Forget sovereignty, a new political divide is ready to split Quebecers – Macleans.ca

2017/12/14 Leave a comment

New political fault lines? Or just another variation of identity politics?

The divisions that once defined Quebec are dissolving before the eyes of its oldest political parties. Less than a year before the next election, fear of another referendum—or desire for one—is no longer top of voters’ minds, challenging the raisons d’être of both the ruling federalist Liberals and their rivals, the separatist Parti Québécois. Freed from the old worries, though, Quebecers might soon be following the worldwide trend of right-left polarization, splitting along populist and progressive lines.

The Liberals were elected with a majority in 2014 after the PQ’s attempt to capitalize on Quebec’s decade-long identity debate with the Charter of Quebec Values. It will go down as one of the worst misplays in the province’s political history, says François Pétry, a Université Laval political scientist, because much as they like debating the value of state secularism, Quebecers are disturbed by the idea of fighting with each other.

Now, after three years of focusing on the province’s economy, and pulling it out of deficit, Premier Philippe Couillard is wading into that same territory. Bill 62, a new law banning face coverings while receiving public services, was championed by the Liberals, and is already subject to two court challenges.

 It is drawing ire from all sides. Civil liberties advocates say it unfairly targets a tiny portion of Muslim women, while the nationalist opposition parties, Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) and the PQ, say it doesn’t go far enough. Premiers across the country have denounced it and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said the federal government is studying legal ways it could join the chorus. “It’s not a good initiative, purely on the electoral front,” Pétry says, adding the law figured nowhere in the Liberals’ election platform. “If you start to create conflicts between Quebecers, [you’re] probably going to suffer the consequences.”
It’s one of the few mistakes Couillard has made, according to Pétry, who tracks politicians’ promises and says Couillard has kept more of his than any premier in recent Quebec history. That and the government’s strong fiscal performance makes the Liberals’ recent slump in the polls a paradox. The most recent by Leger, published in October, had the Liberals running second to the four-year-old, right-of-centre CAQ on the question of voting intentions, with 29 per cent support compared to 34 per cent for the CAQ.

Couillard may be paying, says Pétry, for ethics blunders made by the party under its former leader, Jean Charest, which have tainted how voters view the party. What’s more, the Liberals have been in power since 2003, save for a two-year stint by the PQ under Pauline Marois, leaving many antsy for change.

“For the first time in 40 years, a party other than the PQ and the PLQ could be in power, and that’s a real feat,” says Dan Pelletier, a 45-year-old Laval security guard who plans to vote CAQ in the next election. Pelletier says he’s for legislation like Bill 62, as long as it’s done “with respect for the [minority] communities that live with us, without becoming authoritarian.”

Still, the CAQ, which has been criticized for sowing us-versus-them political division, has vowed to enact even further-reaching religious attire legislation, which would put Quebec at greater odds with the rest of the country. It’s a prospect that worries Emilie Nicolas, co-founder of Québec Inclusif and a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at the University of Toronto, who says Quebec has seen “a progressive normalization of distrust of Muslim communities” since the early 2000s.

Discussions surrounding religious accommodations have long been placed in the context of Quebec’s separating of church and state in the 1960s. Some say that watershed moment can no longer be used to explain Quebec’s unease with those different from its French settlers. “In this day and age no society is an island,” says Arjun Tremblay, a postdoctoral fellow at the Université du Québec à Montréal who studies the politics of multiculturalism. He doubts any Quebec leader can steer clear of addressing identity for long—it “strikes an emotional chord in a lot of people,” he says, “and can be used to mobilize segments of the electorate.”

Tremblay, like others, points to the Trump administration’s “thinly veiled anti-Muslim” immigration and refugee bans. A far-right movement is gaining ground in the province, especially in Quebec City, where less than a year ago a mass shooting at a mosque left six dead and 19 seriously injured. The suspect, 27-year-old Alexandre Bissonnette, was said to have an affinity for Trump and the white nationalist groups supporting him.

The attack fuelled calls for the Quebec government to launch a formal commission looking into systemic racism in the province. But a month after it launched, Couillard changed its focus and name, ridding it of terms of reference relating to systemic racism in favour of vaguer language on discrimination and integrating immigrants. Nicolas says the move, compounded by Bill 62, shows how out of touch Quebec politicians are with the appetite among young voters to address social justice issues. “Millennials are not that young anymore,” she says, “and it turns out that they can vote if they feel like it makes a difference.”

Case in point: the Nov. 5 election of Valérie Plante, the first woman voted mayor of Montreal, who ran on a platform of progressive politics and on her independence from the political establishment. Her cheery demeanour helped. Plante’s predecessor, Denis Coderre, a former Liberal MP and cabinet minister, was seen as arrogant. Quebec’s main parties may be driven and divided by 1990s politics, Nicolas says, but that’s changing, “actually as we speak.”

Whether the Liberals find a way to renew themselves or dig deeper into old debates will determine how they do come October 2018, she predicts. Either way, the old guard remains in place and has 11 months to pick up the pieces. And if there’s one thing the experts agree on, it’s that 11 months in politics is a long time.

via Forget sovereignty, a new political divide is ready to split Quebecers – Macleans.ca

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Ban the niqab, keep the cross? | National Post

2017/12/09 Leave a comment

Good long read by Graeme Hamilton:

Until last summer, the Cyclorama of Jerusalem in Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, Que., was largely unloved. Visitors to the massive 360-degree panoramic depiction of Jerusalem at the time of Christ’s crucifixion were growing scarce, and those who paid the $12 admission often left disappointed.

“It was just bizarre and I would not recommend,” one critic wrote on Trip Advisor last year. “This painting is from another era when pilgrims flocked from all over and were believers, which is not the case these days,” another wrote in August. Compared to the soaring Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré Basilica next door, the Cyclorama was a kitschy eyesore.

But then something strange happened. News broke at the beginning of August that the Cyclorama was up for sale and that the owners were looking for a foreign buyer to pack up the crucifixion panorama and move it elsewhere. Instead of a shrug, the news was met with instant mobilization. A group of academics called on the province to buy the Cyclorama before it was lost, and the minister of culture declared it a “heritage jewel.” Attendance jumped. And two weeks after the first news reports of the sale, the government announced that the attraction built in the late 19th-century would be protected as an official heritage site. The government is now in discussions with the owners about providing financial aid for upgrades to the building.

The swift intervention to save a religiously themed tourist attraction seems odd for a province that prides itself on its secularism — or laïcité in French. Indeed, the drive to limit the place of religion in the public sphere is shaping up to be a central issue in next year’s election. The Liberal government of Philippe Couillard passed its religious neutrality act, Bill 62, in October preventing women who wear the niqab or burka from providing or receiving government services, and the opposition Parti Québécois and Coalition Avenir Québec have promised even stricter legislation if elected.

The Cyclorama of Jerusalem outside Quebec City. (sothebysrealty.ca)

But there are frequent reminders that secularism in Quebec comes with an asterisk. Typically, the religions that need to be restricted are those of minorities – Muslims, Sikhs, Jews. More often than not they are practiced by relative newcomers to Quebec. And despite the conventional wisdom that Quebecers broke free from the yoke of the Catholic Church in the Quiet Revolution, a stubborn attachment to Christian symbols remains, leading critics to label Quebec’s secularism “catho-laïcité.”

In the aftermath of the adoption of Bill 62, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois of the left-wing Québec Solidaire party, saw an opportunity to correct what he saw as a glaring contradiction. The law targeting niqab-wearing Muslims in the name of religious neutrality was adopted in a legislature where a crucifix hangs prominently behind the Speaker’s chair. (A judge last week suspended the application of the niqab ban until another section of the law comes into force.) Citing the need for a “separation of powers between religion and the state,” Nadeau-Dubois called for legislators to debate moving the crucifix out of the legislative chamber, which is known as the Salon Bleu because of its blue walls. His motion went nowhere when the Liberals and CAQ refused to grant the unanimous consent required to debate it. “It’s part of the history of the Salon Bleu,” Liberal member Serge Simard explained to Radio-Canada. “It’s part of the history of Quebec.”

The Quebec flag backdropped by a church near Sacre-Couer-de-Jesus, Que. (Mike Drew/Postmedia)

Haroun Bouazzi is head of Association of Muslims and Arabs for a Secular Quebec. In principle, he says, secularism should be a positive thing for minority religions, protecting freedom of belief while shielding the state from the influence of any one sect. But what he has witnessed in Quebec in recent years is secularism being invoked by politicians and opinion leaders to oppress rather than protect. Seeing Bill 62 adopted under a crucifix was the height of hypocrisy, Bouazzi says. “How can you be so strict about secularism that you want to put people out of a job because they have chosen to believe something, and then vote that specific (law) under a cross?” he asks. “Sadly, secularism seems to be invoked just to take away rights from religious minorities and not for the right things.”

When Bouazzi arrived in Quebec from his native Tunisia in 2000, he absorbed the standard Quebec history of a 1960s rupture with the once powerful church, which led to a commitment to secularism. He now sees that account as a myth. “It’s not true that all Quebecers got rid of religion,” he says.

Solange Lefebvre, a religious studies professor at the Université de Montréal, agrees. “It’s not true that religion has been abandoned. That infuriates me,” she says. “That is the myth of the Quiet Revolution, spread even by academics sometimes.” As the “simplistic” story goes, Quebecers were in darkness until the Quiet Revolution, then they saw the light, were emancipated from religion and fashioned a skilled bureaucracy to perform functions previously controlled by the church. Lefebvre says the actual story is more nuanced because the influence of religion is felt on multiple levels.

“They were emancipated from certain aspects: from a church that played a lot of roles, that had control over health and education services,” she says. “But religious education continued until 2000. Rites of passage were very much in demand. The Catholic Church in Quebec was very dynamic after the 60s — there were bishops who were stars.”

Census data show that while Quebec pews have emptied, a strong attachment to the church remains. The 2011 National Household Survey found that 75 per cent of Quebecers declared a Catholic religious affiliation, and just 12 per cent declared no religious affiliation – the lowest of any region, according to University of Waterloo professor Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme. It is British Columbians who are the least religious Canadians, with 44 per cent declaring no religious affiliation.

Reginald Bibby, a sociology professor at the University of Lethbridge who has long tracked religious trends in Canada, says the identification of francophone Quebecers with Catholicism remains surprisingly high. For example, nearly 90 per cent of adults aged 35 and under who were raised in Catholic homes continue to identify as Catholic. He says many francophone Quebecers have an “à la carte” approach to religion, praying privately and believing they experience God, but rejecting church authority over issues relating to sex, sexual orientation and abortion.

Bibby says the historical importance of the Catholic Church to Quebec-born Catholics is inescapable. Catholicism “is virtually ‘in their bones’ and is not only part of their culture but also part of their personal identities,” he said in email correspondence. “The result is that they feel natural affinity with Catholic symbols, public and otherwise. Any efforts to obliterate those features of their culture is also an assault on identity and can be expected to be met with opposition, sometime vigorous.”

Demonstrators take part in a protest against Quebecu2019s proposed Values Charter in Montreal on Sept. 14, 2013. (Ryan Remiorz/Canadian Press)

Such a response was seen last February when, in the name of state religious neutrality, a Quebec City hospital took down a crucifix hanging by its elevators. The action drew a threat of violence, a scolding from government ministers and a petition signed by more than 13,000 people, egged on by the former politician behind the PQ’s failed Charter of Values. When the hospital returned the crucifix, it drew praise from Health Minister Gaétan Barrette, who declared the cross “heritage.”

For Lefebvre, religious symbols like the crucifix have taken on a disproportionate importance. “But we have no choice. It’s loaded with symbolic meaning, in connection with identity. So it is very risky now for political parties, for public personalities, to take a stand against these symbols,” she says. Spencer Boudreau, a retired McGill University education professor and a practicing Catholic, has trouble understanding how the crucifix, hung in the National Assembly in 1936, has survived more than 80 years of tumultuous history. But he sees ample evidence that Quebecers’ attachment to Catholicism persists — from the atheist politician and writer Pierre Bourgault requesting a funeral in Montreal’s Notre-Dame Basilica in 2003 to the Journal de Montréal’s publication last week of a calendar of cultural events to mark Advent. “It’s like your family,” Boudreau says. “There might be things you don’t like in the past, maybe you’ve got this crazy uncle, but that doesn’t mean you reject everything.”

Quebec efforts to grapple with secularism in the past decade have included the 2007-’08 Bouchard-Taylor commission, the 2013 Charter of Values seeking to ban conspicuous religious symbols from the public service and Bill 62, which is already the subject of a constitutional challenge. And still confusion reigns. Municipalities use zoning to restrict new places of worship while largely empty Catholic churches occupy prime estate. Residents of a small town outside Quebec City last summer blocked the opening of a Muslim cemetery on the grounds that a graveyard should be open to all, even though Catholic cemeteries can be just as restrictive.

With no sovereignty referendum on the horizon, secularism is likely to be a key “Quebec identity” issue as the province moves toward an election next October. CAQ leader François Legault, who is currently leading in the polls, has promised a “values test” for immigrants and he has identified the full-body burkini swimsuit as something that runs counter to Quebec values. His party also wants to prohibit people in positions of authority, including judges, police officers and schoolteachers, from wearing religious symbols.

The legislature in Quebec City on Nov. 16, 2017. (Jacques Boissinot/Canadian Press)

Félix Mathieu, a PhD student in Political Science at the Université du Québec à Montréal who co-authored a paper on the PQ Charter of Values, says the push to preserve symbols of Quebec’s Catholic past is led by conservative thinkers who argue that secularization went too far and the baby was thrown out with the bathwater. “They have a really flexible tolerance for religious symbols,” he says. “Those of the majority are accepted because they speak to our past; those of minorities — in particular Muslims and Sikhs — are identified as elements that sow division.”

Since the Liberals defeated the PQ in 2014 and the proposed Charter of Values died, the conservatives have been in retreat. But Mathieu says the next election could reverse that.

Quebecers are not alone in resisting minority religious symbols, but polls suggest they are the most opposed. An October poll by the Angus Reid Institute after Jagmeet Singh won the NDP leadership found that 47 per cent of Quebecers would not consider voting for a turban-wearing Sikh, compared with 32 per cent in Alberta, 23 per cent in British Columbia and 24 per cent in Ontario.

A nun outside Mary Queen of the World Cathedral in Montreal. (Graham Hughes/Canadian Press)

Another Angus Reid poll later that month showed 68 per cent of Quebecers thought niqab-wearing women should be prohibited from visiting government offices, well above the national average of 49 per cent. The same poll found 55 per cent of Quebecers consider Islam to be damaging to Canada and 22 per cent said Judaism is damaging (compared with 11 per cent who said it is benefiting.) Catholicism, on the other hand, was seen as damaging to society by 10 per cent of Quebecers and benefiting by 36 per cent.

Angus Reid, founder of the institute, says the results show that Quebecers’ suspicion of minority religions cannot be explained simply by an embrace of secularism. “When you look at Quebec society, you find a level of intolerance for diversity which is significantly higher than the rest of the country,” he says. “It is seen in spades in the current Islamic debate that’s going on. It’s also seen in the fundamental question of the perception of Judaism.”

It is worth nothing that in 2011 just three percent of Quebecers identified as Muslim, one per cent as Jewish and a fraction of a per cent as Sikh. Lefebvre is optimistic that the more contact Quebecers have with adherents of minority religions, the more open they will become. “It’s familiarity that allows people to get over prejudices,” she says. And she questions whether other Canadians really view minority religions all that differently.

“Canada remains a country that is very inspired by Christianity from a certain point of view,” she says. “To me, the big difference between Quebec and the rest of Canada is that we are very vocal. We say what we are thinking loud and clear.”

via Ban the niqab, keep the cross? | National Post

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Quebec: Ministère de l’Immigration: la VG dénonce de graves lacunes de gestion

2017/11/24 Leave a comment

Some of these issues not unique to Quebec:

Le Québec a accueilli plus de 500 Syriens l’an dernier, et près de 8000 demandeurs d’asile ont frappé à la porte à la frontière depuis six mois. Au même moment, le ministère de l’Immigration présente de graves lacunes de gestion. La francisation des nouveaux arrivants et leur intégration ne sont pas soumises à des contrôles rigoureux.

Près de 8000 demandeurs d’asile ont frappé à la porte à la frontière depuis six mois.

Dur verdict de la vérificatrice générale, Guylaine Leclerc, qui dépose son rapport de l’automne aujourd’hui à l’Assemblée nationale. Ses observations sur la vente de trois immeubles de la Société immobilière du Québec, en 2007, mobiliseront l’attention des médias. La mission est délicate pour Mme Leclerc qui, comme juricomptable, avait déjà audité le même dossier, avec un mandat de la Société québécoise des infrastructures. Au surplus, l’Unité permanente anticorruption fait déjà enquête dans ce dossier qui touche des responsables du financement du Parti libéral du Québec, William Bartlett et Franco Fava. Mais l’appréciation de la vérificatrice à l’égard des pratiques du ministère de l’Immigration, de la Diversité et de l’Inclusion (MIDI) nécessitera des correctifs de la part du gouvernement.

Selon les sources de La Presse, la vérificatrice mettra en lumière l’absence de reddition de comptes dans deux volets importants des activités du Ministère, soit l’intégration et la francisation. Le MIDI accorde 16 millions pour l’intégration des nouveaux arrivants, sommes qui transitent par des organismes communautaires.

La reddition de comptes est défaillante en matière d’intégration. Le Ministère négocie avec un organisme parapluie et n’a aucune idée de ce qui se passe sur le terrain.

D’autre part, le Ministère paie la note auprès des établissements d’enseignement pour la francisation des immigrés. Or, dans ces deux volets, le Ministère n’a pas de moyen d’apprécier l’efficacité de ses efforts, il ne peut évaluer la qualité des services rendus ni l’amélioration des compétences en français. Chez Emploi Québec, on relance les prestataires au téléphone trois mois après l’intervention du Ministère pour évaluer son succès. Rien de tel pour les interventions du MIDI, explique-t-on. Il y a déjà eu des visites des fonctionnaires de l’Immigration pour vérifier les activités d’intégration, mais cette pratique est disparue depuis belle lurette.

Sans contact avec leur clientèle, les fonctionnaires du MIDI atteignent des sommets de démotivation, indique-t-on en coulisse – les demandes de mutation des fonctionnaires du MIDI sont nombreuses, situation surprenante puisqu’il s’agit de l’un des rares ministères concentrés à Montréal.

Le gouvernement Couillard, à l’approche des élections, a retrouvé plus d’argent et s’apprête à infirmer deux décisions qui avaient été prises sous Kathleen Weil, à la fin de l’époque Charest. On envisage de rouvrir les bureaux régionaux, fermés en 2013 et 2014, au grand dam des syndicats de fonctionnaires. En outre, on redéploiera des effectifs à l’étranger – on parle d’une trentaine de personnes pour revamper une représentation réduite à sa plus simple expression au cours des dernières années.

via Ministère de l’Immigration: la VG dénonce de graves lacunes de gestion | Denis Lessard | Politique québécoise

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Québec ne craint pas une nouvelle vague de ressortissants haïtiens

2017/11/23 Leave a comment

We shall see:

Le gouvernement Couillard ne craint pas une nouvelle vague de ressortissants haïtiens massés aux frontières pour revendiquer le statut de demandeur d’asile au Canada. La décision annoncée lundi par l’administration Trump de mettre fin à un programme d’assistance qui existait depuis 2010 n’est que la confirmation d’un geste déjà annoncé, a fait valoir David Heurtel, le ministre québécois de l’Immigration.

«Le gouvernement américain travaille avec le gouvernement fédéral là-dessus. On va tout faire pour limiter la surprise le plus possible», a-t-il souligné à l’entrée de la réunion du caucus des députés libéraux mardi midi. S’il y a une nouvelle vague à attendre, elle viendra des ressortissants d’Amérique centrale. «Il n’y a pas de décision de prise, mais on appréhende une décision américaine», a-t-il indiqué. Les échanges avec l’administration américaine permettent d’espérer que le Québec et le Canada seront mieux préparés que l’été dernier quand il a été débordé par les demandes des Haïtiens. Mais, «on ne s’attend pas à une nouvelle vague tout de suite», ajoute-t-il.

La décision américaine vise les Haïtiens qui avaient été acceptés aux États-Unis après le séisme de 2010. Leur statut est maintenu jusqu’à juillet 2019. Il reste du temps et le gouvernement américain est en contact avec celui d’Haïti pour qu’ils puissent retourner dans leur pays d’origine.

Le Québec travaille étroitement avec Ottawa dans ce dossier. Le ministre Heurtel se rendra à une réunion fédérale provinciale à Ottawa jeudi.

Lundi, l’administration Trump a tiré un trait sur un programme temporaire de résidence qui a fait entrer et travailler aux États unis environ 60 000 Haïtiens. C’était une mesure humanitaire au lendemain du puissant séisme de 2010.

via Québec ne craint pas une nouvelle vague de ressortissants haïtiens | Denis Lessard | Politique québécoise

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Ottawa unlikely to send Quebec’s face-covering law to top court

2017/11/17 Leave a comment

Sensible approach:

Ottawa is unlikely to pre-emptively refer Quebec’s controversial face-covering law to the Supreme Court, where little evidence could be presented on Bill 62’s actual impact on individual Muslim women, federal officials said.

Senior government sources said all options are still on the table, but that Ottawa is likelier to intervene in a coming court challenge than refer the matter to the Supreme Court for an immediate ruling on the law’s constitutionality.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau raised both of these options over the weekend as he continued to denounce the law that calls on Quebeckers to show their face when giving or receiving services in places such as libraries, university classrooms, daycares and on buses. Critics of the legislation have denounced the fact it affects Muslim women who cover their faces, with Mr. Trudeau stating governments shouldn’t tell women what to wear.

The quickest way to have a formal ruling on the constitutionality of the law would be to refer the matter directly to the Supreme Court. Still, federal officials and experts said a Supreme Court reference would feature more of a theoretical debate among lawyers on the constitutionality of Bill 62 than an actual exploration of the law’s effect on citizens.

“It’s difficult to get to the bottom of a question by looking at it in theory. It’s much better to look at the case in practical terms,” said a senior federal official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the government’s current thinking on the file.

Experts said it would be easier to gauge the impact of the law on individuals through the court challenge that is set to be heard by the Quebec Superior Court, where Muslim women will be appearing as witnesses.

“In a reference [to the Supreme Court], you don’t have testimony or evidence on the actual impact on people and any limits to their rights and freedoms,” retired Supreme Court justice Louis LeBel, who is now in private practice, said in an interview. “What you get to look at are legal and intellectual issues and the law’s overall impact on society.”

Supreme Court references have sporadically been used by the federal government over the years to gain clarity on issues such as a province’s right to unilateral secession. The Harper government also relied on the process in 2013 to determine the constitutionality of possible reforms to the Senate.

Daniel Proulx, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Sherbrooke, said sending Quebec’s face-covering law to the Supreme Court would be seen as an affront to the provincial government.

“A reference would be a frontal attack,” he said. “In my view, the federal government will intervene in the court challenge. … It would be less confrontational.”

There has been heated debate across Canada in recent weeks on the federal government’s proper response to Bill 62, which aims to promote “religious neutrality” in Quebec. The NDP and a number of Liberal MPs have said Ottawa should let the debate play out at the provincial level, while others have argued for a strong federal intervention.

Earlier this month, the National Council of Canadian Muslims and Canadian Civil Liberties Association launched a court challenge in Quebec Superior Court, seeking to suspend the application of the section dealing with uncovering one’s face until a full constitutional challenge is heard.

There will be a first hearing on the application for a stay on Friday. A federal observer will be in the room to monitor the process, but federal lawyers will not get involved in the groups’ request to suspend the application of the law, sources said.

A federal official said Ottawa has yet to decide whether to intervene in the challenge, and if it does, at which stage of the process federal lawyers would make their case.

“If you decide to intervene, when do you intervene? Right now? At the appeal stage? Or do you wait until you are at the Supreme Court?” the official said. “There is no rule, no magic recipe.”

On Saturday, Mr. Trudeau said his government is closely monitoring the application of the law adopted by the Quebec National Assembly last month.

“We’re listening to the questions being asked about it and, internally, we’re in the process of studying the different processes we could initiate or that we could join,” he said.

via Ottawa unlikely to send Quebec’s face-covering law to top court – The Globe and Mail

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ICYMI – Demandeurs d’asile: Québec a consacré 21 millions en aide de dernier recours

2017/11/14 Leave a comment

The impact on Quebec of increased numbers of asylum seekers:

Le budget consacré à l’aide gouvernementale pour les demandeurs d’asile va faire un bond important cette année par rapport aux années précédentes, selon les données recueillies par La Presse canadienne.

Déjà, Québec a dépensé près de 21 millions de dollars en huit mois pour l’aide financière de dernier recours destinée aux demandeurs d’asile. À ce montant s’ajouteront d’ici la fin de l’année les dépenses effectuées par le gouvernement en santé, en éducation et pour l’hébergement des personnes.

Entre janvier et août 2017, la province a versé 20 930 584 de dollars en aide sociale aux ménages qui comptent un demandeur d’asile. À titre comparatif, Québec avait débloqué 18,6 millions pour ces prestataires en 2016, et 18,9 millions en 2015.

Une compilation des dépenses est actuellement en cours au gouvernement. Elle sera transmise au ministère de l’Immigration prochainement dans le cadre d’un processus de reddition de comptes, a appris La Presse canadienne.

Au cours des derniers mois, selon le ministre de l’Immigration, David Heurtel, plus de 10 000 personnes, dont la vaste majorité sont d’origine haïtienne, ont franchi la frontière depuis les États-Unis pour demander asile au Québec après que le président Donald Trump eut menacé de les renvoyer dans leur pays.

Seulement qu’en août, 5530 personnes ont traversé la frontière canado-américaine, près du poste frontalier Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle.

En attente

Dans son Plan d’immigration déposé à l’Assemblée nationale à la fin octobre, le ministre soulignait que la plupart de ces personnes ne font pas partie des cibles d’admission du Québec pour 2018, puisqu’elles sont en attente d’un statut du gouvernement fédéral. Québec prévoit admettre entre 2500 et 2800 réfugiés l’an prochain.

via Demandeurs d’asile: Québec a consacré 21 millions en aide de dernier recours | Caroline Plante | National

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Quebec’s Bill 62 splits federal Liberals amid calls to ignore court challenge

2017/11/11 Leave a comment

Not surprising:

Quebec’s face-covering law is exposing divisions among federal Liberals, with staunch defenders of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms on one side and a large number of Quebec MPs who fear becoming political casualties of the contentious debate on the other.

Several Liberal MPs are calling on the government to stay out of the coming court challenge to the law, including some of the most vocal opponents of Bill 62 in caucus.

The Trudeau government has responded with a carefully calibrated response: stating that women have the right to dress as they want, while refusing to be drawn into an open confrontation with the provincial government.

The Liberal government’s decision to stay on the sidelines has created anger among opponents of the legislation who feel it is a full-on assault of Charter rights targeted at Muslim women. Passed last month, the provincial law requires people to show their face when giving or receiving services in places such as libraries, university classrooms, daycares and buses.

Federal officials said the government has yet to decide whether it will participate in the coming court challenge, which was launched this week by the National Council of Canadian Muslims and Canadian Civil Liberties Association. If Ottawa participates in the judicial showdown, federal lawyers will have to publicly state their views on the Charter issues raised by the law, which could contribute to its defeat.

Liberal Party officials said that Quebec MPs and ministers have been urging their colleagues from other parts of the country to cool their rhetoric on the issue in recent weeks.

“The Quebec caucus was very clear … in telling our colleagues, our ministers, that this is a file that belongs to the Quebec government,” said Liberal MP Rémi Massé, who is the chair of the party’s Quebec caucus. “This is [the Quebec government’s] responsibility and we are giving them the necessary leeway to do what they feel they have to do. With the court challenges that are starting, it’s up to them to react accordingly.”

Liberal MP Alexandra Mendès has been one of the most vocal critics of the law, but she said Ottawa should continue to stay out of the matter at least until it reaches the Supreme Court of Canada.

“I think right now, the government should just let it play out in Quebec and see how the courts in Quebec look at this,” said Ms. Mendès, who represents a riding on Montreal’s south shore. “The fact that I have a very strong opinion doesn’t mean that the government should necessarily intervene right away.”

Another opponent of Bill 62, Liberal MP Raj Grewal, said the law goes against his vision of the country, but added the government needs to respect “the National Assembly’s ability to pass their own laws.”

“I’m fundamentally happy that it is going to be challenged because in my humble opinion, it goes against everything that Canada stands for,” said Mr. Grewal, the MP for Brampton East.

Liberal MP Nicola Di Iorio, a lawyer who represents a Montreal riding, said Ottawa cannot take the lead when it comes time to challenging the constitutionality of provincial laws.

“The federal government’s role is not to act as law enforcement for the legislatures,” he said. “There are organized groups that are sufficiently resourced to be able to raise these issues, and the federal government should not be at the forefront of such a topic.”

While the law has exposed political fault lines across the country, it has garnered support in all regions of Canada. According to a Nanos survey conducted for The Globe and Mail, 63 per cent of Canadians support or somewhat support Bill 62.

Support for the law is highest in Quebec (69.4 per cent), the Prairies (63.5 per cent) and the Atlantic provinces (62 per cent), but Ontario (59.4 per cent) and British Columbia (58.4 per cent) are not far off behind. The poll of 1,000 Canadians was conducted between Nov. 4 and 7 and is considered accurate within 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20

Pollster Nik Nanos said the results show how “this is a no-win situation” for the Liberals. “The message to the government is that this is a political minefield,” he said.

To this point, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has walked a fine line on the law, always stopping short of vowing to fight it in court.

“As I’ve said several times, I don’t think a government should be telling a woman what to wear or not wear,” he has said. “We are looking very carefully at what tools we have and what steps we have to make sure we make this situation better for everyone.”

Liberal MPs from Quebec said they don’t want the debate to turn into a federal-provincial battle, or a symbol of Ottawa’s interference in Quebec’s affairs. One of the worst scenarios would be for Quebec to use the notwithstanding clause to keep the law on the books even if it is defeated in court, a Liberal MP from Quebec said.

The groups who filed a court challenge in Quebec Superior Court on Tuesday said the law is unconstitutional and discriminates against Muslim women.

“I live in fear,” co-plaintiff Warda Naili said at a news conference in Montreal. “I don’t know what will happen when I go out. I don’t know how people will react because of this law.”

via Quebec’s Bill 62 splits federal Liberals amid calls to ignore court challenge – The Globe and Mail

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Andrew Coyne: The federal government can’t stand by when minority rights are being trampled

2017/11/02 Leave a comment

Coyne on Bill 62 and the need for a federal challenge (I understand the government’s prudence):

By now Quebec’s Bill 62 has been fairly comprehensively discredited, in all its nastiness, its contradictions and its dishonesties. A law passed in the name of the secular state would leave intact such overtly religious symbols of the state as the cross on Quebec’s flag, or the crucifix on the wall of the National Assembly. In the name of religious neutrality, it bans the wearing of some religious symbols — those that obscure the face, like the niqab or burka some Muslim women wear — while ignoring others.

At the same time, to avoid accusations of religious discrimination, it extends to other face-coverings, e.g. sunglasses, that have nothing to do with religion — though it is explicitly called an “act to foster adherence to state religious neutrality.” Yet for all its emphasis on the state, it applies not only to providers of public services, but also recipients, which is to say not the state or its employees but ordinary citizens.

Far from defending religious freedom, then, it would radically restrict it. Far from protecting women from oppression by their own religion, as its apologists argue, it not only limits what they may wear in public, but in so doing arguably makes them more vulnerable than ever. Perhaps some women who wear the niqab or the burka do so involuntarily, but if so it is hard to see how denying them access to such life-expanding options as going to school or even taking the bus will help.

The right to go to school or to take the bus: in the history of civil rights in North America, these have a certain resonance. For all the belated attempts by the province’s Liberal government to clarify — women would, it now says, only be required to show their faces when getting on the bus, not for the duration of the trip, while those wishing to attend class could apply for special accommodation, on a case-by-base basis — the stark reality is a bill that, at best, needlessly singles out members of a religious minority for petty harassment and humiliation. Members of the same minority, you will recall, were just months ago victims of a mass murder in a Quebec City mosque.

The bill has met with its share of opposition in Quebec, though for different reasons: while civil libertarians, civic leaders and university administrations have denounced its excesses, the province’s two main opposition parties, the Coalition Avenir Quebec and Parti Québécois protest only that it does not go nearly far enough. It seems unlikely, then, that the remedy for this injustice will be found in Quebec.

The question is what other means might be found. Are we content, those of us living outside Quebec, that our fellow citizens should be treated in such a demeaning fashion, on the grounds that what happens in Quebec is none of our business? Or does living in the same country imply certain common understandings, however few, among them basic guarantees of equal rights?

To be sure, the law will quite certainly be challenged in court, under both the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and its Quebec analogue, and will in all likelihood end up before the Supreme Court of Canada. It is difficult to see how it could withstand such scrutiny; whatever watery purpose might be conjured up as a rationale, it would be a challenge to show how the law was likely to achieve it, still less that it did so in the least harmful way possible.

Should it be left at that? Wait for some member of the public to object at her mistreatment, then wait years more while the case grinds through appeal after appeal? Or does the federal government have an obligation to intervene in some way? In the early years after Confederation, that was exactly how the federal government’s role was conceived: to protect minorities from local majorities, if necessary by setting aside provincial legislation, under a power known as disallowance.

It’s been a long time since any federal government has exercised that power, of course: the Charter and the Supreme Court might seem to make it unnecessary. Yet it was not only by the rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court that minority rights were upheld in the southern states: the offices of the federal government also proved necessary.

The feds would not have standing to challenge the law directly in court, but they could join a case brought by a private citizen as intervenors. More aggressively, they could refer the law directly to the Supreme Court for an opinion on its constitutionality, as they did in the matter of a previous Quebec law claiming the right to secede unilaterally.

I understand the arguments against this: that it would inflame federal-provincial tensions, perhaps even revive separatist sentiment. But we should understand what it means when we invoke such fears as reasons for inaction, as we have in the past. We are saying that the rights of the minority can be sacrificed in the name of “social peace,” or “national unity,” or whatever other euphemism we might devise for “we haven’t got the stomach for it.”

And however much we might prefer the courts to do the heavy lifting for us, we might not have that luxury. Already the opposition is pushing the Couillard government to invoke the notwithstanding clause in the event the law is ruled unconstitutional; the government, for its part, has not ruled it out. And what would we do then?

Source: National Post

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Erreur dans le recensement linguistique: Statistique Canada s’explique

2017/11/02 Leave a comment

Not an easy time before parliamentarians:

Statistique Canada avait «détecté certains changements» dans les données sur la langue à l’étape de la validation, mais «n’a pas, à ce moment-là, capté» qu’il aurait fallu procéder à une révision avant de diffuser les données linguistiques qui ont provoqué un tollé au Québec.

«Je sais ce qui s’est produit. Mais comment on a manqué cette erreur-là, c’est cette partie que je ne sais pas encore», a lâché devant les députés du comité permanent sur les langues officielles Marc Hamel, directeur général du programme du recensement.

L’agence fédérale avait déjà fait son mea culpa en août dernier, expliquant que l’erreur avait été causée par le logiciel de compilation de données. Celui-ci a inversé les réponses dans des formulaires en français d’environ 61 000 personnes, dont environ 57 000 au Québec.

La bourde avait eu pour conséquence de surestimer la croissance de l’anglais dans la province et dans certaines de ses régions, tant pour la langue maternelle que pour la langue parlée à la maison, ce qui avait inquiété politiciens et défenseurs de la langue française.

«Ce n’est pas le système qui n’a pas détecté (l’erreur). Ce sont les gens qui ont testé le système qui n’ont pas détecté que le système ne lisait pas le questionnaire de façon conforme», a spécifié Marc Hamel aux élus.

Le député conservateur Alupa Clarke lui a demandé si des têtes allaient rouler chez Statistique Canada, déplorant que «de plus en plus, aujourd’hui, on vit dans une société où on ne met jamais au banc des accusés les responsables».

«Dans un cas comme celui-là, on ne parle pas des individus, on parle des processus. Si à chaque fois que quelqu’un faisait une erreur, il était congédié, on en congédierait peut-être plusieurs. Les erreurs sont rares», lui a répondu M. Hamel.

«On a fait les correctifs appropriés pour éviter que ce genre de situation comme ça se reproduise encore. Est-ce que je peux vous dire aujourd’hui que dans les 100 prochaines années, ça n’arrivera pas encore? Absolument pas. L’erreur est humaine», a-t-il ajouté.

Au haut fonctionnaire, qui s’est défendu de «prêcher par nonchalance», Alupe Clarke a suggéré d’envoyer une «lettre diplomate» aux 5000 employés de l’agence pour leur dire de faire gaffe à l’avenir, établissant un parallèle avec son expérience dans les Forces armées.

«Moi, j’ai fait l’armée, puis nous, ça ne niaise pas, là. Il y a une discipline (…) puis quand on fait la guerre, ça marche», a-t-il lâché.

Un peu plus tôt, son collègue néo-démocrate François Choquette s’était étonné que l’agence ait diffusé les données linguistiques alors que certaines d’entre elles, en particulier dans certaines villes à forte majorité francophone, étaient clairement suspectes.

«Attendez que je comprenne comme il faut: 164 pour cent d’augmentation de la population anglophone à Rimouski, 115 à Saguenay, 110 à Drummondville. Vous avez eu ces chiffres-là, qui n’étaient pas normaux, et vous avez quand même décidé de les sortir?», a-t-il questionné.

Le directeur adjoint de la division de la statistique sociale, Jean-Pierre Corbeil, a répondu que ce n’était «pas aussi simple» et qu’il «fallait être prudent quand on faisait des comparaisons historiques», surtout compte tenu des changements survenus sous les conservateurs en 2011.

Ces données contenues dans la livraison initiale de données du 2 août dernier étaient passées sous le radar jusqu’à ce que le président de l’Association d’études canadiennes, Jack Jedwab, lève un drapeau rouge après avoir passé les chiffres au peigne fin.

Les données revues et corrigées publiées quelques jours après ont confirmé que le français avait effectivement perdu du terrain au Québec, mais moins qu’annoncé initialement, et que l’anglais n’avait pas progressé, mais plutôt reculé, dans la province.

En présentant les nouveaux chiffres, l’agence fédérale avait fait acte de contrition et reconnu que cette erreur était d’autant plus regrettable qu’elle concernait un enjeu fort délicat au Québec.

«Nous sommes très conscients de l’aspect très sensible de cette question, de ces enjeux, et Statistique Canada va corriger le tir, simplement», affirmait Jean-Pierre Corbeil, directeur adjoint de la division de la statistique sociale et autochtone, qui était aussi au comité, mardi.

Source: Erreur dans le recensement linguistique: Statistique Canada s’explique | Mélanie Marquis | National

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Bill 62: The European experience shows us it’s a bad idea: Fahmy

2017/10/30 Leave a comment

Mihad Fahmy of NCCM on Quebec’s niqab ban.

The issue is more with respect to women wearing niqabs being able to receive or use public services rather than blocking opportunities for them to work in public services as no cases to date have arisen to my knowledge (any case unlikely to go unnoticed). This latter issue has been largely absent from public commentary (not convinced that this would pass a reasonable accommodation test given the needs of an integrated workforce):

To understand the effects of Quebec’s Bill 62, it is important to understand what is going on in Europe. Driving the wedge deeper into an already divided society, Quebec politicians are copying policies that produce predictable results: rising xenophobia, violence against minorities and discrimination.

Historically, Canada has had a more accommodating approach to individual liberty than European countries, where the case law and legal discourse is built on the premise that public spaces and, by extension, public institutions and actors must be made to be religiously “neutral” in both form and substance.

In March, 2017, the European Court of Justice extended this principle when it ruled that private employers, like their public counterparts, can ban Muslim women from wearing the hijab in the workplace, so long as the rule applied to all employees.

The case reached the European court as a result of appeals by an office receptionist in Belgium and a professional design engineer in France, both of whom were fired for refusing to remove their headscarves at work.

In its ruling, the ECJ held that rules banning “the visible wearing of any political, philosophical or religious sign” were not discriminatory so long as they applied to religious garb from all faiths. Activists, lawyers and academics alike agree that this decision is significant, as it marks the first time the neutrality argument has been successfully used to justify restrictions on religious accommodation in the private sector.

European human rights advocates now fear that private-sector employees, predominately Muslim women, but also Sikh and Jewish men who wear religious garb, will be impacted by employers’ newfound entitlement to cloak discriminatory policies in the veil of religious neutrality.

Against this backdrop, the potential ramifications of Quebec’s Bill 62 are magnified. Despite its limited provincial reach, the law’s sweeping internal scope is alarming.

Women who wear the niqab (face veil) will be shut out of public-sector jobs and won’t be able to access municipal and provincial services. This includes going to university or college, registering kids for daycare or school, getting on a bus, applying for social assistance, taking out library books, registering kids for city recreational activities, and the list goes on. And despite their qualifications, niqabi women will also be ineligible for jobs within any of these workplaces, thereby further marginalizing an already vulnerable group of women.

As was evident this week, neutralizing the public sphere is not a straightforward endeavour. In attempting to clarify how this will all work, Quebec Justice Minister Stéphanie Vallée explained that faces need to be uncovered only at the point of contact with the public servant. For example, a woman is required to show her face when signing out library books at the circulation desk but not while browsing new releases; the niqab will have to come off when boarding a bus that requires photo ID, but not once the woman sits down. Such formulaic pronouncements cannot restore the dignity of women seeking to go about living their day-to-day lives and will do little to quell principled public discontent.

Similar guidelines have not been provided with respect to other provisions of the bill that are garnering less attention but are of no less concern – those which seek to regulate not dress, but behaviour. The bill reads: “In the exercise of their functions, personnel members of public bodies must demonstrate religious neutrality.” There is no telling how this vague obligation will be interpreted and enforced.

Quebec employers would do well to heed the advice of the European Network Against Racism (ENAR), when it argues that cultivating workplace neutrality entails turning one’s attention to the actual service being provided rather than the person delivering it. Otherwise, employers risk perpetuating discrimination.

The European experience tells us that nothing good can emerge from Bill 62. The Quebec government’s ill-conceived legislation only strengthens those elements in society pushing a dangerous us-versus-them agenda at the expense of constitutional rights and social cohesion. In a pluralistic society, this does not bode well for the future.

 Source: Bill 62: The European experience shows us it’s a bad idea – The Globe and Mail

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