Québec élargit l’accès à la francisation pour les immigrants

2019/07/08 Leave a comment

Noteworthy in the background of Bill 21 discrimination and the reduction in immigration levels:

Davantage d’immigrants auront accès à la francisation et ils seront mieux compensés pour se présenter en classe, a annoncé cet avant-midi le ministre de l’Immigration.

Cet élargissement du programme est permis par un investissement supplémentaire de 70 millions décidé par le gouvernement.

« Au Québec, les personnes immigrantes doivent évoluer en français, a dit le ministre Simon Jolin-Barrette en conférence de presse au centre-ville de Montréal. C’est pourquoi nous devons mettre en place le meilleur système possible pour favoriser la francisation. »

Parmi les mesures annoncées :

• L’allocation pour les étudiants en francisation à temps plein passera à 185 $ par semaine (contre 141 $ actuellement)

• Les étudiants en francisation à temps partiel recevront une allocation de 15 $ par jour (contre 0 $ actuellement)

• Les frais de garde de ces derniers seront remboursés à hauteur de 9 $ par jour (contre 7 $ actuellement).

• Les étudiants étrangers et les travailleurs temporaires auront aussi accès à la francisation.

Par ailleurs, tous les Québécois d’adoption auront accès à la francisation, peu importe depuis combien de temps ils sont installés dans la province. Jusqu’à maintenant, seuls les immigrants arrivés depuis moins de cinq ans y avaient droit.

« En donnant la possibilité à toutes les personnes immigrantes de se franciser, nous améliorons leurs chances de se trouver un emploi correspondant à leurs compétences et à répondre aux besoins du marché du travail », a dit le ministre Jolin-Barrette. « L’immigration est l’une des solutions à la pénurie de main-d’oeuvre. »

Accueil positif

Des organismes actifs dans le domaine de la francisation se sont dits satisfaits des annonces du ministre, cet avant-midi.

« C’étaient des revendications qu’on faisait depuis de nombreuses années, a fait valoir Pablo Altamirano, directeur de l’Alliance pour l’accueil et l’intégration des immigrations. L’allocation pour les étudiants à temps partiel va aider énormément pour l’assiduité des étudiants : les gens ne pouvaient pas toujours se déplacer à cause du coût des transports. »

Anait Aleksanin, du Centre d’appui aux communautés immigrantes, s’est aussi réjouie de l’annonce. « C’est une très bonne nouvelle. Il y a beaucoup de mesures qu’on attendait depuis longtemps », a-t-elle dit.

La Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec a accueilli positivement l’annonce, particulièrement en ce qui a trait aux cours de francisation à temps partiel. « Les nouveaux arrivants pourront mettre leurs compétences à contribution plus rapidement, en plus de mettre en pratique leur apprentissage du français au quotidien, avec leurs collègues de travail », a déclaré le grand patron de l’organisation, Stéphane Forget, via communiqué.

La Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec (FTQ) s’est montrée plus ambivalente : elle a salué les améliorations annoncées, mais aimerait voir davantage de francisation dans les milieux de travail.

« Il faut que les travailleurs et travailleuses puissent être libérés de leurs tâches pendant les heures de travail afin de pouvoir assister à des cours de francisation tout en étant rémunérés », a indiqué la centrale syndicale dans un communiqué. « C’est un gros pari que de penser qu’après leur journée de travail, ces travailleurs […] vont être prédisposés à se déplacer pour aller suivre une formation en français. »

Source: Québec élargit l’accès à la francisation pour les immigrants

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Ravary: Bill 21 a lucid choice by a mature society after long debate

2019/06/28 Leave a comment


Including this piece by Ravary as the title and thinking reveal a deep misunderstanding of multiculturalism and integration, the former being a means to the latter.

Quebec public services (healthcare, education and public administration are reasonably representative of visible minorities but as 2011 NHS data shows, religious minority representation is relatively small for most groups (Muslims formed 2.6 percent of the population in 2011)

And of course, while it may be a minority of Quebec public servants affected, it will further accentuate the overall under-representation of religious minorities. “sanctions-light” will not be light to those affected:

Flags and floats have been put away until next year’s Fête nationale. I was never a great partaker — I dislike the combination of big crowds and flag waving — but I have lovely memories of my childhood’s innocent Saint-Jean-Baptiste celebrations in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve.

The June French-Canadian liturgical calendar included two big street parties, each with its own procession: the Saint-Jean parade along Sherbrooke Street with its closing tableau of a curly-haired blond boy, dressed up as Jewish preacher John the Baptist, with a lamb at his side. (Children loved it. Beats the more recent puppets.)

The other street party, la Fête-Dieu, held on June 20, also known as the Corpus Christi procession, no longer draws crowds to the streets of Quebec, but 50 years ago, as man was about to conquer the moon, la Fête-Dieu was a still a big deal in Quebec — though it wouldn’t be for much longer.

I am writing this ahead of the Fête nationale, but I suspect the passage of Bill 21 will add pep to the steps of many revellers. I know the new law is not popular with many Montreal Gazette readers, but let’s never forget that many secular Muslims support it.

This having been said, now is not the time for supporters of Bill 21 to gloat. It is also wrong to call for civil disobedience, especially if you are a public official.

The rule of law is the bedrock of democracy.

Many feel that the “moderate way” chosen by the government to signify the separation of church and state in Quebec is a grave attack on individual liberties, but the majority of Quebecers do not share that sentiment, and they cannot be ignored. Unless we want populist leaders à la Orban or Salvini to come along.

Bill 21 is a lucid choice made by a mature society after a 10-year-plus debate, a balancing act between individual rights and the legitimate aspirations of a distinct people to choose how they want to live in their historical homeland.

Francophone Quebecers’ only home on Earth is a piece of land, most of it barren, in the northeast corner of North America. Full-blown multiculturalism, which encourages newcomers to keep their own cultures and does too little to promote integration, would mean the end of an extraordinary experiment that started in 1608, when Samuel de Champlain founded a settlement that would become Quebec City.

In these times of renewed enthusiasm for fundamentalist religious beliefs that go against the grain of Canadian and Québécois values, including those about women and LGBTQ folks held by fundamentalist Christians, Jews and Muslims, Bill 21 aims to formally limit the influence of religion to the private sphere. This is a society that has been working hard to keep all organized religions at bay for more than 50 years.

Even if it meant getting rid of the beloved petit Saint-Jean-Baptiste and his pet lamb.

Bill 21 is the third stage of The Quiet Revolution. In the 1960s, Quebec Catholic priests and nuns stopped wearing traditional religious garb meant to signify penitence and humility, to continue working as teachers or nurses in modernized public education and hospital systems. The second phase was the laicization of Quebec’s school system in 1998 when religious school boards were replaced by linguistic ones. Bill 21 is the third phase of this transformation.

Can it be called unfair? Of course. Only a fool would deny the reality on the ground: some people feel discriminated against. Hence the “no gloating” advice. But let’s also beware of those who will use Bill 21 to further hidden politico-religious agendas.

Many like to cite French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville, who described in his 1835 opus Democracy in America the main danger posed by democracy, something he called the “tyranny of the majority.”

But to describe as tyrannical a sanctions-light piece of legislation that restricts the wearing of religious symbols at work by a minority of state representatives seems to me to be at best disingenuous.

Source: Ravary: Bill 21 a lucid choice by a mature society after long debate

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Quebec religious symbols law ‘dangerous and un-Canadian,’ says Manitoba premier

2019/06/28 Leave a comment

Can’t get much stronger than that:

Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister says he will be seeking a joint response to Quebec’s new religious symbols law when western and northern premiers meet on Thursday in Edmonton.

“That is, certainly to my mind, dangerous and un-Canadian and deserves to be opposed,” Pallister said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

“We are not a two-tier-rights country.

“We’re not a country that celebrates sameness. We celebrate diversity, and we need to make sure that we don’t restrict people’s freedoms, whether it’s speech or movement or religion.”

The Quebec law prohibits teachers, police officers and other public servants in positions of authority from wearing religious symbols, and critics say it unfairly targets Muslims, Sikhs and other religious minorities.

Last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it’s not government’s responsibility, or in its interest, to legislate on what people should be wearing. But he did not specify what action his government would take to protect minority rights.

Pallister said response from federal politicians has probably been muted in part because of the looming national election in October.

“They don’t wish to irritate the province of Quebec, but Quebec is one province in a beautiful country,” he said.

“Canada is a beacon around the world for supporting freedoms, not suppressing them.”

Source: Quebec religious symbols law ‘dangerous and un-Canadian,’ says Manitoba premier

And Jack Jedwab’s called for stronger messaging from federal leaders:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the leaders of the federal opposition parties were cautious in their reaction to Quebec’s legislative ban on religious symbols, Bill 21. That’s probably because of the popularity of the ban amongst Quebec francophone voters who may have an important impact on each party’s political fortunes.

With the exception of the Bloc Québécois, it seems that the preferred approach of the federal party leaders is to reaffirm their respective disagreement with the ban while staying silent about taking action. This stand will not work as we near the start of the federal election campaign in September.

Some party leaders will be tempted to voice their disapproval of the ban while allowing their candidates in Quebec to insist that the provincial government was perfectly within its rights to adopt the legislation. But many Canadians will see this ambiguous line of reasoning for what it is: a cynical excuse for inaction. Voters in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada deserve to know what, if anything, the political parties plan to do about Bill 21. Whatever choice(s) the parties make will certainly have political ramifications both within and outside Quebec.

What should the parties do? It is safe to assume that none of the party leaders will consider recourse to the federal power to disallow the legislation. They would be wise to hold back, as disallowance would delegitimize the democratically elected government of Quebec. The much better alternative is to support court challenge(s) to the law. All federalist parties should take this position regardless of the electoral cost for them in Quebec. Thus far, the Canadian Council of Muslims and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association have launched a judicial challenge to Bill 21. They deserve support from the federal government.

Despite considerable support for the bill amongst Quebec francophones, a May Leger Marketing survey revealed that a majority of Quebecers weren’t automatically opposed to the idea of submitting it to the courts for an opinion (specifically, 46 per cent of Quebecers didn’t approve of a court reference; 41 per cent were in favour of securing an opinion; and the rest didn’t know or refused to respond). The same survey revealed that important majorities in Quebec and Canada greatly valued the Charter of Rights – which is the basis on which the bill would be challenged.

Quebec Immigration Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette will likely describe federal intervention as an unacceptable encroachment on an exclusively Quebec matter. But Bill 21 states that the ban on religious symbols applies “despite certain provisions of the (Canadian) Charter of human rights and freedoms and the Constitution Act, 1982.” This provision justifies intervention on the part of the federal government so as to ensure that constitutional commitments enshrined in the Charter are upheld, regardless of the province in which a citizen resides. To act otherwise would not only weaken freedom of religion but also commitments to other key freedoms in the Charter. If a provincial government outside of Quebec decided to suspend certain rights and freedoms for minority francophones, there would rightly be multiple calls on the federal government to act. The same principle should apply to Bill 21.

Quebecers have been given the impression that the use of the “notwithstanding clause” in Bill 21 means that the issue of fundamental rights is no longer in question. But the clause seeks to dismiss recourse to rights protection, and in no way dismisses the idea that rights are being violated. Minister Jolin-Barrette and Premier François Legault have insisted that the bill does not violate the Quebec or Canadian Charter of Rights. There is good reason to be skeptical. But if they truly believe that, they should have nothing to fear from a court challenge.

Who knows? Maybe the court decision will vindicate them. Either way, the government of Canada and the opposition should give Quebecers and other Canadians an opportunity to find out and make clear their intention to support a court challenge sooner rather than later.

Source: Jedwab: Canadians deserve to know what federal parties will do about Quebec’s Bill 21

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After Quebec’s secularism law, Muslim women gather to figure out, ‘What can we do now?’

2019/06/26 Leave a comment

Interesting vignettes:

The women hold one hand to their chest and the other to their stomach as they’re told to breathe in and then out.

The workshop started with a guided meditation and a short discussion about how to cope emotionally with Quebec’s new secularism law, which bars them from wearing religious symbols at certain jobs. But it’s clear the 20 or so Muslim women here aren’t ready to relax.

A short time later, they’re at the edge of their seats shooting questions at lawyer William Korbatly about the law’s ins and outs.

What they really want to know is how to fight it.

“What is this law? What can we do now?” one woman lets out, shaking her head. “It’s ridiculous. I want us to end this law. It’s unjust.”

Considering social media campaigns — or self-defence

The women begin pitching ideas. Can they go around the law? Are there different ways they can hide their hair, perhaps?

“You put a wig on top of your hijab,” says Mejda Mouaffak, an elementary school teacher, with a laugh.

A social media campaign uniting different faiths (Judaism, Islam, Sikhism, Christianity) in solidarity against the law is pitched. Another campaign, to make fun of the law, is suggested. Self-defence workshops are another idea, ones that also touch on verbal attacks and how to react.

The workshop in an empty community centre in a northwestern Montreal neighbourhood ends up lasting nearly two hours longer than planned. The discussions are as nuanced and diverse as its participants, who hail from different backgrounds and ages and practice a range of professions.

Most of them wear a hijab.

‘We can be Muslim and feminist’

The gathering was organized for Muslim women to regroup after Quebec’s new CAQ government pushed through two key pieces of legislation, both affecting people of colour in the province, during a marathon weekend in the National Assembly the week before.

The new secularism law forbids certain groups of public servants — including teachers, police officers and government lawyers — from wearing religious symbols on the job. Critics say it impedes people’s right to practice their religion, and disproportionately targets Muslim women who wear a headscarf.

Participant Sara Hassanien wants to connect with Quebec feminists, a group that has been vocal in favour of the law, particularly in French media.

“I’m trying to tell them that unlike what you’ve always thought … we can be Muslim and feminist,” she said, noting there are about as many reasons women wear the hijab as there are women who do.

‘I totally understand what Quebec has been through’

Hassanien says, on the other hand, it’s important for her community to know the history of Quebec’s difficult relationship with the Catholic church.

“I totally empathize with you,” Hassanien told CBC later, as if addressing Quebec feminists.

“I totally understand what Quebec has been through. I understand that your mothers, your grandmothers, fought so hard for women’s liberation and I support that. I am here to comfort them, to reassure them that we are not ever going to call for going back.”

At the same time, Hassanien says she is tired of feeling like she has to speak for her entire community in spaces where it is under-represented.

‘The consquences can only be absurd’

Korbatly agreed with the women pointing out contradictions they see in the law: that the definition of “religious symbol” is vague and applies more to the Christian cross than the hijab, which they say is more of a practice.

He explained how disrespecting the law could lead to people being fired.

“When you have an absurd law, the consequences can only be absurd,” Korbatly told the group.

He hopes the legal challenge to the law launched last week, which argues Quebec can’t bypass Canadians’ right to religious freedom, will be successful.

Law effectively prevents a teacher’s promotion

Afterward, he told CBC News though the law does not affect him directly — he is Muslim, but does not wear religious garb — he felt it was his duty “to be there, present and give moral and legal support to the community.”

During the discussion he called himself a feminist “through and through.”

Amina B., who wished to withhold her last name because of fear it would affect her employment, is a substitute teacher.

The law effectively prevents her from being promoted to any other public education role in the province. It includes a grandfather clause that protects people hired before March 28, but as soon as they are promoted or access another position covered by the law, it applies.

‘This is shaking me to the core’

Amina had signed up for a two-year online teacher program at the University of Ottawa, but she’s not sure she’ll complete it now.

“If that means I will always have to be a substitute teacher, and that I can’t evolve, what’s the point?”

She came to the workshop because “when you get involved, maybe, you can make things change.”

Hassanien is an ESL teacher for a private company. She says it was important for her to join, too, because “I started to feel helpless about what’s happening on a daily basis to me as a veiled woman in Montreal.”

She says her trips on public transit now fill her with anxiety and fear that she will be harassed. Even strange looks are a cause of stress.

“This is shaking me to the core,” she said.

Spike in public harassment

The event was organized by Hanadi Saad, who founded Justice Femme after the first attempt by a Quebec government to legislate religious garb, when it was led by the Parti Québécois in 2013, to offer legal and psychological support to Muslim women who face harassment.

Since Bill 21, the current law, was introduced in May, her group has seen a spike in the public harassment of Muslim women in Quebec.

“It’s like we opened the door: ‘Now, you can go ahead and discriminate,'” Saad said, calling the law “violent.”‘I feel like they are taking a part of me’

Saad immigrated to Canada with her family 30 years ago during the Lebanese Civil War and has lived in Quebec for 18 years. She says Quebec has been her true home ever since.

But she’ll be visiting Lebanon for the second time in those years this summer and wonders if it’ll feel more like home this time.

“I feel like they are taking a part of me, of my existence,” said Saad, who no longer wears a headscarf. She said it was a decision that took her months.

“To ask these women to take their hijab off, it’s like asking you to take your T-shirt off.”

Saad sees a silver lining, though.

“Now what has to be done, it’s to stand up for our rights as women. We are appropriating our cause; it’s women’s cause. So I will thank this government for what he’s creating, because he’s forcing us to come together.”

Source: After Quebec’s secularism law, Muslim women gather to figure out, ‘What can we do now?’

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Singh in a bind as NDP must win over Quebecers that support new secularism law

2019/06/25 Leave a comment

Good column by Patriquin on Singh’s Quebec dilemna:

Were he a teacher in Quebec and not a politician based in Ottawa, Jagmeet Singh would find it difficult to work.

Thanks to Quebec’s “laicity bill,” which became law Sunday, Singh wouldn’t today be able to secure a teaching position with a turban on his head. Had he held this position prior to March 28, the law’s retroactive date of enforcement, he’d be stuck in grandfather-clause purgatory, allowed to wear his turban and kirpan—but lose this right should he be promoted, demoted or transferred to another position. It’s a cruel and confounding position for Singh. As leader of the NDP, he has significant support in Canada’s second-largest province. Yet he couldn’t so much as teach a Grade 4 class in the province, much less join a Quebec police force, guard prisoners in a Quebec jail or be a judge in a Quebec court. He couldn’t even serve as a liquor inspector.

Oddly, the NDP has been remarkably quiet about the demonstrable impingement of its leader’s fundamental rights. The party issued no press release following the judgment. NDP MPs, Quebec and otherwise, were largely and conspicuously silent on the issue. In 2013, the Parti Québécois of the day introduced its “Quebec values charter,” which would have had a similar negative effect on Singh’s ability to work in Quebec. At the time, the NDP called it “state-mandated discrimination,” with then-NDP leader Tom Mulcair vowing to “fight it all the way.” Yet the current incarnation of the NDP met the newly-minted Quebec law with a volley of crickets. There were no promises from the NDP to mount a challenge of the law should it form a government in October. Dissent was limited to Singh himself, who tweeted and otherwise expressed his “sadness” at its passing.

Unfortunately, there is method to the NDP’s silence. Quebec’s new secularism law is an onerous and cynical piece of legislation that tramples on rights secured by both the Canadian and Quebec charter. As a particularly mean-spirited solution for a non-existent problem—that of creeping religiosity in Quebec society—it serves no other purpose than to prop up the nationalist bona fides of Premier François Legault and his Coalition Avenir Québec government. And yet as grievous as it is, the law is remarkably popular amongst the very people Singh and the NDP must court if they wish to have any chance in the looming October election. In short, denouncing Quebec’s law is tantamount to political suicide, for all parties. That silence you hear from the NDP is the noise of political expediency.

How popular is the new law? Nearly three quarters of Quebecers polled believe judges, prosecutors, police and prison guards shouldn’t be allowed to wear religious symbols, according to a Léger Marketing poll for the CAQ government. (Other polls, notably Angus Reid and CROP, reflect similar levels of support.) In fact, according to the Léger poll, nearly 70 per cent of respondents believed the restriction should go even further to include preschool and kindergarten teachers as well. Here, we must acknowledge a bit of political brilliance, however cynical, on the part of Legault. By not including preschool and kindergarten teachers in the religious symbols ban, the premier has sold the law as a demonstration of restraint and compromise. The law “could have gone further,” he said the other day. “There are people who are a little racist and don’t want to see religious symbols anywhere in public.”

The NDP’s relative silence extends to the Conservative Party. While Conservative leader Andrew Scheer gave Quebec’s secularism bill a light spanking last March, the party made no similar overture upon the bill’s passing into law this week. If anything, the Conservative situation in Quebec is even more fraught than that of the NDP: Scheer is courting voters in the province’s exurbs and hinterland, where support for the law is highest (and, not coincidentally, the presence of actual religious minorities is at its lowest.) Scheer is further hampered by another political reality: laws such as the one passed in Quebec have remarkable support in the rest of the country. It is of no coincidence that former prime minister Stephen Harper, with his campaign-era “barbaric cultural practices” snitch line, wasn’t below a bit of Legault-style demagoguery.

And this silence has infected the Liberals as well, albeit to a lesser extent. In 2013, the mere hint of the PQ’s Quebec values charter provoked Justin Trudeau into writing 600 angry words in the Globe and Mail. This time around, it took being asked by a reporter for Justin Trudeau to denounce Quebec’s law.

In keeping relatively quiet on the political excesses of the current Quebec government, perhaps the NDP and others are simply learning from history. At a French-language debate during the 2015 election campaign, NDP leader Mulcair offered by far the loudest critique of Harper’s anti-niqab stance—and the PQ’s values charter by extension. “No one here is pro-niqab. We realize that we live in a society where we must have confidence in the authority of the tribunals, even if the practice is uncomfortable to us,” Mulcair said.

Mulcair’s was a righteous, nuanced and altogether sensible critique of the very type of identity-based politics practised by Harper then and Legault now. It also doomed the NDP, with Mulcair’s support diving at almost the exact moment he uttered the words. No wonder the current crop of federal leaders are so scared to say anything.

Source: Singh in a bind as NDP must win over Quebecers that support new secularism law

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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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Maxime Bernier présente ses candidats québécois

2019/06/17 Leave a comment

Four women out of 31 (13 percent). Haven’t had time to look at immigrant and visible minority numbers:

Maxime Bernier a présenté vendredi à Montréal 31 candidats qui brigueront les suffrages pour le Parti populaire du Canada au Québec. Parmi eux, aucune figure connue, peu d’expérience politique et seulement quatre femmes.

«Le plus important pour nous ce n’est pas le sexe (des candidats): c’est que les gens partagent la plateforme et les valeurs du parti», s’est défendu le chef du Parti populaire du Canada (PPC), Maxime Bernier. Il présentait les candidats des circonscriptions de Montréal, Montérégie Ouest, Laval, Laurentides, et de l’Outaouais.

Les candidats sont issus des milieux des affaires ou des relations publiques, certains sont étudiants, ostéopathes, pasteurs, militaires, promoteurs immobiliers, avocats, etc. Ce panel hétéroclite a tout de même un point en commun: une vision d’un État aux pouvoirs restreints pour davantage de libertés individuelles.

Fort de ces candidatures, Maxime Bernier espère toujours participer au débat des chefs. Pour être éligible, puisque le PPC a été créé il y a neuf mois, le chef doit présenter des candidats dans au moins 304 des 388 circonscriptions. Ces candidats doivent aussi avoir «une véritable possibilité» d’être élus. Pour l’instant, il en a présenté 260. Selon le chef du PPC, il devrait de toute façon avoir sa place au débat, car il participe déjà chaque mardi aux côtés de représentants des autres partis politiques à l’émission Power Play, animée par Don Martin à CTV News.

Les «bons» changements climatiques

Maxime Bernier a réitéré l’opposition de son parti aux objectifs de l’accord Paris, puisqu’il croit «que c’est normal que le climat change» et «qu’il y a plus de 12 000 ans le Canada était sous la glace et que c’est grâce aux changements climatiques si le Canada est ce qu’il est aujourd’hui», ce qui a bien fait rire ses candidats. Il a ensuite affirmé vouloir dépolluer les lacs et les rivières pour qu’il soit possible d’y pêcher et de s’y baigner.

Maxime Bernier avait assuré que ses candidats pourraient prendre la position qu’ils désiraient dans le débat sur l’avortement. La candidate dans la circonscription de Shefford, Marriam Sabbagh, est pro-vie, tout comme celle dans Saint-Léonard-Saint-Michel, Tina Di Serio. «Je suis pro-vie, mais je respecte le choix des autres», a expliqué Mme Di Serio.

Pour le chef populiste, la catastrophe de Lac-Mégantic prouve par ailleurs qu’un oléoduc transnational est la solution la plus sécuritaire pour le transport du pétrole au pays. Si son parti remporte les élections, même en l’absence d’acceptabilité sociale, il imposerait ce pipeline.

Maxime Bernier a rappelé d’autres grandes lignes de son programme: fin de la gestion de l’offre en agriculture, réduction des seuils d’immigration, réforme du financement de Radio-Canada et de CBC, réduction de l’aide financière internationale et, entre autres, abolition du Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des télécommunications canadiennes (CRTC).

Source: Maxime Bernier présente ses candidats québécois

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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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Hier les italophones, aujourd’hui les musulmans

2019/06/13 Leave a comment

On the politics of anti-immigration sentiment and a reminder that earlier waves also were affected:

Avec la marginalisation du Parti québécois et le remplacement du Parti libéral par la CAQ, nous assistons à un cycle politique caractérisé par l’alternance sans réelle alternative, en conformité avec l’ordre néolibéral. Ce gouvernement nationaliste de droite élu par 25 % de l’électorat, si l’on tient compte des abstentions, a recours à une recette éprouvée pour, à la fois, consolider et légitimer son pouvoir : détermination d’un problème réel ou imaginaire (la laïcité), élaboration d’une rhétorique alarmiste (retour du religieux) et désignation des responsables du problème (les musulmans). Les stratèges de François Legault n’ont rien inventé. Il y a une cinquantaine d’années, le mouvement nationaliste de l’époque s’est servi de la même recette mais avec d’autres ingrédients : la langue française, l’anglicisation et les italophones.

Il a fallu près d’une décennie pour que le psychodrame linguistique, se déroulant aux dépens des Québécois d’origine italienne, se dénoue enfin par l’adoption de la loi 101. Les relations entre ces derniers et les francophones se détériorèrent à tel point, et pendant si longtemps, que la méfiance et le ressentiment eurent raison de Giuseppe Sciortino, candidat péquiste dans Mercier, lors de l’élection précédant le dernier référendum. Il fut obligé, in extremis, de céder la place à un francophone d’ascendance canadienne-française à la suite de manoeuvres douteuses. Récemment, Michel David, chroniqueur au Devoir, écrivait que la présence de Sciortino, avocat éminemment ministrable au sein du futur gouvernement Parizeau, aurait probablement apporté au camp souverainiste les 45 000 voix qui lui manquaient pour remporter le référendum de 1995. Le nationalisme mesquin et revanchard est parfois suicidaire.

Aujourd’hui, ce sont les musulmans, en particulier les musulmanes, qui ont le mauvais rôle. Pourtant, il y a une vingtaine d’années, près des deux tiers des Québécois étaient contre l’interdiction du voile islamique. Selon un sondage récent, ils sont maintenant au moins autant à vouloir l’interdire. Pourquoi ce revirement ? Nul besoin d’être un exégète de Gramsci pour savoir que l’adhésion à un projet politique ou de société (ou perçu comme tel) est précédée par une longue période de propagation des idées et d’imprégnation des esprits auxquelles contribuent, consciemment ou non, de nombreux acteurs sociaux. En France (source d’inspiration pour certains Québécois) comme ici, politiques, chroniqueurs et essayistes se sont employés avec autant de ferveur que de constance à élaborer une rhétorique hostile à l’immigration et à la diversité culturelle — assimilée au multiculturalisme trudeauiste pour mieux la dénoncer — tout en souscrivant au mythe du choc des civilisations : une idéologie servant, entre autres, à dénigrer l’islam. Partout en Occident, l’islam est devenu l’ennemi à abattre. Le Québec ne fait pas exception. Il faut être d’une grande naïveté pour croire que le projet de loi 21 existerait sans la présence des musulmans.

Nationalistes conservateurs

Ce discours n’aurait pas eu autant de succès sans la contribution, depuis le tournant du millénaire, de nationalistes conservateurs, défenseurs d’une nation ethnoculturelle qui, craignant sans raison valable « la tyrannie des minorités » et « le reniement de soi », poursuivent, tout en le niant, la chimère d’un Québec assimilationniste et homogène. Il y a de cela aussi dans l’interdiction du port du foulard musulman. Ces hérauts d’un temps révolu, aux accents groulciens, doivent nous expliquer pourquoi l’assimilation que les francophones d’Amérique ont combattue avec autant de détermination serait souhaitable pour les immigrants.

Mais pourquoi la laïcité est-elle devenue la priorité de ce gouvernement, auquel on a dû rappeler l’importance de l’environnement, alors que deux millions et demi de Québécois ont un revenu inférieur à 25 000 $, que le système scolaire est le plus inégalitaire au Canada en raison de sa double ségrégation sociale et ethnique, et que les Québécois francophones sont sous-scolarisés par rapport aux immigrants (21 % contre 39 % de diplômés universitaires) et aux anglophones ? L’hégémonie néolibérale est telle, en Occident, que les partis de gouvernement, et non pas les formations politiques marginales, ne se distinguent presque plus sur les questions fondamentales et cherchent à tout prix à se différencier sur des questions secondaires ou fallacieuses, comme la laïcité ici ou l’islamisation et d’autres mythes ailleurs. C’est l’alternance sans véritable alternative. Ceux qui doutent de l’emprise, sur ce gouvernement, de cette rationalité mortifère, fondée principalement sur la concurrence généralisée, n’ont qu’à penser à la mise en concurrence de l’industrie du taxi avec Uber, aux immigrants réguliers avec les travailleurs temporaires et aux maternelles quatre ans avec les CPE.

Mais, au-delà de ce qui précède, il y a une réponse très simple à cette question : la laïcité est devenue une priorité parce que s’en prendre aux immigrants est politiquement rentable, comme partout en Occident. Le psychodrame d’il y a cinquante ans nous a peut-être coûté la souveraineté. Quel prix paierons-nous pour celui qui se déroule maintenant aux dépens des musulmans ?

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