Boisvert: La « laïcité » en rappel

Good pointed commentary on the latest Quebec laïcité, contrasting the limited and arguably tendentious nature of the consultations with the Bouchard-Taylor report:

Avouez que vous vous ennuyiez d’une autre ronde médiatique de débats sur le port du foulard islamique !

C’est reparti. Car un « Comité d’étude sur le respect des principes de la Loi sur la laïcité de l’État et sur les influences religieuses », mandaté ce printemps, vient de remettre un lourd rapport au ministre Jean-François Roberge.

Intitulé Pour une laïcité encore plus cohérente : bilan et perspectives, le document fait 50 recommandations au gouvernement, qui a déjà signifié son vif intérêt.

Parmi ces idées pour rendre « encore plus cohérente » la laïcité, il y a l’idée d’interdire le port du hijab dans les centres de la petite enfance. Pourquoi ? Parce que, sur la base de quelques anecdotes, mais de beaucoup de convictions, les auteurs estiment que les signes religieux influencent indûment les enfants et insinuent le religieux dans l’institution préscolaire.

Source: La « laïcité » en rappel

Admit that you were bored of another media round of debates on the wearing of the Islamic headscarf!

Here we go again. Because a “Study Committee on Respect for the Principles of the Act on Secularism of the State and Religious Influences”, mandated this spring, has just delivered a heavy report to Minister Jean-François Roberge.

Entitled For an even more coherent secularism: assessment and prospects, the document makes 50 recommendations to the government, which has already expressed its keen interest.

Among these ideas to make secularism “even more coherent” is the idea of prohibiting the wearing of the hijab in early childhood centers. Why? Because, based on some anecdotes, but many convictions, the authors believe that religious signs unduly influence children and insinuate the religious in the preschool institution.

When we know the number of Muslim educators in Quebec CPEs, this measure is obviously not trivial.

Apart from a concern for “consistency”, what justifies such a measure? Is there a problem? Are we trying to convert children? In short, what are the data justifying another “secular” screw turn?

The Commission made consultations… via the Internet.

“A total of 323 residents and 187 staff members responded, on a voluntary and personal basis, to the online questionnaire on the Consultation Québec web page,” notes the Commission.

“However, given the size of Quebec’s population, 9.1 million people, this sample of 323 residents is not representative. The interpretation of the answers provided must therefore take this reservation into account. The same applies to the 187 members of staff, given the size of the public service, established in 2024 at 77,844 people, and that of the staff of the health, social services and education networks, adding to this number more than 375,000 employees. ”

In other words, this voluntary online consultation is worth nothing, scientifically speaking. We are taught that in a CPE, we heard religious songs. In another, there were religion classes for Muslim educators during breaks.

Before limiting a person’s right, however, it is necessary to report a serious problem. The data to this effect is not provided to us.

The authors of this independent report have often expressed themselves on these issues in the past, and here they take up their ideas in long historical developments. We are not surprised by the result of their reflections.

Guillaume Rousseau, a professor of law at the University of Sherbrooke, considers the Supreme Court’s case law on religious accommodations to be a drift. Christiane Pelchat, former president of the Women’s Status Council, did not make a secret of her opinion on the wearing of the hijab, a symbol of patriarchal domination.

The report is in fact a kind of final repudiation of the Bouchard-Taylor commission, which its authors allow themselves to cut into pieces by distorting it.

After a tour of Quebec and exhaustive consultations, the two commissioners had concluded that there is no crisis of reasonable accommodation in Quebec. Hooks. Problems here and there. As there were at Bedford School. And as there are in all pluralistic societies. But as a general rule, Quebec manages these difficulties well.

This observation displeased many. And obviously, the authors of this report are numerous. They accuse them of not questioning the state of law on accommodations “carried by a multiculturalist vision” of the right to equality. For them, accommodating is drifting, it is flouting women’s rights and denying Quebec.

Gérard Bouchard has long been interested in explaining the concept of Quebec interculturalism, which is not Canadian multiculturalism. He developed the concept in a separate book. Nothing happens, we still make him say what he didn’t say.

It is true that the report remained without follow-up. But not because he did not “able to correctly identify social consensus”. Because the Charest government did not follow it up.

It takes nerve to pronounce on “social consensus” when you have done “non-representative” online consultations.

The committee suggests, in addition to a “national day of secularism” (!), to end the tax benefits of religious communities… except for the charitable portion of their operations. It can be discussed. But the authors did not examine the practical consequences of such measures. There is no picture of the number of people this represents, the value of the exemptions, the property taxes avoided, etc.

Not sure that François Legault will want to send a tax account to the Saint-Joseph oratory. The committee recognizes that in many villages in Quebec, religious buildings are the very symbol of the place. They have a “patrimony” aspect. Do we want to exempt Catholic buildings and not others?

Not simpler, the question of public funding of “religious schools”. These private schools are as private as “secular” private schools, most of which are former Catholic institutions. The historic compromise wanted partial funding for former traditional colleges to be offered to Jewish, Armenian, etc. schools. What is a “religious” school, by the way? Subject not so easy to delimit. The government is supposed to ensure that the curriculum is respected in all schools in Quebec, if it wants to end the public funding of private colleges, it can do so. But will we want to target only supposedly religious establishments, as by chance those of minorities? It promises…

Supreme Court judges will be surprised to learn that they did not “fully” recognize gender equality until 2018 and do not yet understand the concept.

The authors don’t just have bad ideas. But to think that one day we will arrive with “clear and simple” answers to particular cases because we will have increased “coherence” is an illusion. This was already the observation of Bouchard-Taylor: we must be firm on principles, such as gender equality, but flexible on the application, because we cannot foresee everything. And environments are generally able to handle these tensions. Making the rules more rigid will not prevent slips like in Bedford: there was already a violation of the rules.

But of course, politically, it can allow a profitable diversion for a declining government.