Laïcité: Kenney a fait part de son opposition à Legault

2019/06/24 Leave a comment

Not surprising and consistent during debates over the PQ’s value charter:

Le premier ministre albertain, Jason Kenney, ne s’est pas gêné pour manifester son opposition à la loi sur la laïcité lors de son tête-à-tête avec François Legault.

C’est ce qu’il a répondu à une question du Nouveau Parti démocratique (NPD), mercredi, à l’Assemblée législative de l’Alberta.

Le porte-parole néo-démocrate en matière de multiculturalisme, Jasvir Deol, s’était levé pour lui demander s’il avait fait part de ses préoccupations à « son nouvel ami » québécois lors de leur rencontre du 12 juin dernier.

Les deux hommes ont tenu une rencontre de travail à Québec, puis soupé ensemble à la résidence officielle de M. Legault.

« Considérant que le premier ministre dit être en train de bâtir une nouvelle amitié avec le premier ministre du Québec, et considérant que les deux ont soupé ensemble mercredi dernier, avant que le premier ministre du Québec ne passe sa fin de semaine à se battre pour forcer l’adoption de sa loi raciste, M. le premier ministre, avez-vous exprimé des préoccupations à votre nouvel ami, le premier ministre du Québec, et lui avez-vous demandé d’abandonner immédiatement ce projet de loi ? » lui a demandé M. Deol.

À cela, M. Kenney a répondu : « Je lui ai fait part de mon opposition, et je pense parler pour la vaste majorité des Albertains quand je dis que nous croyons en la liberté de conscience, et que cette liberté doit être protégée, par exemple, pour les employés de l’État qui portent des signes religieux ostentatoires. »

Loi « haineuse »

M. Deol faisait écho au gazouillis de sa chef, Rachel Notley, diffusé lundi dernier, dans lequel elle dénonce « un jour triste pour le Canada quand le racisme devient loi ».

En Chambre, il a qualifié la loi québécoise de « haineuse », et a exhorté le premier ministre Kenney à la dénoncer sur les réseaux sociaux, ce que M. Kenney n’a finalement pas fait.

Or, Jason Kenney a tenu à rappeler lors de cet échange qu’il a déjà siégé comme ministre de la Citoyenneté, de l’Immigration et du Multiculturalisme sous Stephen Harper, à l’époque de la Charte des valeurs du Parti québécois, et qu’à ce titre, il était prêt à la contester devant les tribunaux.

« Je me suis toujours clairement opposé au projet de loi (du gouvernement Legault sur la laïcité), à cette approche, a-t-il déclaré mercredi. Même que quand j’étais ministre du Multiculturalisme, j’ai menacé publiquement de contester devant les tribunaux la Charte des valeurs du Parti québécois, qui comprenait des dispositions semblables. »

Il a également rappelé à l’opposition néo-démocrate qu’il avait soutenu la cause Multani en 2006, pour que les enfants de religion sikhe puissent porter un kirpan à l’école publique au Québec, et qu’il avait changé les règles pour que le kirpan puisse être porté dans les consulats canadiens, ainsi que dans les hauts-commissariats, partout à travers le pays.

En outre, a-t-il poursuivi, « j’ai appuyé le droit des filles à Montréal de porter le hidjab pour jouer au soccer. […] Mon bilan en cette matière est très clair », a-t-il indiqué.

La loi québécoise sur la laïcité, adoptée le 16 juin dernier, interdit le port de signes religieux aux employés de l’État en position d’autorité. Une enseignante au Québec qui tient à porter le hidjab, par exemple, ne pourra être embauchée par une commission scolaire.

D’ailleurs, le premier ministre François Legault a annoncé dans une entrevue à La Presse vendredi qu’il pourrait mettre une commission scolaire récalcitrante sous tutelle, après que la Commission scolaire de Montréal (CSDM) eut déclaré qu’elle allait reporter l’application de la loi à 2020.

Ombre sur le Conseil de la fédération ?

L’enjeu de la laïcité pourrait jeter une ombre sur la rencontre annuelle du Conseil de la fédération, qui se tiendra à Saskatoon du 9 au 11 juillet.

En entrevue à La Presse canadienne, M. Deol a dit s’attendre à ce que tous les premiers ministres du Canada dénoncent d’une seule voix la loi votée par le gouvernement Legault.

Traditionnellement, les premiers ministres s’abstiennent de commenter les affaires internes des autres provinces. La situation est d’autant plus délicate que MM. Kenney et Legault sont à discuter d’autres enjeux, tels que le transport de pétrole et la sélection des immigrants.

« C’est discriminatoire […] ce n’est pas ça la laïcité, a plaidé le député d’Edmonton-Meadows. La laïcité rassemble les gens, respecte les religions de façon égale, et non seulement ça, mais elle permet aux gens de […] contribuer à la société », a-t-il dit.

« Clairement, cette loi divise les communautés en criminalisant les choix faits par les minorités », a-t-il ajouté.

Source: Laïcité: Kenney a fait part de son opposition à Legault

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In Quebec’s secularism law, an Ontario police force sees a source of recruits

2019/06/24 Leave a comment

Reminds me of Ontario hospitals doing the same thing during the 2013 PQ charter of values debates:

An Ontario police force will launch a recruiting campaign targeting Quebec residents affected by the province’s new law on religious symbols.

The Peel Regional Police, which covers territory including the cities of Mississauga and Brampton, will conduct a campaign in Quebec after a motion was passed unanimously by the region’s police services board on Friday.

The police force “believes in the values of diversity and inclusion, including the accommodation of religious symbols,” the motion states. It goes on to say that the police board “invites all affected individuals either pursuing or training for a career in policing in Quebec to apply for a career with the Peel Regional Police.”

The motion calls for the police force to place advertising “within Quebec.”

Quebec’s religious symbols law, which was passed last Sunday, will bar public school teachers, government lawyers, judges and police officers from wearing religious symbols while at work.

The Peel Regional Police have just over 2,000 uniformed officers and 800 civilian staff, said Constable Danny Marttini, a spokesperson for the force. They hire approximately 100 new recruits every year, she said.

The police board motion was seconded by Patrick Brown, Brampton’s mayor and the former leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, who declared his opposition to Quebec’s law in a statement released Friday.

“We need to send a strong message to proponents of [the secularism law] in Quebec,” the statement says. “This law is an affront to freedom of religion and an infringement of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

Brown has also introduced a similar motion with Brampton’s city council for recruiting for the city’s fire and emergency service.

Another motion calls for the city to join a legal challenge to Quebec’s law initiated by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the National Council of Canadian Muslims.

In his motion advocating for Brampton to join the legal challenge, Brown writes that the city “is ground zero for diversity and Canadian multiculturalism, and [Brampton’s] Council bears a responsibility to stand up in defence of the Canadian multicultural mosaic.”

Those motions will be considered at a council meeting on June 26.

Brown’s statement says the law on religious symbols will prohibit Jews, Muslims, Sikhs and others who wear religious symbols from pursuing careers in many public sector jobs.

The Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec thanked the Peel police force for its action.

“Thanks to the Peel Regional Police for applying the values of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” the organization said on Facebook.

Source: In Quebec’s secularism law, an Ontario police force sees a source of recruits

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‘Ground zero for multiculturalism’: Brampton mayor blasts Quebec’s ‘religious symbols’ bill

2019/06/24 Leave a comment

Not surprising, given the demographics of Brampton:

Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown [former Ontario PC leader] is speaking out against the Quebec provincial government’s Bill 21, which prohibits government employees from wearing religious symbols, and is tabling a motion at council’s next meeting to make the position official.

On Friday (June 21), Brown issued a statement strongly condemning Quebec Premier Francois Legault’s provincial government for passing the controversial Bill 21 into law on June 16.

“Bill 21, of course, is the law that will ban Jews, Muslims, Sikhs and others who wear symbols of their faith from pursuing careers in numerous public sector jobs,” said Brown in his statement.

Brown, once leader of the Progressive Conservative (PC) Party on Ontario before winning the mayor’s chain last October, also sits on the Peel Police Services Board. He seconded a motion at Friday’s board meeting approving a campaign to recruit Quebec residents interested in a career in policing affected by the new law in that province.

The police board motion also directs Peel police to “place select advertising within Quebec promoting a career at the Peel Regional Police.”

“I was pleased to second the motion at today’s Peel Police Services Board encouraging those Quebec residents interested in a career in policing to apply to Peel Regional Police. We are ground zero for multiculturalism,” added Brown in his statement.

The mayor’s statement included a pair of council motions he said he intends to table at Brampton council’s June 26 special meeting. The first would add the City of Brampton to an ongoing legal challenge.

The second follows the Peel police board motion’s lead inviting those affected by the new laws in Quebec interested in a career in firefighting to apply in Brampton, while also placing select advertising in that province to that end.

Council will debate both motions at its June 26 meeting at city hall from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

“We need to join the legal challenge initiated by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the National Council of Canadian Muslims to protect religious freedom. If we don’t stand up for religious freedom in Brampton which is the most culturally and religiously diverse city in Canada than who will?” said Brown.

Source: ‘Ground zero for multiculturalism’: Brampton mayor blasts Quebec’s ‘religious symbols’ bill

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Loi 21: Trudeau dénonce, sans plus

2019/06/21 Leave a comment

Of note (see Andrew Coyne: Will leaders tolerate religious segregation just because it’s Quebec?):

La loi québécoise sur la laïcité a rattrapé Justin Trudeau sur le toit de l’ambassade canadienne à Washington, jeudi.

Mais le premier ministre s’est, une fois de plus, contenté de dénoncer la loi du gouvernement Legault, sans dire ce qu’il ferait pour la contrer.

La question est venue en toute fin de point de presse, après une journée à rencontrer le président Donald Trump et des politiciens américains pour discuter de la ratification du nouvel ALENA.

Pourquoi M. Trudeau n’a rien dit depuis l’adoption à Québec du projet de loi 21 ?

« Ma perspective et mes opinions là-dessus ont toujours été très claires », s’est défendu le premier ministre.

« Je suis évidemment préoccupé par une atteinte aux droits fondamentaux des Canadiens », a-t-il ajouté.

Mais pas plus que ses ministres, cette semaine à Ottawa, n’a-t-il voulu dire ce que son gouvernement ferait concrètement pour répondre à cette « atteinte aux droits fondamentaux ».

Lorsque le projet de loi était débattu à Québec, on refusait à Ottawa de dire si on songeait à se joindre à un recours devant les tribunaux pour l’attaquer. On disait attendre de voir le contenu final de la loi une fois adoptée.

Au lendemain de l’adoption de la loi, le ministre fédéral de la Justice, David Lametti, n’avait toujours rien à dire de plus.

« On va regarder ce qui se passe sur le terrain. Aussi on va prendre le temps pour étudier les amendements qui ont été ajoutés à la loi. Et on va agir d’une façon prudente », disait le ministre Lametti lundi.

Il refusait toutefois d’exclure une intervention éventuelle de son gouvernement devant les tribunaux.

« Nous allons sûrement nous assurer que nos opinions soient bien connues et nous continuerons à défendre les droits des Canadiens », a répété, de son côté, M. Trudeau à Washington, jeudi.

Le journaliste lui a alors demandé s’il était temps de faire disparaître la clause dérogatoire.

Le premier ministre a préféré ne pas répondre à cette question.

Source: Loi 21: Trudeau dénonce, sans plus

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Andrew Coyne: Will leaders tolerate religious segregation just because it’s Quebec?

2019/06/19 Leave a comment

Typical trenchant Coyne column:

According to the premier of Quebec, it’s all about pride. Quebecers, Francois Legault claims, are forever stopping him in the street to tell him “‘Mr. Legault we are happy.’ I say why and they say ‘it’s because we are proud.’… To feel this regained pride among our people, who are standing up, advancing, makes me the happiest man in the world to be their premier.”

And what is this miraculous thing that has restored Quebecers’ sense of pride to them? What has prompted ordinary Quebecers to buttonhole the premier to tell him how happy — and proud — they are? A bill that prohibits those in “positions of authority” in the civil service, including not only judges and police officers but teachers, from wearing religious symbols on the job.

Which is to say, that prohibits those whose faith obliges them to wear such symbols from working in those positions. Or if we are really being frank, that bars them to observant Muslims — also Sikhs and some Jews, but really Muslims.

That, according to the premier, is what has caused Quebecers to walk erect again: Bill 21, “An act respecting the laicity of the state,” passed in a special weekend sitting of the legislature, with the help of closure.

The bill will of course face a raft of court challenges, its prophylactic invocation of the notwithstanding clause, er, notwithstanding. The clause may save the law from judicial invalidation on the grounds of its manifest violations of Charter guarantees of equality or religious freedom, but it does not shield it from judicial scrutiny on other grounds: as a possible violation of the division of powers, say, or of women’s rights, or indeed as an improper use of the clause itself.

Whether the courts will be willing to go to such novel lengths remains in doubt. So we are faced with a question I raised some months ago: is this a state of affairs the country can tolerate? On the evidence, it would seem we can. The government of the second-largest province in the country has just passed a law forbidding the province’s religious minorities from working in much of the public service  — and when we say religious minorities, we are typically also talking of racial minorities — and the reaction elsewhere is … silence. No federal leader issued a statement in response. No other premier spoke up.

Oh, there was some perfunctory criticism from both quarters when the bill was introduced, though in curiously muted language. Justin Trudeau ventured, indirectly, that he didn’t think “that a lot of people feel that … we should be legitimizing discrimination of our citizens based on religion.” Andrew Scheer noted, vaguely, that “a society based on fundamental freedoms and openness must always protect fundamental individual rights and should not in any way impede people from expressing themselves.” Even Jagmeet Singh, whose turban would preclude his employment as a cop or teacher in Quebec, confined himself to observing that “this law that is being proposed is something that divides the population… instead of bringing people together.”

But now even that is apparently too much. Whether or not one thinks some sort of federal action is required — I do not see why it is any less legitimate for the federal government to use its constitutional power to “disallow” provincial legislation than for the Supreme Court to do so, but neither is that the only means at the feds’ disposal — it is extraordinary that it should not even be considered worthy of comment.

If this had been tried in any other province — well, why proceed? It wouldn’t be tried in any other province. But if it were, the feds, the media and the rest of the great and the good would descend on the offending province like Moses from Mount Sinai, full of fiery denunciations of the bigotry that presumably inspired it. But because it is Quebec — and, one suspects, because there’s an election in the offing — we are invited, as ever, to understand, or at any rate to shut up.

We have to avoid the temptation to abstraction. This is not merely an “intrusion on religious freedom” or “incompatible with religious equality” or “a misunderstanding of religious neutrality.” It is a religious hiring bar. Its effect, if not its aim, is to enforce a kind of segregation over much of the public sector.

To be sure, it applies only to some jobs, and not the whole of the civil service, as the Parti Québécois had previously proposed in its “charter of values.” And the government has partially exempted existing employees: while they would not be fired from their current jobs — no tearful scenes for the networks — neither could they move to a new location, take a new job, or accept a promotion within the areas prohibited to them.

But this is small comfort to those Quebecers who might aspire to work as teachers, police officers, judges and so on, whose government has essentially told them: No Muslims (or Sikhs, or orthodox Jews) need apply. Even existing employees who profess these faiths must surely see how limited a future the government has in mind for them. Over time, they may be expected to take the hint, and leave.

We are surely past the stage now where some tenured idiot will attempt to justify this in the name of French concepts of secularism or Quebecers’ scarred memories of their Church-dominated past, but just in case: it is probably no coincidence that Bill 21 should have been passed on the same weekend as Bill 9, another law of dubious constitutionality that would impose a “values test” on immigrants to the province. This is about putting the province’s minorities — religious, racial and otherwise — in their place.

Which leaves the rest of us with a decision to make. Sixty-odd years ago the United States decided it was not prepared to tolerate racial segregation in its schools in the name of “states’ rights.” Will we tolerate religious segregation in the public service on the principle that “what happens in Quebec stays in Quebec”?

Source: Andrew Coyne: Will leaders tolerate religious segregation just because it’s Quebec?

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Chris Selley: The debate over Quebec’s religious symbols bill nears its wretched end

2019/06/15 Leave a comment

Pointed commentary:

Better late than never, one supposes: Three days before Premier François Legault’s self-imposed deadline for passing Bill 21, which would prohibit certain civil servants from wearing religious symbols on the job, his government proposed an amendment that would actually define “religious symbol.” (It had hitherto argued none was necessary.) If the amendment is adopted, teachers, police officers, Crown prosecutors and others deemed to be in positions of authority would be forbidden to display any “clothing, symbol, jewellery, ornament, accessory or headgear that is worn in connection with a religious conviction or belief and can reasonably be considered as referring to a religious affiliation.”

Kudos to whichever reporter thought on Wednesday to ask whether wedding rings count. The question utterly stymied both Legault and his Diversity and Inclusiveness Minister — you read that correctly — Simon Jolin-Barrette, who’s in charge of this project. “The person who wears an object that for her constitutes a religious symbol, that constitutes a religious symbol,” Jolin-Barrette explained. “And the person who wears an object that in the eyes of a reasonable person represents a religious symbol, that constitutes a religious symbol.”

Many scoffed at the question. Reporters were just playing silly buggers, they said —  “f—ing the dog,” in Quebec parlance. The government quickly clarified that wedding rings would not be covered.

And indeed, there are many 100-per-cent non-religious wedding bands in the Quebec civil service. But many wedding rings are unambiguously religious symbols to the people wearing them. The standard Catholic marriage script suggests priests ask “the Lord (to) bless these rings” before giving them to the bride and groom. Each will ask the other to “receive this ring as a sign of my love and fidelity. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

Of course, who’s to know? The religious rings don’t glow a special colour. So long as devoutly religious police officers and public-school teachers do their jobs properly and professionally, without fear or favour, everything will be fine. Only that’s precisely what Bill 21’s opponents have been saying forever: A kippa or hijab is no evidence of a partial or biased civil servant, and the lack of a kippa or hijab is no evidence of an impartial or unbiased one. By definition, a law about religious symbols can’t do anything that’s not symbolic — only in this case, the symbolism involves trampling all over minority rights.

Legault has never shown any particular enthusiasm for this project; rather, he defends it on grounds that it has majority support and that it’s time to put the whole issue to bed. As Bill 21 nears passage, more and more voices have made it clear that won’t happen.

On Saturday Le Devoir ran a huge spread about how much religion is costing Quebecers in terms of tax breaks for churches and faith-based organizations. It gave ample voice to the view that faith itself, separated from the charitable works of faithful people, has no intrinsic value to society (or is even a net detriment). “It is difficult to understand how we can enshrine the secular status of the Québécois state in the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, reaffirm the separation of the state and religion and the equality of all citizens, and give away hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue every year,” an editorial argued.

In fact it’s perfectly easy to understand: The government demonstrates its neutrality, and its respect for the equality of all citizens, by treating people the same way regardless of their private faith or lack thereof. If laïcité were incompatible with respecting religious faith and its contributions to society, it’s unlikely the French state would own and maintain so many churches.

Outright anti-religious sentiment is one thing Bill 21 won’t get rid of. It also won’t quiet people who think it should apply to daycare workers and teachers at state-subsidized religious schools — or indeed to the entire civil service, as was contemplated by Pauline Marois’ popular Values Charter. And Bill 21 certainly won’t dissuade bigots from taking out their inadequacies on Quebec’s minority populations. This week a Montreal woman who wears a niqab tracked down the driver of a bus that blew past her at a stop — deliberately, she alleges, based on anti-niqab sentiments the driver had previously expressed on Facebook. When the woman complained in the same medium, CBC reported, respondents included a Société de Transport de Montréal union rep who suggested “a normal Quebecer would have waited for the next bus.”

It’s one of many alarming incidents that Muslim Quebecers in particular insist have become more and more frequent as this interminable debate drags on. The government has proposed no solutions except to make the majority more comfortable — perhaps by banning women wearing niqabs from riding public buses. That particular question will have to wait for a while, tied up as it is in the courts. But Bill 21 will pass before MNAs break for the summer.

At least those affected will finally know where they stand (pending further restrictions). At least greener pastures await elsewhere in Canada if they decide, not unreasonably, that they are no long welcome.

Source: Chris Selley: The debate over Quebec’s religious symbols bill nears its wretched end

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Québec définit ce qu’est un «signe religieux»

2019/06/13 Leave a comment

I have pity for the public servants who were tasked with the drafting what appears to be a fairly restrictive definition, given no mention of size (e.g., small pendants of the Cross, Star of David):

Le gouvernement Legault fait volte-face et consent finalement à définir ce que représente à ses yeux un « signe religieux » dans son projet de loi 21 sur la laïcité de l’État.

Depuis le dépôt du projet de loi controversé, le ministre responsable, Simon Jolin-Barrette, avait toujours refusé jusqu’à maintenant, malgré les pressions venant de toutes parts, de définir ce qu’il entendait par l’expression « signe religieux », qui est au coeur du document.

Mardi, en soirée, coup de théâtre à l’Assemblée nationale où son projet de loi est passé au peigne fin : le ministre Jolin-Barrette a déposé un amendement précisant aux nombreux employés de l’État visés par la loi ce qu’ils n’auront plus le droit de porter dans l’exercice de leurs fonctions.

Le libellé de l’amendement à l’article 6 démontre l’intention du gouvernement de ratisser large.

Ainsi, aux yeux du gouvernement, « tout objet, notamment un vêtement, un symbole, un bijou, une parure, un accessoire ou un couvre-chef » sera considéré comme étant un « signe religieux », s’il est porté « en lien avec une conviction ou une croyance religieuse » ou s’il est « raisonnablement considéré comme référant à une appartenance religieuse ».

Il n’y a aucune mention visant la taille de l’objet en question : minuscule ou ostentatoire, le signe religieux sera donc prohibé.

Le gouvernement Legault tient mordicus à faire adopter deux de ses projets de loi avant l’ajournement des travaux, prévu ce vendredi 14 juin : le projet de loi 9 sur l’immigration et le projet de loi 21 sur la laïcité de l’État.

Les deux législations sont pilotées par le ministre Jolin-Barrette.

Le projet de loi 21 en est rendu à l’étape de l’étude détaillée article par article.

Il prévoit interdire à plusieurs catégories d’employés de l’État – policiers, gardiens de prison, procureurs de la Couronne, enseignants et directeurs d’école des niveaux primaire et secondaire du secteur public, notamment – de porter tout signe religieux dans l’exercice de leurs fonctions.

Les employés actuels auraient un droit acquis (« clause grand-père »).

Durant la consultation menée sur le projet de loi, certains des témoins entendus avaient fait valoir que le document était beaucoup trop vague, sans définition précise de ce qui serait interdit ou pas, donc difficile à appliquer.

Source: Québec définit ce qu’est un «signe religieux»

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The Legault government is dividing Quebec: Excluding Montreal and Millenials

2019/06/07 Leave a comment

A bit of a rant but some merit to the distinction between Montreal and the rest of Quebec as well as millennials and older generations:

For the first time in the history of Quebec, the provincial government has no senior ministers and only two elected representatives from the island of Montreal, and it shows.

Nothing makes this more evident than Bill 21, the secularism law proposed by the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government that is especially contentious for banning certain public workers from wearing religious symbols. Notable among them are teachers and school principals, police officers, judges, Crown prosecutors and prison guards.

In an attempt to pre-empt litigation, the government has invoked the notwithstanding clause that allows the Government of Quebec to override portions of the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Putting a lid on debate on the bill, the CAQ limited public hearings to six days, ending May 16, 2019. The CAQ indicated it would use closure to limit debate in the legislature, in hopes of speedy adoption by June 15th at the latest.

On April 15, 2019, Montreal City Council in rare unanimity adopted a resolution condemning Bill 21. The resolution was introduced by Lionel Perez, who wears a kippa and is the leader of the opposition Ensemble Montreal. Perez said he is as Québécois as any other resident of Quebec and was warmly applauded by council members. Shortly before the meeting, Mayor Valérie Plante and Perez held a joint press conference to present their common position.

Proposed law generating tensions

Testifying at legislative hearings on May 14, 2019, Plante made a passionate plea on grounds the law stigmatizes the most vulnerable women in society. She noted that unemployment among female immigrants in Quebec is twice that of other women. She said the bill generates tensions in the province. Plante also said the law would be difficult to apply because it is unclear what is meant by religious symbols. She argued against using the notwithstanding clause, saying the law should be solid enough to withstand challenges in the courts.

Montreal’s largest and most multicultural francophone school board in Quebec, Commission scolaire de Montréal (CSDM), produced a report implying Bill 21 cannot be implemented without creating an unmanageable administrative burden that could not be justified. The board declared that the bill doesn’t correspond with reality in that it has many employees who are not teachers and would not be subject to the legislation. Among them are specialists in learning disabilities and day care service providers. That was echoed at the legislative hearings by Alain Fortier of the Fédération des commissions scolaires du Québec, (Quebec school board federation).

Jean-Claude Hébert, a criminal lawyer and a familiar face in Quebec francophone media, indicated that jurisprudence is such that the proposed law would be the object of many court battles despite the notwithstanding clause.

Pierre Bosset, a jurist from the Université du Québec à Montréal, noted that while changes to the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms have been based on substantive research and unanimous or near unanimous support in the National Assembly, such is not the case with Bill 21.

At the hearings on May 8, Gérald Bouchard, who co-presided over the 2007 hearings on Bouchard-Taylor Commission on reasonable accommodations, concurred with the City of Montreal that CAQ had not justified the use of the notwithstanding clause. Bouchard argued that the government had offered absolutely no evidence to support assertions by Premier François Legault and Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister of inclusion, diversity and immigration, that the wearing of religious symbols by teachers constitutes religious indoctrination on impressionable children.

Settling accounts with a bygone era

In a response to Bouchard’s testimony at the Parliamentary hearings, Guy Rocher, a 95-year-old sociologist who is well-known in Quebec, insisted that permitting religious symbols in schools would lead to a return to the era of the defunct confessional school systems. In that era school boards were based on either the Catholic or Protestant religions, rather than language, as they are today.

Rocher claimed that Quebec, having experienced an era when highly visible Catholic religious symbols were worn by teachers, must not risk having a dictatorship of minority religions imposed on the majority. But Rocher did not offer any evidence to support his conclusions, saying the methodology and data on this matter do not exist.

Yet many in Quebec’s francophone community share this fear, having had the Church-ridden era embedded in their psyche the way residential schools are ingrained in the memories of Canada’s Aboriginal communities. For many older francophones, Bill 21 is a matter of settling accounts with a bygone Catholic monopoly on the francophone school system. A perverse impact of Bill 21 could be more children going to private confessional schools where the legislation does not apply, despite public subsidies.

Bouchard said the notwithstanding clause should only be used for exceptional situations to better protect rights, such as the language legislation to assure the survival of French as the language of the majority in Quebec, in the North American context. Bill 21 suppresses rights, thus portraying Quebec as disrespectful of a decent democratic society, he said. Evidence of a tarnished international portrait of Quebec is in reports by the New York Times, The Washington Post and The Guardian. Bouchard projected that the bill would cultivate tensions between francophone and non-francophone communities.

Bouchard’s analyses of tensions are reflected in an Angus-Reid survey showing that while 64 per cent of Quebecers support the proposed bill, 57 per cent don’t think the ban should be applied to someone wearing a crucifix. By contrast, only seven per cent think that a hijab should be exempt from a ban. This Islamophobia indicator was confirmed by Charles Taylor, of the above noted Bouchard-Taylor Commission and professor emeritus at McGill University. He said Bill 21 has fueled toxic comments about Muslims in social media and warned that studies show hate incidents were encouraged by election campaigns based on ethnic restrictions in France, the United States and the United Kingdom.

Geographical and generational divides

Also, differences in levels of xenophobia are inter-generational, in addition to reflecting a divide between Montreal and other regions of the province.

The Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN), one of the largest unions in Québec, expressed opposition at the legislative hearings to applying Bill 21 to teachers. When questioned as to why the CSN supported the 2013 Parti Québécois proposed secular legislation, the Charter of Values, CSN president Jacques Létourneau said it is a generational thing, the new wave of CSN people having replaced older activists. A CROP survey supports this analysis, with support for Bill 21 restrictions on teachers at 55-56 per cent of those older than 55, much higher than the 28 per cent among respondents aged 18-34.

On a May 6 segment of Le Téléjournal, the Radio-Canada equivalent to the CBC national news, the views of multicultural adolescents in a Montreal francophone school were compared with those of a francophone school in the small municipalitiy of Matane in Eastern Quebec. The Montreal students totally opposed Bill 21 application to teachers while the Matane students were divided. Those against Bill 21 in the Matane group conveyed it is an inter-generational difference of opinion, the older generation fearing a return of confessional schools while the current generation of students have no such fears.

A poll showed differences among the non-francophone minority and the francophone majority. Inclusion of teachers in the religious symbol ban is supported by 69 per cent of francophones but only 22-23 per cent of non-francophones. Only 22 per cent of francophones has a positive opinion on wearing the hijab, whereas 46 per cent of anglophones and 52 of allophones (groups other than francophones and anglophones) share a positive opinion.

A contributing factor to the linguistic contrast is that most of Quebec’s regions are nearly entirely francophone with very few immigrants, while Montreal is multicultural. It is important to make a linguistic clarification here in that francophones in multicultural Montreal are not necessarily aligned with francophones in regions, as is evident in the City of Montreal’s unanimous resolution, by francophone and non-francophone representatives alike, opposing Bill 21.

At the hearings on May 14, the Quebec English School Boards Association (QESBA) pledged to contest the legislation based on a 1990 Supreme Court of Canada decision in Mahé v. Alberta. The court ruled that minority education rights are such that, French-language schools in Alberta had full authority to recruit and assign teachers and other personnel, as they see fit. The QESBA argued that the Bill 21 notwithstanding clause would not hold up to article 23 on minority rights in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This could be a Pandora’s Box that would bring down the law.

Ironically, the law would encourage new arrivals to associate with the anglophone community where they would be more readily accepted as equals. That is, the consequences of implementing Bill 21 could undermine the goals of Quebec parties of all stripes to make Quebec as much a multicultural francophone society where French is the common language of use in a mixed mother-tongue context, as English is the common language of use in multicultural English Canada.

Immigration quotas compound divisions

Compounding the divisiveness, the CAQ wants to reduce the quota of new immigrants received per year by 20 per cent, which Mayor Plante strongly opposes. She highlighted Quebec’s shortage of employees to fill vacant positions as an impediment to economic development. The vast majority of new immigrants to Quebec, 90 per cent, take up residence in the Montreal area. But Labour Minister Jean Boulet prefers to address the matter with incentives for those aged 60 and older, to stay at their job, or return to work from retirement.

Plante is at odds with the CAQ government on transportation too. The first CAQ budget allocated 70 per cent of transport financing to road construction and 30 per cent to public transit. Plante’s position is this ratio should be inverted, similar to that in Ontario. CAQ’s priority is to widen and prolong major highways and add a third link across the St. Lawrence River between Quebec and its southern suburb Lévis.

Regarding the expansion of a planned 67 kilometre light train network, Réseau Express Montréal (REM), the CAQ administration said it will have the last word. The government prefers expansion to the suburbs where CAQ candidates won seats, instead of adhering to a long-term plan of the Montreal regional transport organization made up of elected representatives, l’Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain (ARTM).

The government position is that the ARTM should have an advisory role only. Plante wants the ARTM to be in charge, having indicated that the CAQ plans would increase overcrowding on the subway network. In her election campaign, Plante proposed a Métro Pink Line, from a station in northwest Montreal to Lachine in the southwest, to relieve saturation on a line from suburban Laval to downtown. Premier Legault dismissed this option, although CAQ may be softening its stance by committing $5 million to study solutions to congestion during peak hours on the eastern Orange Line.

Combining CAQ transport and immigration dividing lines, under Bill 17, CAQ plans to allow anyone to provide a taxi service in Quebec. This initiative would bring an abrupt end to the system of taxi permits which controls the supply of taxis to assure Quebec’s taxi drivers, particularly in Montreal, can make a decent living. As it happens, many Montreal taxi drivers are immigrants.

The Bureau de Taxi de Montréal and the City of Montreal are on the same wavelength against Bill 17, but Quebec Transport Minister François Bonnardel wants the free market to prevail. And similar to the scenario with Bill 21 on secularism, CAQ offered no evidence to substantiate its position while the government’s own preliminary report concluded Bill 17 would spell the demise of the industry.

When one puts pieces of the puzzle together, it is clear that the CAQ wants to impose its own inward-looking nationalism, dividing Quebec as never before, with multicultural Montreal and millennials to suffer the consequences.

Source: The Legault government is dividing Quebec: Excluding Montreal and Millenials

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

UN human rights observers warn Quebec about secularism bill

2019/05/24 Leave a comment

While I agree with the concerns, not sure how credible it will appear given the significant UN members who do not respect religious freedoms and have rigid dress codes that apply to women in particular:

High-ranking human rights monitors with the United Nations are concerned the Quebec government will violate fundamental freedoms if it moves ahead with legislation to limit where religious symbols can be worn.

Three UN legal experts, known as rapporteurs, signed and sent a letter written in French last week to the Canadian mission in Geneva. They asked the diplomats to share the letter with Quebec’s Legislature.

The letter says the province’s so-called secularism bill, which the Coalition Avenir Québec government is rushing to pass by next month, threatens freedoms protected by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

“We are particularly concerned … about consequences for those people susceptible to being disadvantaged or excluded from a job or public position because of the potential effects of the proposed law,” the letter reads.

Tabled in March, Bill 21 will bar public teachers, government lawyers and police officers from wearing religious symbols at work. It will also require government services to be received without religious garments covering the face.)

The bill has already attracted widespread criticism from minority groups and anti-racism advocates in Quebec, who fear it will, among other things, significantly limit work opportunities for Muslim women.

The Quebec government maintains the legislation is moderate and represents the desires of a majority in the province.

But according to the UN observers, if passed, the bill could violate rights to freedom of conscience and religion, as well as a number of equality guarantees contained in the covenant.

‘Extremely inappropriate’

The letter also notes the bill doesn’t define what a religious symbol is, adding that it would be “extremely inappropriate” for a government to decide whether a symbol is religious or not.

Critics of the bill, including several teachers unions, highlighted this point repeatedly during the six days of legislative hearings that wrapped up last week.

It is unclear, for instance, whether the Star of David is a religious or political symbol.)

The letter goes on to take issue with the requirement that government services be received with an uncovered face, a measure that singles out Muslim women who wear the niqab.

“The bill constitutes a restriction, or limitation, of the freedom to express religion or belief,” the letter reads.

At multiple points, the letter reminds the Canadian government that it is bound by various human rights instruments, including the covenant on civil and political rights, which it signed in 1976. Quebec is also bound by these agreements.

The letter is signed by the rapporteur for minority relations, Fernand de Varennes; the rapporteur for racism, E. Tendayi Achiume; and the rapporteur for religious freedom, Ahmed Shaheed.

It closes with a series of questions about how minority rights will be protected once the legislation is passed. The rapporteur also wants to know how minority groups will be consulted in the legislative process.

Of the 36 groups and individuals who were invited by the Quebec government to take part in the legislative hearings for the bill, only two represented religious communities in the province.

Rules broken, lawyer says

Pearl Eliadis, a Montreal human rights lawyer with extensive experience working with the UN, said it is noteworthy the letter was written in French.

“The United Nations is signalling … that majority will is constrained or bound by or limited by rules about how you treat minorities,” she told CBC News after consulting the letter.

“And those rules have been broken in this case. They have manifestly been broken in this case.”)

Quebec Immigration Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette, the bill’s sponsor, has received the letter and is “analyzing it in detail,” a spokesperson for the minister said in a brief written statement Tuesday.

“The government of Quebec is proud of Bill 21,” the statement said. “It is pragmatic, applicable and moderate. It reflects the consensus of the majority of Quebecers.”

But Hélène David, the provincial Liberal critic for secularism issues, says the UN letter “underscores once again the attack on fundamental rights and the lack of justification for such a measure.”

In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for Canadian Heritage and Multiculturalism Minister Pablo Rodriguez did not comment on the UN letter but said the federal government’s position is clear: “It’s not up to politicians to tell people what to wear or what not to wear. Canada is a secular and neutral state, and that is reflected in our institutions.”

“The Quebec government’s bill has raised numerous questions. We will continue to follow it very closely.”

While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has criticized the bill (as have the federal NDP and Conservatives), he hasn’t indicated whether the federal government will intervene if it is passed.

The letter itself carries no legal weight. But it could provide ammunition to groups who will seek to challenge the law before the UN’s Human Rights Committee, Eliadis said.

Such challenges can take several years before the committee offers a decision (known as a “view”). When they are delivered, though, the federal government comes under considerable pressure to comply.

But beyond its possible legal ramifications, the UN letter indicates that what is at stake with Bill 21 is Quebec’s reputation as a tolerant society, Eliadis said.

“I think the average person should care,” she added.

“I think many people in Quebec do care because they understand that what the Quebec government is setting aside are our most fundamental values as a nation.”

Source: UN human rights observers warn Quebec about secularism bill

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , , , ,

Chantal Hébert: Trudeau has a choice to make about Quebec’s secularism debate

2019/05/18 Leave a comment

Indeed:

It is not only on the pipeline front that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has a politically critical call to make in the lead-up to the upcoming federal campaign.

At some point in the not-so-distant future, he will have to decide whether to become more actively involved in Quebec’s ongoing secularism debate. That time is almost upon his government.

On Thursday, a Quebec parliamentary commission held its final day of public hearings on Bill 21. By all indications, the law that would forbid public sector workers in so-called positions of authority from wearing religious symbols will be on the books before the National Assembly adjourns for the summer next month.

Under the legislation, it will become a condition of employment for future police officers, prison guards, judges, Crown prosecutors and public schoolteachers to abstain from wearing religious symbols in their workplaces.

On the day Premier François Legault introduced the bill, Trudeau came out swinging. The prime minister has consistently argued that it is wrong and unnecessary to curtail the freedoms of religious minorities in the name of ensuring the secular character of Quebec’s public institutions.

Since then, a cone of silence has fallen on the federal capital.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer and his NDP counterpart Jagmeet Singh both say they disapprove Quebec’s state-enforced approach to secularism.

But inasmuch as they do not reflect the views of all their Quebec MPs, neither is eager to prod Trudeau into more forceful action.

According to sources in the Quebec government, the prime minister is reserving his definitive decision as to the federal way forward until Bill 21 has been passed into law.

One option could see Trudeau turn to some rarely used sections of the Constitution to block the legislation. He could also refer the bill to the Supreme Court for an opinion, or have the federal government intervene in support of the groups that are already lining up to fight it in court.

Although Legault has pre-emptively used the notwithstanding clause of the Constitution to shelter Bill 21 from a Charter challenge, there remain a number of legal avenues open to its opponents.

Meanwhile, appeals for a forceful federal intervention — from both within and outside Quebec — have been few and far between

By comparison to the vocal debate that attended the Parti Québécois attempt to legislate on the same issue only six years ago, the discussion of Bill 21 has been, if not serene, at least less acrimonious than the previous instalment.

There are reasons for this difference.

The PQ charter covered every single public service worker — from child care workers to hospital orderlies.

Bill 21 only applies to a handful of groups, and mostly to future hires. It grandfathers the right of existing employees to wear religious symbols for as long as they continue to hold their current positions.

The 2013 charter was introduced by a minority Parti Québécois government looking for a springboard to a majority.

Between the time that charter was introduced and the election that ended in defeat for the PQ half a year later, the secularism issue remained at centre stage at the expense of all other provincial initiatives.

Legault, by comparison, is in the first months of a four-year term. He has time on his side.

Even as it has been steering Bill 21 through the National Assembly, the Coalition Avenir Québec government has not allowed it to come across as a raison d’être.

And then battle fatigue has set in. Quebecers have been discussing the place of religious symbols in the public space for more than a decade.

By now, everyone has had his or her say and most have chosen a side, with little middle ground between the two camps.

On that basis, the committee hearings on Bill 21 — even as they allowed for an airing of contrary views — featured few if any surprises.

Seven of the 36 organizations initially invited to testify declined to participate.

For different reasons, Charles Taylor and Gérard Bouchard, the two leading Quebec public intellectuals whose commission report a decade ago set off the debate over the banning of religious symbols, both profoundly dislike Bill 21.

Taylor has come to feel no legislation is the better option. Bouchard argues that expanding the religious symbols ban to teachers goes much too far.

But by now, the genie will not be put back in the bottle, at least not by those who initially let it out.

If one had to single out one takeaway from the committee hearings, it is that the political ship of Bill 21 — at least in the eye of both its fans and its detractors — has already sailed.

If Trudeau has been keeping his finger on the Quebec pulse since the debate that has polarized his home province for a decade resumed, he will allow that ship’s next port of call to be a court of law and not the federal campaign trail.

Source: Chantal Hébert: Trudeau has a choice to make about Quebec’s secularism debate

Filed under Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

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