charged, also excluded Jews from employment. Department stores did not hire Jews as salespeople. Jewish doctors could not get hospital appointments, and when one Jewish doctor, Sam Rabinovitch, was hired as an intern at the Montreal hospital, the other interns went out on strike, along with other doctors, closing the hospital for a week until Rabinovitch was fired.

If the Jew experienced difficulty finding a job or getting an education, finding a place to live or to vacation was even harder. Increasingly, restrictive covenants were placed on various properties prohibiting their sale to Jews, and at beaches and resorts throughout the nation, signs were springing up that banned Jews. So-called swastika clubs of young hoodlums were formed to intimidate Jews and keep them away from “restricted” beaches. The threat of violence was so great that Jewish leaders took the unusual step of warning the community “not to hold large gatherings in any portion of the city where such a gathering is liable to arouse the animosity of certain classes of the non-Jewish population.”

Why was Canada so antisemitic? There are various reasons. To some extent the massive antisemitic propaganda of the Nazis had its impact. Some were taken in by it and by such American hate-mongers as Henry Ford, Father Charles Coughlin, Gerald L. K. Smith and dozens of others. It was also a time of depression and the search for scapegoats invariably ended at a Jewish doorstep. Jews were also publicly seen and denounced as troublemakers. The prominence of Jewish names in the left-wing movement seduced many gullible or malevolent Canadians into believing that most Jews were communists. Obviously, many others hated Jews for religious reasons. Much of the antisemitism in Quebec and in fundamentalist areas of Western Canada originated from religious teachings. Jews had killed Christ, had refused to repent or convert to Christianity and, therefore, were damned.

What is most astonishing about this antisemitism is how few and powerless were Canadian Jews at this time. They made up just more than 1 per cent of the population and had no political or economic clout. Clearly they could be seen as a threat only by the paranoid. Equally surprising was the silence of the churches in the face of this frightful and oppressive anti-Jewish feeling.

With the onset of war, if Canadian attitudes toward Jews changed at all, it was for the worse. Fully half of the Canadian people, according to a Gallup poll in 1943, indicated that they wanted no more Jews in the country. At about the same time, Quebec premier Maurice Duplessis was campaigning through the province waving a copy of a document, which he charged showed that the federal government had made a deal with the International Zionist Brotherhood, a fictitious group, to settle 100,000 Jews in Quebec in return for campaign funds for Liberal candidates. Duplessis was decisively elected.

Even the end of the war brought no respite for Canadian Jews. Discovery of the Nazi barbarities against the Jews, and the graphic horrors of the Holocaust detailed by newspapers, magazines and newsreels in theatres across Canada did not lessen antisemitic feelings. Rather, it seemed to exacerbate them.

Nevertheless, it is clear that by 1948, attitudes in Canada were beginning to change. With most of the world’s economies still devastated, Canada was on the brink of becoming a genuine world power. All she needed was more people. Thus Canada’s immigration doors were flung open, and over the next decade, more than 1.5 million newcomers poured through, including thousands of Jews, most of them survivors of death camps.

By this time, the pervasive antisemitism of earlier years had receded. Obviously, the horrors of the Holocaust shocked many Canadians; others were caught up in the dramatic struggle of the Jews in Palestine to create their own state. Though official Canadian policy was to support the British attempts to forcibly blockade Jewish refugees from entering Palestine, it seemed that a large number of Canadians sympathized with the plucky struggle of the beleaguered Jews in the Holy Land.

It was at this propitious moment that Canadian Jewish leaders chose to launch an all-out offensive against discriminatory practices in Canada. This was not the first time such an attempt had been made. In the late 1930s, the Canadian Jewish Congress had set up a committee called the Joint Public Relations Committee (JPRC) with the co-operation of another Jewish communal organization, the B’nai B’rith, to deal with discrimination against Jews in employment. These early campaigns struggled, but in the late 1940s, similar efforts finally started to see some success.

As Jewish soldiers were returning from overseas, they found the same old restrictions barring their way. In a much-publicized incident, a veteran was fired from his salesman’s job in a Toronto hardware store when it was discovered he was Jewish. “I would lose customers,” the storekeeper explained. Others found that skating rinks, swimming pools, golf clubs and hotels refused them admission despite their heroic efforts on behalf of their country.

Outraged that this kind of behaviour was perfectly legal, the Canadian Jewish Congress organized a protest march of various ethnic and religious groups from City Hall to the Icelandia Skating Rink, which had refused to remove its signs restricting admission to gentiles. As a result of the march, the coverage of it by the Toronto Star, and a meeting with Congress officials, the Toronto Police Board ruled that licences of public places were subject to cancellation if the licence holder discriminated against any minority. This was the first of many victories for the Jewish Public Relations Committee (as it was called by then) and for its new partner, the aggressive Jewish Labour Committee. Its 50,000 feisty members would provide the backbone to the Congress’s political lobbying.

Members of both the JPRC and the Jewish Labour Committee were unrelenting in their lobbying. They arranged for delegations to meet Ontario premier Leslie Frost and his cabinet colleagues; they spoke at hundreds of meetings across the country, they planted articles in the press, they met editorial boards; they distributed pamphlets; they embarked on letter-writing campaigns and they arranged for talks on radio and to various service clubs of prominent speakers who supported their views. One of these, senator Wayne Morse (a Republican from Oregon), spoke so passionately and persuasively on the Trans-Canada Network of CBC Radio in favour of fair employment legislation that it had a real impact on one of his listeners, premier Frost.

By 1951 it was clear that the lobbying had made a real difference. Most Ontario newspapers were now in favour of anti-discrimination legislation, as were many city councils across the province. And so, it seemed, was premier Frost. He arranged a quick meeting with the Jewish and civil-liberties organizations and told them secretly that he would be enacting an anti-discrimination law in the next session of the House.

Three weeks later, in the Speech from the Throne, the government of Ontario announced its intention of introducing a fair employment practices act, which would bar discrimination in hiring because of race, creed, colour, nationality, ancestry or place of origin. It was a remarkable piece of legislation and the historians who have written about it (particularly James Walker, Ruth Frager and Carmela Patrias) have described it as one of the Jewish community’s great victories in this country.

Of course employment discrimination did not disappear in Ontario, but the act marked the beginning of an era in which discrimination was no longer acceptable. Both the JPRC and the Jewish Labour Committee saw the legislation as the “thin edge of the wedge.” Once the Ontario government had admitted that discrimination in employment was unjust and immoral, how could it be condoned in other areas such as housing?

Finally, in 1962, the government created the Ontario Human Rights Commission, many of whose powers were those recommended by the Canadian Jewish Congress five years before. The victory was now largely complete. Though obviously racism and discrimination would not disappear, there were now in place mechanisms and legislation to protect minorities. With both anti-discrimination statutes and human-rights commissions successfully established, not only in Ontario but in most provinces, the human-rights lobby could move onto other issues.

Thus, by the 1960s, Canada had turned the corner. For Jews, as well as for this country’s other minorities, that decade was a watershed. Before it existed the old Canada, parochial, nativist, exclusionary; beyond it, a new Canada was taking shape, a Canada of diversity, colour, vibrancy, a Canada of open minds rather than closed doors, a Canada in which Jews and other ethnic groups were quickly becoming part of the Canadian mainstream, and were seen as part of the solution rather than as part of the problem.

The decade began with Canada finally repealing its odious racist immigration laws and opening itself up to all the world’s nations, and it closed with a government commitment to implement an official policy of multiculturalism. And it was in the 1960s that all of the barriers, restrictions and quotas against Jews crumbled, one by one, sector by sector. At long last, after 200 years in the country, the Jewish community would be able to play out its dreams and become an integral part of the very same Canadian society that had excluded it for so long.

Of course the battle for human rights in Canada is not yet won. Racist, homophobic and xenophobic attitudes still manifest themselves too often, and much remains to be done. Yet who can deny that today’s Canada is a far better place, and that its minorities better integrated thanks in large part to the trail-blazing efforts by the Canadian Jewish Congress and the Jewish Labour Committee.

Irving Abella, a noted scholar of Jewish history, died on July 3. This is an excerpt of a speech he gave to the Canadian Historical Association when he was the group’s president in 2000.

Source: Historian Irving Abella said the struggle for Jewish equality changed Canada for the better

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‘Kaali’ poster row: Toronto’s Aga Khan Museum says it ‘deeply regrets’ offence caused to Hindus; FIR filed

2022/07/07 Leave a comment

A classic example of the intersection between multiculturalism and religion, when the more conservative and fundamentalist elements are all too quick to take offence.

I was posted to Iran during the Rushdie Satanic Verses affair, the classic and extreme example of religious intolerance of contemporary culture:

Days after the poster of the documentary film ‘Kaali’ created an uproar in India and abroad, Aga Khan Museum where the film was screened issued a statement. The museum has said that it deeply regretted the offence caused to the members of the Hindu community. The documentary helmed by NRI film-maker Leena Manimekalai was being showcased at the museum in Toronto in the ‘Under The Tent’ section.

“The museum deeply regrets that one of the 18 short videos from ‘Under The Tent’ and its accompanying social media post have inadvertently caused an offence to the members of the Hindu and other faith communities,” read the statement that was posted on the museum’s website.

The statement further said that the Toronto Metropolitan University brought together works of students of diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds, each student exploring their individual sense of belonging as part of Canadian multiculturalism for the ‘Under the Tent’ project. The university’s presentation was hosted by Aga Khan Museum with a view to fostering an intercultural understanding and dialogue through arts.

FIR Against Film-maker
Meanwhile, the controversy surrounding the poster continues to rage closer to home. On Tuesday, an FIR was filed against Leena Manimekalai and others for hurting religious sentiments. The FIR was filed in Uttar Pradesh and DCP Central Lucknow, Aparna Kaushik, said that an investigation was underway.

Earlier this week, the Indian High Commission in Canada issued a statement urging the Canadian authorities to take action. The High Commission said in its statement that it has received numerous complaints from the leaders of the Hindu community in Canada.
“Our Consulate General in Toronto has conveyed these concerns to the organizers of the event. We are also informed that several Hindu groups have approached authorities in Canada to take action. We urge the Canadian authorities and the event organizers to withdraw all such provocative material,” read the release.

Filmmaker Manimekalai took to Twitter on Sunday to share a poster of her upcoming film ‘Kaali’ that depicted goddess Kali as smoking with an LGBTQ+ flag in the backdrop. The poster created an uproar on social media demanding the arrest of the NRI film-maker.

Source: ‘Kaali’ poster row: Toronto’s Aga Khan Museum says it ‘deeply regrets’ offence caused to Hindus; FIR filed

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City apologizes, seeks to rectify job loss after ‘clean-shave’ policy under fire by Sikh advocacy group

2022/07/07 Leave a comment

Reasonable accommodation in action with “under-mask beard covers”:

First came the Tuesday afternoon phone call and apology from Toronto Mayor John Tory. Now, Birkawal Singh Anand wants his job back.

Anand was one of more than 100 Sikh guards laid off from the security companies contracted to staff City-operated shelters and respite sites after the guards refused to follow a City mandate requiring they be clean-shaven in order for a tight-fitting N95 mask be worn in the event of a COVID-19 outbreak.

On Tuesday, Toronto issued a press release apologizing and saying that security guards should be rehired and paid for lost wages. “City of Toronto apologizes to the World Sikh Organization of Canada (WSO) for any delay in addressing this issue and ensuring security contractors were offering religious accommodations.”

The city said it was providing the update to “ensure security contractors accommodate all employees following a complaint from the World Sikh Organization of Canada.”

“It shouldn’t have taken a public outcry to make this change but I still appreciate that it is happening,” Anand said Tuesday night.

“The city did their part, now it’s up to the company to do theirs.”

Demanding that a Sikh shave his beard is like asking a non-Sikh to “peel off their skin,” Anand told the Star Monday.

“I told them, I belong to the Sikh community, shaving is not an option for me.”

The job losses began in April, the new release said. City staff had been inspecting work sites and deducting billable hours from contracted security companies for having employees who were not clean shaven.

The WSO complained about the layoffs in June, saying security service providers did not offer appropriate accommodation to their employees who have facial hair for religious reasons. The complaint was sent to city staff to resolve, sources said. Now, Toronto says it will allow the guards to wear “under-mask beard covers” as a “reasonable accommodation.”

That covering uses a “tight-fitting mask over a beard that covers the chin and cheeks, and ties in a knot at the top of the head,” the city’s release said.

“An N95 mask is then worn over the cover. The technique, also known as the Singh Thattha Method, is used by many Sikh people in the medical community and has been found to be highly effective in respirator fit testing.”

Before his 4 p.m. phone call to Anand, the release said Tory called the WSO to say the under-masking practice will go into effect “immediately.”

“This option was proposed by the World Sikh Organization of Canada and the City is grateful for this information. The City is also committed to followup meetings with the organization,” the release said.

Balpreet Singh Boparai, the lawyer for the WSO, said the organization received a call on Tuesday from Tory.

“He confirmed that the security guards could return to their jobs and the City would work with the security contractors to make it possible,” Boparai said.

The job losses may not be so easily resolved, he added.

“We are still waiting for the security contractors to get this message. A number of Sikh security guards had their shifts cancelled and they have not been invited to return to their positions.”

Source: City apologizes, seeks to rectify job loss after ‘clean-shave’ policy under fire by Sikh advocacy group

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , ,

Ali-Khan: Finding the American Dream in Canada

2022/07/06 Leave a comment

Of note, getting some coverage in major US media:

This is a festive period for Muslims around the world. One Eid, or Muslim celebration, has just passed, and another is coming up in July. I’ve left strings of starry lights in the tall windows of our family room, where they can be seen twinkling from the street in our neighborhood outside of Toronto. There’s a shadowbox-like window by the front door, where I’d hung a colorful garland of star ornaments at the start of Ramadan in April.

I wasn’t always willing to mark my family publicly as Muslim. In fact, we were three years in to becoming Canadian when I first realized that I could put up lights for our celebrations without any of the trepidation I’d felt in my hometown in Pennsylvania. There is a huge contrast between being Muslim in Canada and being Muslim in America today and it has a lot to do with Canada’s decision to tell the truth about its history, while America buries its own.
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We left America in 2017, eight months into Donald Trump’s term in office. That was not a coincidence. There was something malignant about the leap from ordinary, private Islamophobia to a state sponsored anti-Muslim agenda that made leaving feel urgent, for me and for my husband, but especially for our children. We worried for their physical safety, but also for the sense of themselves they were developing at four and six years old.

Recent studies and surveys by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) tell us our concerns were justified. ISPU has been a boon to American Muslims, who had previously lacked good data about themselves, helping us see more clearly how we’re faring. In 2020, half of all Muslim parents reported having a school aged child who experienced bullying related to their religious identity in the previous year. In almost a third of those cases, the perpetrator was a teacher or school official. In 2021, Muslims reported experiencing institutional discrimination at levels much higher than other religious groups, for example 25% of Muslims vs. 5% among those of other religious affiliations reported religious discrimination while receiving health care. At the airport, those figures are 44% for Muslims contrasted with 5% of the general public, applying for jobs, it’s 33% for Muslims and 8% for the general public. It’s increasingly clear that the appropriate comparison for the rate at which American Muslims are experiencing discrimination is not with other religious groups, but other racialized groups. It is also increasingly clear that anti-Muslim attitudes in America are durable, as attitudes towards other racialized groups have also been.

All of the myriad ways in which American Muslims experience anti-Muslim bias, threats, and discrimination appear to be having serious impacts on our mental health. A study published in JAMA Psychiatry in 2021 found that American Muslims are now twice as likely to have attempted suicide than Americans of other religious affiliations. It attributes this spike to religious discrimination and a reluctance among American Muslims to seek mental health treatment.

I first noticed the uptick in these trends after 9/11 and then again in 2015, when my kindergarten-aged daughter was told not to say she was Muslim at school. The teacher who told her this was Muslim herself, the only other Muslim at the school in any capacity. While it was likely the instruction was meant to be protective, it was nonetheless worrying. Unwilling to navigate a landscape in which it was dangerous for my six-year-old to be openly Muslim at school and seeing that this sentiment was increasingly normative in our nation’s culture, we began to plan our departure.

It’s not that Canada is utopian for Muslims. Even non-Canadians likely remember the Quebec City mosque shooting of 2017, in which 6 men were killed and 5 others injured by a 27-year-old named Alexandre Bissonnette. The number of anti-Muslim hate crimes in Quebec tripled that year.

There was another mosque shooting just last week in Toronto. In 2019, Quebec passed Bill 21, banning certain public workers from wearing visibly religious symbols, widely understood as an attempt to prevent Muslim women in such positions from wearing hijab, though also affecting those who wear turbans, for example, or kippas.

Nor is Canada utopian for other racialized groups. Recent surveys and reports all suggest that Black and Indigenous Canadians continue to experience widespread discrimination in jobs, education, and social services, health disparities, and disproportionate rates of incarceration and violence. Like America, Canada has a legacy of Black enslavement and Indigenous genocide, as well as a long history of residential schools and police brutality. Like America, Canada interned ethnically Japanese people during World War II. When I was a child visiting cousins in Toronto, the epithet “Paki,” for South Asians, was ubiquitous. These aspects of Canadian history have driven modern racist attitudes and continuing disparities in wealth, land ownership, and political power.

So why move our children here? Why not make our stand where we have a large, layered community of friends and family? There is a specific element of Canadian governance that made us hopeful that our American dreams might be better realized in Canada. If you go to Canada’s Department of Justice website today, you’ll find this remarkable statement: “The Government recognizes that Indigenous self-government and laws are critical to Canada’s future, and that Indigenous perspectives and rights must be incorporated in all aspects of this relationship. In doing so, we will continue the process of decolonization and hasten the end of its legacy wherever it remains in our laws and policies.”

The Canadian government’s acknowledgement of itself as a colonial project that must be actively undone is a dramatic contrast to political discourse in America today. Americans rarely acknowledge the essential thefts of land and labor from Native and Black people that have made America possible. Certainly, America’s government has never articulated an intention to decolonize. Americans are taught that their country has already had its revolution, freeing its people from colonial domination.

Years ago, in preschool, my children brought home a flyer about how to make an apology. The first step, the flyer said, is to acknowledge wrongdoing. With its history of slavery and colonial genocide, Americans yet find this step so controversial that, today, we cannot even agree to teach our own history in public schools. In the years since my family moved to Canada, we find that while imperfect, this nation’s fundamental intention towards justice does, in fact, make it a better place for our children to live. Their elementary school curriculum, for example, includes a discussion of what it means to be a settler on land that was promised to First Nations peoples in treaties. It challenges our children to reckon with what human rights for all of us, newcomers from many waves of immigration, descendants of those trafficked in slavery, and Indigenous peoples, might look like.

The children know whose traditional land they live and study on. They think about where the descendants of those people are, and what debt they might owe to them. In the process they are developing the capacity to navigate competing interests, diverse identities, and unfamiliar traditions. They are building the tools for a better future through honest study of their nation’s past. They recognize that this model secures space for them, too. Recently, their teachers applied the same principles to create a meditation space in the gym for fasting children to use over lunch during Ramadan.

I don’t fully understand why Canada has chosen to confront its colonial legacy while America continues to minimize and deny its own. I continue to hope that America will eventually unite around a plain telling of its own history in choosing a path forward. It is, after all, the only path that is wide enough for us all.

Source: Finding the American Dream in Canada

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Paré: Le mot en n et les deux solitudes

2022/07/06 Leave a comment

Contrast:

Une fracture se dessine clairement entre le Québec et le reste du Canada à la suite d’un controversé jugement du Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des télécommunications (CRTC), qui somme CBC/Radio-Canada de présenter des excuses pour une chronique où a été cité à quatre reprises le titre du livre de Pierre Vallières, Nègres blancs d’Amérique.

En 2020, la journaliste vedette de CBC Wendy Mesley avait été suspendue pour avoir nommé le titre complet du même livre, non pas en ondes dans ce cas-ci, mais bien lors d’une réunion de production. Elle s’en est excusée, mais la tourmente ne s’est jamais estompée ; tombée en disgrâce, Wendy Mesley a fini par annoncer sa retraite l’an dernier.

Rien de tel au Québec, malgré le blâme du CRTC. Personne n’a publiquement exigé la tête de l’animatrice Annie Desrochers et du chroniqueur Simon Jodoin pour avoir prononcé en ondes le mot en n dans un échange en août 2020 où il était question de la saga autour de la professeure Verushka Lieutenant-Duval à l’Université d’Ottawa. Au contraire, les lettres ouvertes s’accumulent depuis la décision du CRTC pour implorer CBC/Radio-Canada de ne pas s’excuser et de plutôt porter la cause en appel.

« Wendy Mesley n’a ni plus ni moins été congédiée de CBC. Et à l’époque, il n’y a pas beaucoup de monde au Canada anglais qui s’en était scandalisé. Il y a eu une sorte d’acquiescement. Maintenant que cette histoire se produit au Québec, on peut très bien voir les deux solitudes », observe Marc-François Bernier, professeur au Département de communication de l’Université d’Ottawa.

Dans cette université bilingue, on a constaté le même clivage entre anglophones et francophones lors de l’affaire Lieutenant-Duval, ajoute-t-il. Rappelons que Verushka Lieutenant-Duval, qui y enseignait l’histoire de l’art, avait été sanctionnée pour avoir mentionné le mot en n. S’en était suivi un long battage médiatique, principalement au Québec, où plusieurs avaient exprimé des craintes pour la liberté universitaire. Dans la foulée, 34 professeurs de l’Université d’Ottawa, pour la plupart francophones, avaient publié une lettre ouverte pour s’insurger du sort réservé à Verushka Lieutenant-Duval.

« Plusieurs professeurs anglophones étaient d’accord avec nous, mais c’est beaucoup plus difficile pour eux de parler, surtout dans les départements de sciences humaines. Ceux qui veulent dénoncer ce genre de censure ont peur, car ils peuvent être la cible d’intimidation », avance Marc-François Bernier.

Réalités parallèles

Cette polarisation semble teinter aussi la manière dont a été traitée la récente décision du CRTC dans les médias. Au Québec, l’affaire fait grand bruit depuis plusieurs jours. La plupart des chroniques et des éditoriaux dénoncent avec vigueur le jugement du CRTC.

Mais le portrait est tout autre au Canada anglais, où l’affaire n’a pas donné lieu à une mobilisation extraordinaire de la classe médiatique au nom de la liberté d’expression. Dans les rares articles qui portent sur le sujet, le nom du livre de Pierre Vallières n’est jamais retranscrit dans son intégralité. Qui plus est, CBC a publié le jour même de la décision du CRTC une entrevue avec Ricardo Lamour, l’artiste montréalais à l’origine de la plainte, qui a par ailleurs été très peu cité jusqu’ici dans les médias québécois.

« Le N word a une lourde connotation en anglais, que le mot français n’a pas […]. Avec la traduction, il y a des nuances qui se perdent, et je pense que ce sont ces nuances qui ont échappéau CRTC », conclut Guy Gendron, ancien ombudsman de Radio-Canada.

Existe-t-il le même fossé culturel au sein de la haute direction de CBC/Radio-Canada, où se côtoient francophones et anglophones ? Chose certaine, la réaction officielle du diffuseur public se fait attendre depuis plusieurs jours. La société d’État réitère « prendre le temps nécessaire pour étudier la décision rendue par le CRTC », en insistant sur la « complexité de la question ».

Source: Le mot en n et les deux solitudes

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Quebec and the rest of French-speaking Canada are at a crossroads

2022/07/06 Leave a comment

Interesting contrast on how Francophones outside Quebec are embracing Francophone immigration and multiculturalism:

A rebelle and rêveur, my father was a young audacieux, venturing from Sudbury, Ont., the Nickel City where he had come of age, off to the Université Laval in pursuit of graduate studies in 1978.

But after he arrived in la ville de Québec (a wonderful city, he insists), he was excluded by his Québécois peers — “from Ontario,” he had lived among les anglais. Among the Anglos. 

It did not matter that he was born and raised in la belle province, that he was French Canadian and Catholic, or that he spoke eloquent French and then-incomprehensible English. He was, as René Lévesque said in 1968, a dead duck. A “cadavre encore chaud,” the still-warm corpse of a Francophone outside Quebec. A spectre that (falsely) reminded this société distincte of what would happen if it did not seek refuge from the empire and its dominion, which had worked to uproot the fait françaisin Canada over centuries. 

A rebelle and rêveur, my father was a young audacieux, venturing from Sudbury, Ont., the Nickel City where he had come of age, off to the Université Laval in pursuit of graduate studies in 1978.

But after he arrived in la ville de Québec (a wonderful city, he insists), he was excluded by his Québécois peers — “from Ontario,” he had lived among les anglais. Among the Anglos. 

It did not matter that he was born and raised in la belle province, that he was French Canadian and Catholic, or that he spoke eloquent French and then-incomprehensible English. He was, as René Lévesque said in 1968, a dead duck. A “cadavre encore chaud,” the still-warm corpse of a Francophone outside Quebec. A spectre that (falsely) reminded this société distincte of what would happen if it did not seek refuge from the empire and its dominion, which had worked to uproot the fait français in Canada over centuries. 

It was, said my father years later, une mentalité de paroisse — a parish mentality. One that excludes, prompting the question: who has a right to be Québécois? Who has a right to be Franco-Canadian? Who has a right to belong? 

It’s a question that Francophone communities across Canada, at a crossroads in the expression of our identities, are contemplating with vastly different outcomes. We, Quebec and the rest of French-speaking Canada, are following divergent paths as we define what we aspire to be.

On the eve of la Fête Nationale last month, celebrated on June 24 under the banner of “our language of a thousand accents,” Quebec Premier François Legault threw oil on the traditional feu de joie, or bonfire. “It’s important that we don’t put all cultures on the same level; that’s why we oppose multiculturalism,” said Legault. “We prefer to concentrate on what we call interculturalism, where we have one culture, the Quebec culture.”

Quebec’s notion of predatory multiculturalism intertwines with its secularism law (which impacts Muslim women in particular) as well as its problematic new language law (a notable transgression on truth and reconciliation with Indigenous nations). Coupled with obstinate denials of the existence of systemic racism in the terrible aftermath of Joyce Echaquan’s death, this all conspires to put the province on a path to a narrow and exclusionary definition of who is truly Québécois. 

By contrast, Franco-Canadians are choosing a different path — one that rejects the notion of our provincial and national identities as being pure laine, instead connecting us back to a mosaic that is multiracial, multifaith, multilingual and multicultural. Our communities and institutions have recognized that, despite our unbreakable spirit, our declining demographic dividend may not sustain the French language over generations to come. Francophone immigration can ensure that the French language continues to thrive in Canada, opening us to an incredible “francophone galaxy.”

Despite my determined idealism, our communities in Franco-Canada are far from utopian. In my hometown of Sudbury, a “welcoming francophone community,” advocates are calling out systemic barriers to employment for francophone immigrants and the need for a northern anti-racism strategy in pursuit of equity for immigrants and First Nations, Inuit and Métis nations. We Franco-Ontarians have our work cut out for us.

And so, who belongs? 

After over 50 years in northern Ontario, my father continues to speak eloquent French and still-incomprehensible English. The jeune audacieux would grow to become a leader of la Franco-Ontarie, among the youth involved in the creation of the beloved Franco-Ontarian flag. 

He wasn’t from Sudbury, from the north, or even from Ontario. Yet he became Franco-Ontarian. On ne naît pas Franco-Ontarien — on le devient. You aren’t born Franco-Ontarian — you become one.

As Franco-Canadians, we benefit immensely from multiculturalism. Our Francophonie is ripe with a thousand accents, persuading us that there is much to be gained in global citizenship — and as a mosaic of global sociétés distinctes in our own right.

Isabelle Bourgeault-Tassé is a Franco-Ontarian writer.

Source: Quebec and the rest of French-speaking Canada are at a crossroads

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Prominent Radio-Canada personalities urge broadcaster to fight CRTC N-word decision

2022/07/06 Leave a comment

Of course, there was bound to be a complaint. And equally, of course there would be a counter complaint. But context matters in the use of the N word after all Vallières used it to drive home his arguments of francophone Quebecers being second class citizens prior to the Revolution tranquille, just as the University of Ottawa Professor Verushka Lieutenant-Duval looked at how the word has been reclaimed by Blacks:

Black Montrealer who filed a complaint against Radio-Canada over the on-air use of the N-word says he’s disappointed but not surprised by the pushback against a recent CRTC decision ordering the public broadcaster to apologize.

Ricardo Lamour, a social worker and artist, filed the complaint with the broadcasting and telecommunications regulator after hearing a journalist and a commentator repeat the offensive word several times on air in 2020.

Some 50 Radio-Canada personalities said in an open letter published Monday in La Presse that last week’s CRTC decision in Lamour’s favour threatens journalistic freedom and independence and “opens the door to the dangers of censorship and self-censorship.”

“Also, if we are alarmed, it’s not only for us, at Radio-Canada, but for all communications companies regulated by the CRTC,” wrote the signatories, which included prominent news anchors, such as Céline Galipeau and Patrice Roy, and Guy A. Lepage, host of the talk show “Tout le monde en parle.”

Radio-Canada’s former ombudsman, a Quebec cabinet minister and groups representing journalists have also denounced the decision as a blow to freedom of expression or freedom of the press.

When asked if he was surprised by the backlash, Lamour quoted American author and activist James Baldwin, who wrote, “The power of the white world is threatened whenever a Black man refuses to accept the white world’s definitions.” Lamour noted that most francophone Quebec media figures are white and he questioned how many of the letter’s signatories are Black.

He said he was motivated to file a complaint two years ago after hearing two on-air radio personalities repeatedly use the full name of a book that has the N-word in the title, “without adequate warning and contextual discussion.”

Lamour had been waiting to go on air to discuss his work mentoring Black youth, and heard the comments in the Radio-Canada studio through a pair of headphones. He said he was troubled by the “careless and callous” use of the word.

“I found it offensive and upsetting,” he said.

He filed a complaint with the CRTC after first being told by Radio-Canada’s ombudsman that the use of the word in that specific context — quoting a book title — did not contravene the public broadcaster’s journalistic standards and practices.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission sided with Lamour. While it recognized that the word was not used in a discriminatory manner, it found the public broadcaster nevertheless violated Canadian broadcasting policy objectives and values.

Radio-Canada did not do enough to mitigate the effect the word could have on its audience, “particularly in the current social context and given its national public broadcaster status,” the CRTC decision read.

In addition to a written apology to the complainant, the broadcaster must also put in place internal measures and programming to ensure that it better addresses similar issues in the future, the CRTC said.

Signatories of the open letter in La Presse acknowledged that the N-word is “loaded,” but they said it is used rarely on air and only in a factual context “that is neither offensive, insulting or dehumanizing, which respects the journalistic standards and practices of Radio-Canada but also the intelligence of our institution and its employees.”

The province’s professional journalists association, the Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec, denounced the decision as a “dangerous precedent that imposes upon media a censorship that is as exaggerated as it is unjustified.” Quebec’s culture minister also expressed concern over the decision, tweeting that it was a serious violation of freedom of expression.

Lamour says he sees the backlash against the N-word decision partly as a fight “to assert some rights to not be accountable” by broadcasters who are resistant to making the necessary changes to better reflect an evolving society.

“We’re not seeing some form of introspection here; we’re seeing offensive things,” he said.

Instead of fighting, he said, broadcasters should read the reasoning behind the decision and try to do better.

In an email, a spokesperson for Radio-Canada said the broadcaster was aware of the “wide range of opinions” on the CRTC decision.

“Radio-Canada acknowledges that use of the ‘’N-word’ is offensive; that’s why we have limited its use on our airwaves,” the statement read.

The broadcaster said it was still studying the decision and considering how it would respond.

Source: Prominent Radio-Canada personalities urge broadcaster to fight CRTC N-word decision

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QS permettrait les signes religieux « pour tout le monde »

2022/07/05 Leave a comment

Welcome position:

« On va permettre le port de signes religieux pour que tout le monde puisse travailler au Québec, peu importe ses croyances. On va ajouter des dispositions à la loi pour que la laïcité au Québec soit rassembleuse et cohérente », affirme le chef parlementaire de QS en entrevue avec La Presse.

À l’heure actuelle, la Loi sur la laïcité de l’État (« loi 21 »), que le gouvernement Legault a fait adopter sous bâillon en juin 2019, prévoit que les enseignants, les directeurs des écoles primaires et secondaires publiques, les agents de la paix, les procureurs de la Couronne, les juges de nomination québécoise ainsi que le président et les vice-présidents de l’Assemblée nationale ne peuvent porter de signes religieux dans l’exercice de leurs fonctions. Le Parti québécois (PQ) a appuyé la loi, mais le Parti libéral du Québec (PLQ) et QS ont voté contre.

« Un signe religieux est tout objet, notamment un vêtement, un symbole, un bijou, une parure, un accessoire ou un couvre-chef, qui est soit porté en lien avec une conviction ou une croyance religieuse ou qui est raisonnablement considéré comme référant à une appartenance religieuse », selon la définition du gouvernement du Québec.

De nouvelles balises

M. Nadeau-Dubois propose de modifier la loi pour y ajouter des balises « simples, claires et faciles à interpréter » afin d’encadrer le port de signes religieux, en conformité avec les dispositions prévues par la Charte québécoise des droits et libertés de la personne. Sous un gouvernement solidaire, il serait uniquement permis d’interdire le port d’un signe religieux à un employé de l’État pour des raisons de sécurité, promet-il, ou s’il l’empêche de bien faire son travail.

« Pour prendre un exemple très simple, une personne qui souhaite enseigner au Québec ne peut pas le faire pleinement et ne peut pas le faire convenablement si elle a un signe religieux qui couvre son visage. C’est un élément élémentaire et important. Même chose pour un policier qui interpelle quelqu’un dans la rue. Les citoyens s’attendent à pouvoir identifier l’agent qui les interpelle », explique le chef parlementaire de QS.

Ainsi, Québec solidaire appuie les parties du texte législatif en vigueur qui disent que « tout membre du personnel d’un organisme [public] doit exercer ses fonctions à visage découvert » lorsqu’il rend un service.

« Il faut en avoir le cœur net »

Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois propose également de demander à la Cour d’appel du Québec — le plus haut tribunal de la province – d’indiquer si les dispositions actuellement prévues par la Loi sur la laïcité de l’État respectent la Charte québécoise des droits et libertés de la personne. Cette charte a été adoptée à l’unanimité par l’Assemblée nationale en 1975 et ne relève pas du gouvernement fédéral.

« Il faut tourner la page sur ce débat-là. Il faut en avoir le cœur net. Il faut, une bonne fois pour toutes, savoir si interdire à une jeune femme d’enseigner parce qu’elle porte un foulard [comme l’a fait la Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ)] respecte notre Charte québécoise des droits et libertés de la personne », estime M. Nadeau-Dubois.

« Il y a en ce moment une contestation judiciaire et François Legault vient de recruter le rédacteur de la charte des valeurs pour faire partie de sa prochaine équipe gouvernementale », poursuit-il en faisant référence à l’ex-chroniqueur et ancien ténor souverainiste Bernard Drainville, qui se présente pour la CAQ dans la circonscription de Lévis.

« Une femme qui enseigne à l’école, si on voit bien son visage et qu’elle respecte les normes professionnelles de son emploi, il n’y a pas de raisons d’interdire qu’elle enseigne. […] Ce sont les mêmes critères pour tout le monde. Ce qu’on veut, c’est de revoir la loi 21 pour permettre de manière générale le port de signes religieux tout en affirmant des balises pour encadrer la question du visage couvert », dit-il.

Les groupes religieux visés

Dans son projet de réforme de la loi 21, Québec solidaire propose également de mettre fin au financement public des écoles religieuses et aux exemptions fiscales pour les organisations religieuses.

Face au premier ministre caquiste qui affirme que la Loi sur la laïcité de l’État définit une valeur québécoise, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois réplique qu’il ne comprend pas « le lien que fait François Legault entre la loi 21 et la fierté québécoise ».

« Des lois sur la laïcité, il y en a dans plusieurs pays. Ce qui me rend fier, c’est notre langue, notre culture, notre territoire, pas le fait qu’on encadre des signes religieux pour quelques employés de l’État », dit-il.

Source: QS permettrait les signes religieux « pour tout le monde » 

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