Another series of articles on the proposed Charte des valeurs québécoises.
First, confirmation that the government plans to go ahead, and leak is likely more than trial balloon:
Charte des valeurs québécoises: Drainville dit unir les Québécois | Paul Journet | Politique québécoise.
Quatre conditions pour un accommodement raisonnable
Secondly, a piece by Jocelyn Maclure, quoted in a CBC interview earlier, speaks strongly of the risks and dangers of such a rigid, exclusionary approach, and notes the false assumption that the Canadian and Quebec charters of rights allow every form of accommodation, where the reality is different:
Charte des valeurs québécoises – Le jeu dangereux du Parti québécois
And from the English media, Farzana Hassan, former president of the secular Muslim Canadian Congress, a harsh critique, particularly interesting how consistently strong the MCC has been on secularism:
More xenophobia from PQ’s Marois
And a few pieces on some of the broader ethical and rights issues involved from professors of religion and ethics: Ian Henderson and Margaret Somerville:
The state cannot decide what is a religious symbol
Op-Ed: Quebec bans religion from the public square (I do disagree with her definition of ‘freedom from religion’; religious freedom applies to all, whether they are believers or non-believers, the issue is whether or not the government allows people this freedom.
On the federal political level, interesting to see how this plays out. One leader has been clear and categorical against it (Trudeau, the same week as his marijuana revelations), the Prime Minister has ducked the issue but the real Minister for multiculturalism, Jason Kenney, issued a strong tweet, and the NDP and official opposition leader has also ducked, saying he will await the actual bill before commenting. Not inspiring leadership that.
