Charte des valeurs: des échos jusqu’en Turquie and Office of Religious Freedom

2013/12/11 Leave a comment

While the headline refers to the proposed Quebec charter, this is one of the few interviews that I have seen with the head of the Office of Religious Freedom, Andrew Bennett, on the nature of some of his discussions abroad.

Normal that once one opens these types of discussions with other countries that Canadian issues also get raised, with the proposed charter being an easy target. A bit ironic given the Canadian government’s criticism of many UN processes and committees that provide similar opportunities for criticism of Canada when we raise human rights or other issues.

Charte des valeurs: des échos jusqu’en Turquie | JOËL-DENIS BELLAVANCE | Politique canadienne.

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Quebec: Education charter chill

2013/12/07 Leave a comment

An in-depth piece on recent history of Quebec headgear debates, starting with efforts, under then Education Minister Marois to open up, and concluding with PM Marois’s current focus on the Charter, proposed reversing some of that opening.

Speaking the day after the head of the Quebec women’s federation was booed and heckled at a discussion at Université du Québec à Montréal, McAndrew said the debate is bringing out the worst in Quebec society. She added that it also might encourage teachers to dismiss any efforts to adapt to students of diverse ethnic backgrounds — in the way they teach their history course, for example — or accept different eating habits, or have patience with parents who haven’t mastered French.

“We are encouraging people to say OK we’re done with being open to different religions, but also to different cultures and languages, especially given the early ambiguity of the charter of ‘values’ before coming back to ‘laïcité’ (secularism) and the attitude that we must ‘put our pants on’ to deal with immigrants. …

“There’s so much tension and so much aggression,” McAndrew said. “It’s very worrisome. Will we feel it in the schools? I won’t say this is the end of our openness to pluralism, but we’re taking two steps backward for one step forward. And there are so many other things we should be working on in the schools for both the majority and the minority students.”

Education charter chill.

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Signes religieux: Pauline Marois sur la défensive – and Other Charter Articles

2013/12/07 Leave a comment

Further to my earlier post (Question du voile: «On a plus urgent»), on the record of PQ ministers, and previous PQ governments favouring inclusion and openness on religious symbols (when PM Marois was education minister), fun to see lively debate in the Quebec legislature pointing out the contradictions with the approach in the charter.

And like so many politicians these days, she takes what I can only call the “stupid” approach of denying the shift, rather than being honest and having a discussion on why the change. Even if I don’t agree with the Charter, any good comms person or policy advisor to come up with a few talking points that would sound more credible than:

«Jamais, jamais, dans ce document (the 1988 policy document), nous ne parlons de signes ostensibles. Jamais, parce que, dans les faits, comme je suis très cohérente, ce n’était pas dans ce document, puisque dans la charte nous empêcherons qu’il y ait le port de signes religieux ostensibles, et cela va dans le sens du respect, de chacun et de tous et de toutes», a argué la première ministre.

The more the PQ speaks of coherence, the more incoherent it appears.

And the polls do not appear to show that the political gambit of the Charter has worked; the PLQ maintains a lead of 5 points over the PQ, which appears to have reached a plateau, and support for sovereignty is only 33 percent. Hearings on the Charter start mid-January for a period of two months, and we will see what impact they have.

Signes religieux: Pauline Marois sur la défensive | Martin Ouellet | Politique québécoise.

One of the Quebec nursing unions, La Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec (FIQ), surveyed its members showing 60 percent supported the charter. In contrast, most hospitals and other health associations have come out against the charter, given the large number of employees that would be affected, and the impact on operations that would occur.

La FIQ appuie la Charte des valeurs | Hugo Pilon-Larose | Santé

But a number of the larger unions that are members of the FIQ, particularly two in Montreal, have dissociated themselves from this endorsement of the Charter:

Charte de la laïcité: d’importants syndicats se dissocient de la FIQ | Hugo Pilon-Larose | Politique québécoise

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Question du voile: «On a plus urgent»

2013/11/30 1 Comment

Funny. Jean-François Lisée, PQ Minister for Montreal who has been inflexible on the proposed charter, has been caught out as saying in his 2007 book, Nous, as not having any issues with the hijab in 2007 and showing openness and tolerance.

Rima Elkouri then notes the total absence of any serious documents or studies on the need for the Charter, apart from a poll, which gets this appropriate retort:

Voilà qui est lamentable. En matière de droits fondamentaux des minorités, un gouvernement qui se laisserait dicter ses décisions par la foule fait toujours fausse route. Ça vaut pour les droits des Québécois – ils n’ont pas à être dictés par une consultation menée à Ottawa auprès de la population canadienne. Ça vaut pour les droits des minorités sexuelles. Aurait-on idée de baser un projet de loi sur les droits fondamentaux des gais et des lesbiennes sur un sondage où tout un chacun pourrait nous dire s’il se sent très à l’aise, moyennement à l’aise ou pas du tout à l’aise face à l’homosexualité? Bien sûr que non. Ce serait parfaitement irresponsable.

Question du voile: «On a plus urgent» | Rima Elkouri.

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Un cours d’histoire trop «orienté» au goût des profs | Le Devoir

2013/11/30 Leave a comment

Debate over the consultation document for Quebec’s high school history course. Written too much for the teachers, not the students. Some of the debate seems like typical debates between experts, not terribly profound.

Un cours d’histoire trop «orienté» au goût des profs | Le Devoir.

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Tumulte autour de la laïcité – Il faut continuer de débattre | Le Devoir

2013/11/29 Leave a comment

Commentary on the panel discussion of the proposed Charter organized by Lucie Jobin, Présidente du Mouvement laïque québécois (MLQ) (see earlier post Un débat sur un «Québec laïque» dérape | Le Devoir). I tend to believe the earlier account than this justification piece, given that the proponents of laicisme at the debate are as fundamentalist in their beliefs as the people they  are concerned about. People who may have attended may wish to comment.

Tumulte autour de la laïcité – Il faut continuer de débattre | Le Devoir.

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Niqab : acceptez et taisez-vous maintenant! | Le Devoir

2013/11/28 Leave a comment

Not a bad opinion piece on the niqab, nuanced, by Karima Brikh, reminding us of the risks of tolerating anything. The niqab represents separation, not integration, on any number of levels. The fact that the daycare workers who provoked the debate take off their niqab when with the children or the mothers reinforces that point:

Je ne crois pas qu’il faille interdire le niqab partout et suis convaincue qu’il ne faut pas s’en prendre à ces femmes, puisqu’elles ne se réduisent absolument pas à leur voile. Je pense que derrière chacune de ces forteresses de tissu se cache une femme avec un vécu qui mérite d’être connu, ainsi que des rêves et une personnalité singulière. Mais c’est justement pourquoi il nous reste encore le droit, peut-être même l’obligation morale, de ne pas normaliser tous les symboles présents qui sont synonymes d’une oppression à laquelle nous ne pouvons consentir. Avons-nous encore la possibilité de remettre en question publiquement le bien-fondé de telles pratiques au Québec sans risquer l’opprobre ?

Sous la gentillesse, on semble trouver une forme de relativisme et même de renoncement. Quand nous disons qu’« au fond, ça ne nous dérange pas », je soupçonne que plusieurs d’entre nous ne connaissent rien de la vie de ces femmes et n’en côtoient aucune. Ça ne nous « dérange pas », car nous consentons à les marginaliser dans leur différence, pourvu qu’elles ne viennent pas bousculer nos habitudes. Et comme nous souhaitons ne jamais risquer d’avoir l’air intolérants, nous n’osons même plus user de notre sens critique. À ce stade, ce n’est peut-être plus de tolérance dont nous faisons preuve, mais davantage de lâcheté et d’aveuglement volontaire. Et ce, sans niqab ni burqa…

Niqab : acceptez et taisez-vous maintenant! | Le Devoir.

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Un débat sur un «Québec laïque» dérape | Le Devoir

2013/11/25 1 Comment

For those interested, a good sense of some of the polarization and tensions in debates over the Quebec charter. Not surprising given some of the personalities involved: Djemila Benhabib, fervente militante contre le fondamentalisme musulman, Paul de Bellefeuille, vice-président du Syndicat de la fonction publique et parapublique du Québec, qui s’est prononcé en faveur de la charte de la laïcité, Alexa Conradi, la présidente de la Fédération des femmes du Québec (FFQ), et d’Amir Khadir, député de Québec solidaire.

The article is on the breakdown of civilized debate, not on the substance of what was debated.

Un débat sur un «Québec laïque» dérape | Le Devoir.

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Charte ― La petite noirceur – L’actualité

2013/11/23 Leave a comment

Good piece by Chantal Hébert in l’Actualité on the Quebec Charter, making a comparison between the federal Conservative government’s disregard for evidence and the PQ:

Comme l’argumentaire conservateur en matière de criminalité, de registre des armes à feu ou de recensement, celui du gouvernement péquiste privilégie la croyance populaire, voire les préjugés, par rapport aux données empiriques.

De mes lointains rudiments de journalisme 101, j’ai surtout retenu que les faits sont aux débats de société éclairés ce que les piles sont à une lampe de poche. Et de mes cours d’histoire du Québec, que la période qu’on a baptisée la Grande Noirceur doit son nom à ce que la lumière des connaissances vivotait sous le boisseau d’un pouvoir démagogue.

Quels mots les historiens utiliseront-ils pour décrire un débat que le gouvernement choisit délibérément d’éclairer avec des bouts de chandelles ?

Charte ― La petite noirceur – L’actualité.

Chris Selley of the National Post on the niqab daycare controversy, deploring the lack of calm commentary in contrast to inflaming the debate:

The Liberals agreed. The Coalition avenir Québec agreed. Even Françoise David of Québec solidaire, the tolerant face of the sovereignty movement, insisted that an “uncovered face is a requirement for education and communication.”

Perhaps it is. I’m not sticking up for the niqab. But if any Quebec politician has conspicuously called for calm, or implored Quebecers not to go around photographing people who offend their sense of cultural propriety and soliciting mass scorn on social media, it escaped my notice.

It’s precisely the dehumanizing element of the photograph and the backlash that makes this so unsettling: It’s as if these two women aren’t citizens wearing something we’d prefer they not, but a phenomenon to be tackled. Societies can get to a lot of very dangerous places from that starting point.

So it sure would be nice to hear, at least, a few soothing voices from officialdom. Having lovingly nurtured this false crisis for so long, and for such cynical ends, the political class might want to double-check it’s still able to exert any control over it.

Quebec’s latest niqab panic

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Thomas Jefferson versus the Parti Québécois

2013/11/22 Leave a comment

Globe editorial poking fun at the PQ’s invocation of Thomas Jefferson to defend the Charter, while nevertheless making serious points:

Jefferson’s statute gave birth to the U.S. First Amendment, enacted in 1791: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Were he alive today, he would be railing against a proposal to force people to choose between working in the civil service and professing their faith. The PQ ministers’ evocation of Jefferson’s name shines a light not only on their poor grasp of history, but also on the twisted thinking behind the Quebec Charter of Values. As Jefferson put it in the Statute of Religious Freedom, imposing “punishments or burdens” on a free mind’s religious opinions or practices tends “to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness.” Exactly.

Thomas Jefferson versus the Parti Québécois – The Globe and Mail.

And Minister Drainville indicated that he does not intend to table legislation for private unsubsidized daycare that does not allow the niqab to be worn but that he would encourage them to not allow the niqab (following the publication of a photo of the daycare centre with niqab-wearing staff):

Drainville n’entend pas légiférer | Le Devoir

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