Jedwab: Religious accommodation survey promoted intolerance

http://www.pressreader.com/canada/montreal-gazette/20130528/281904475713770/TextView

MONTREAL — Is the Marois government moving toward requiring that a teacher of the Jewish faith in a Jewish private school remove his kippa?

That might sound preposterous. But a survey last March commissioned by the Quebec Ministry of Democratic Institutions and Active Citizenship (as it is called) asked Quebecers the following question: “If the Government of Quebec decides to prohibit wearing religious attire would you agree or disagree that such a measure be applied to employees of private elementary and secondary schools?”

In preparation for this fall’s tabling by the government of what it is now calling a Charter of Quebec Values (a reworking of the original plan for a Secularism Charter), the survey also asked whether a similar ban on religious signs and symbols should be extended to health institutions — and more specifically to doctors and nurses.