CAQ bill boosts power to verify values, French proficiency of immigrants

The just-tabled Bill 9 would also help eliminate the backlog of applicants — and give government the power to move them to the regions.

https://montrealgazette.com/news/quebec/caq-bill-boosts-power-to-verify-values-french-proficiency-of-immigrants

QUEBEC — The immigration minister has tabled sweeping legislation designed to eventually increase his powers to verify the knowledge of French, Quebec and democratic values of new arrivals as was promised in the provincial election campaign.

And the Coalition Avenir Québec government is also seeking the power to trash a large chunk of the backlog of 18,000 immigrant applications it found sitting in government file cabinets when it took over from the Liberals rather than try to process them.

Quebec plans to refund the $1,000 application fee for anyone who applied to enter Quebec as an economic immigration before Aug. 2, 2018 under the Regular Skilled Worker Progra

As fight over Quebec's religious symbols law shifts to courts, legal experts debate best way to challenge it

Bill 21 invokes notwithstanding clause, complicating how opponents can challenge law's constitutionality

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/as-fight-over-quebec-s-religious-symbols-law-shifts-to-courts-legal-experts-debate-best-way-to-challenge-it-1.5204112?fbclid=IwAR1zgVpqvQAkmvckxCvBM3SrwJ2uvhjxYdnjqNli8gEm2UFIoGOu71cbzu4

Quebec's religious symbols law was not yet 12 hours old when it became the subject of a Superior Court motion seeking to have it struck down.

On Tuesday, the motion, filed last month by the National Council of Canadian Muslims and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, will get its first hearing before a judge.

Given widespread concerns about the law's potentially harmful effects on minorities, legal experts predict other court challenges are likely to follow ...
 

Bill 21 is 'impermissibly vague,' Quebec Superior Court hears

The new secularism law sets Quebec "on a different path than the rest of Canada" when it comes to religious rights, lawyer Catherine McKenzie argued Tuesday.  

 
https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/quebec-superior-court-begins-hearing-arguments-on-bill-21?fbclid=IwAR0h2rXagW2Bi-VITzl2UVXbxvh5564KTbmFP29fZgFE2li275dXYRDxLbg

The provincial government’s new secularism law is unconstitutional, overreaching and already causing “very grave harm” to minorities in Quebec, a lawyer argued before the Quebec Superior Court on Tuesday.

Arguing on behalf of two civil rights groups, lawyer Catherine McKenzie said the law is trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist, causing harmful confusion and depriving people of employment or achieving their life goals.

The two groups, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and National Council of Canadian Muslims, are seeking to have the court stay certain sections of the law to allow for further debates on its constitutionality.

Crucifix removed from Salon Bleu of National Assembly

The presence of the crucifix in the Salon Bleu was raised repeatedly during the debate over Quebec's secularism legislation, Bill 21.
https://montrealgazette.com/news/quebec/crucifix-removed-from-salon-bleu-of-national-assembly-after-over-80-years?fbclid=IwAR0lFk49M6iEB3ZHHql5uBvgpxFiByVbehn9y3r4oGfZHeMEMTjoLhcHKgs

Television images broadcast Tuesday morning showed the crucifix in the Salon Bleu of the Quebec National Assembly being removed from above the Speaker’s chair.

The crucifix, which has hung in the legislature since the 1930s, was taken down from the wall by an unidentified official wearing white gloves and then placed on a table.

In March, Immigration, Diversity and Inclusiveness Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette tabled a motion in the National Assembly calling for the crucifix to be removed. The motion stipulated that the office of the National Assembly had been mandated to move the crucifix to another part of the legislature ...

Macpherson: The language of the schoolyard at Riverdale High

At Riverdale High School, the immigrant pupils seemed to be getting along well with the English-speaking ones. Maybe that was the problem.  

https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/macpherson-the-language-of-the-schoolyard-at-riverdale-high?fbclid=IwAR3v1wl9uPXa3YigtHzzLCMDHx9UWvp-TcwmfDNBSCpd4GOU_WtSkmWprXo

Quebec’s official motto is “Je me souviens” — I remember. But sometimes, its political class forgets pretty quickly.

It’s been only two months since Premier François Legault complained to Doug Ford about Ontario’s cancellation of promised funding for a proposed French-language university.

But then, the closing of Riverdale High School in Montreal comes under Quebec’s unofficial motto: C’est pas pareil — It’s not the same ...

CdnPr: Quebec weighing legal options as judge suspends face-covering ban

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-quebec-weighing-legal-options-as-judge-suspends-face-covering-ban/

The Quebec government will wait for its lawyers to study a court decision this week that temporarily suspended a law banning people from covering their faces when receiving or giving a public service before deciding on its next step ...

Section 10 of Quebec’s law on religious neutrality, passed in October 2017, requires everyone to show their faces when receiving or giving a public service ...

Quebec Superior Court Justice Marc-Andre Blanchard ruled Thursday that Section 10 cannot enter into force until it goes through judicial review because of the irreparable harm it will cause Muslim women ...

A judge suspended Section 10 in December 2017 until the government published clear guidelines under which someone could apply for a religious accommodation to the rules ...

The Quebec government published the guidelines in May, and they were set to come into force on July 1 ...

Blanchard ruled the guidelines are not clear enough, and confusion and uncertainty still exists regarding how the accommodation process would be applied ...

[Premier] Couillard wouldn’t concede the law was confusing, instead attacking opposition parties and challenging them to explain how their proposals would stand up to the court test, given they’ve vowed to go even further ...

Fariha Naqvi-Mohamed: Are all French-speakers welcome in Quebec?

Premier François Legault should clarify his comments about wanting more immigrants from France and Europe.

https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/fariha-naqvi-mohamed-are-all-french-speakers-welcome-in-quebec
So it turns out Premier François Legault wants more immigration, after all — or at least, more immigrants from France and Europe, according to comments he made to Le Devoir in the context of his visit this week to  France.

The statements come after Legault campaigned on a promise to reduce immigration to Quebec by 20 per cent. It’s like being told a party you were invited to has been cancelled, but then learning that others are still being invited.

Some have sought to play down the premier’s words, suggesting perhaps he was being polite while in France by extending an invitation to the people there. I don’t buy it for a minute. Not when there is such blatant disrespect for non-white minorities here at home.

Eliadis: Religious discrimination violates Canada's treaty obligations

François Legault may be able to override Charter rights, but not the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.  


https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/opinion-religious-discrimination-violates-canadas-treaty-obligations?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR03mJXSSIKdGhkVIDQpg4f45EwAxRnPYLJCSFRSvo7SVgQ9uoGnjmUpal0#Echobox=1539186071


Canada’s approach to fundamental rights has evolved over the years through a healthy dialogue between courts and legislatures. The courts remain an essential interlocutor in that dialogue. As Kent Roach, a University of Toronto professor and one of Canada’s leading legal minds, once pointed out, an important reason for the court’s distinct role is that “an elected institution has an incentive to minimize and even trivialize the rights of the truly unpopular.”

Quebec nationalism could once claim to be colour- and country-blind. Not anymore

Pining for European immigrants would be quite a statement from any politician. From Legault, it is gobsmacking

https://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/quebec-nationalism-1.4996280

Quebec's nationalist movement, we're often assured, doesn't see skin tone or care from where you hail. It wants only to hear you speak French. "[A]ssociating Quebec nationalism with race is a mistake. Quebecers/French Canadians have never identified themselves by the colour of their skin," wrote former Stephen Harper press secretary Carl Vallée on Twitter last July.

Vallée was responding to something I'd written for the Guardian, in which I pointed out how Quebec's nationalist movement had become progressively older, whiter and less tolerant as it aged. The piece prompted much umbrage and the usual howls of Quebec bashing and the like. Vallée's response was probably the politest and certainly the most earnest. He seemed genuinely hurt that anyone would ever think such a thing.

And then last week, on his first official visit to France, Quebec Premier François Legault ripped the scab off Vallée's conceit. "Currently, there are too many immigrants in Quebec who aren't qualified or who don't speak French. So, we'd take more people from France, as well as more Europeans," Legault said in an interview with Le Devoir.

Brent Tyler taking sign-law battle to UN Human Rights Committee

The Montreal lawyer said he sees the Supreme Court refusal to hear his appeal as a fear of wading into the Quebec language debate.

https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/brent-tyler-taking-sign-law-battle-to-un-human-rights-committee

The Supreme Court has refused to hear his appeal, but lawyer Brent Tyler vowed to continue his legal challenge against Quebec’s sign law.

“It’s Round 7, and it’s a 15-round fight,” Tyler told reporters at his law offices Thursday.
Tyler was representing 24 businesses that were prosecuted for violating the French language charter in between 1998 and 2001. In each of the cases, the lettering of English-language words was equal to the size of the French words. Tyler argues that it’s a violation of freedom of expression to tell people that the French language must be predominant on signs that they use on their businesses.

Editorial: Bill 21's passage a sad and shameful day for Quebec

One can only hope — even pray — that this odious law will one day be reversed. In the meantime, minorities in Quebec are in for rough days.  

https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-bill-21s-passage-a-sad-and-shameful-day-for-quebec?fbclid=IwAR0Xb-I0V4BwInj4OCyuLx0UwNvpvlPUiyFZR8Rc6Amd52ga64JVUnGDHiI
Premier François Legault has suggested that the passage of Bill 21 by the National Assembly will restore Quebecers’ pride.
That’s an astounding statement, on many levels.
To start with, Legault couldn’t have been thinking of the Quebecers whose religious freedoms his government has just constrained needlessly. Few among them will be feeling a pride in their province today. More likely, they will be feeling deep sadness and disappointment, even a sense of betrayal. No longer is speaking French enough to be able to participate fully in this society. Nor will acquitting one’s professional duties with proper neutrality be sufficient. Now, conformity in appearance will also be required. Those whose practice of religion includes the wearing of so-called religious symbols will effectively be barred from certain public-sector jobs ...

Macfarlane: Quebec law banning niqab and burka is neither neutral nor constitutional

http://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/quebec-neutrality-law-1.4360942

The Quebec National Assembly has passed Bill 62, legislation introduced by the Liberal government that bans public workers and anyone receiving public services from wearing the niqab or any other face covering.

Although it is described as imposing a duty of religious neutrality on public servants and people using government services, the new law is neither neutral nor constitutional. It is impossible to reconcile this law as anything other than the targeting of a minority group, a slightly narrower spin on the now perennial Quebec debate over the wearing of (non-Catholic) religious identifiers.  

Much like past proposals by the former Parti Québécois government under Pauline Marois, the law here is defended on the grounds of Quebec secularism, but it is a perversion of secularism, which would normally see the state refuse to adopt or sanction particular religions over others. Instead, the version of secularism to which Quebec's political class seems to adhere is simply anti-religion, and more specifically, religions not reflected by the giant cross hanging in the National Assembly ...

CAQ election was more 'desire for change' than green light for party ideas, study says

The October 2018 election was considered historic because it put a new party, the Coaltion Avenir Québec in office for the first time. Since then the CAQ has been proceeding full throttle with putting its plan in place, saying voters gave them a strong mandate. Turns out, many voters knew little about what the CAQ was proposing and only wanted change.

https://montrealgazette.com/news/quebec/caq-election-was-more-desire-for-change-than-green-light-for-party-ideas-study-says
QUEBEC — A new study indicates the October election of the Coalition Avenir Québec government was more driven by Quebecers’ desire for change than an endorsement of the party’s often controversial vision and policies.

In fact, the study concludes, 40 per cent of Quebecers who voted CAQ today oppose the new government’s plans to slash immigration levels by 20 per cent even though the CAQ repeatedly says it thinks it has a strong electoral mandate to proceed.

The study, published Thursday in the web magazine Policy Options, operated by the Institute for Research on Public Policy, includes fresh poll data produced by the Ipsos firm.

Quebec passes bill banning public servants from wearing religious symbols

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-quebec-legislature-expected-to-pass-bill-21-late-sunday/?fbclid=IwAR1jr_PhUFoIbACmC8V-2bHG4UIr0p-yJyG_4loEQgrtB3UXJebOjdi2nek

François Legault’s government passed a ban on some public servants wearing religious symbols in a final vote late Sunday night, enshrining into law a measure decried by opposition parties, minority groups and human-rights observers as an affront to personal liberty.

The National Assembly debated Bill 21 under closure in a marathon special weekend session that ended with Mr. Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec government forcing passage of the law by a 73-35 vote, with backing of the Parti Québécois. Earlier Sunday, the CAQ used its majority to push through Bill 9, a law that enables new French-language and values tests that the government says will protect Quebec identity while refocusing immigration on economic interests.

The weekend in the legislature was marked by acrimony reflective of the debate that has roiled Quebec for more than 10 years over the place of religious minorities in the province. Some exhausted MNAs cursed at each other, others said they were on the verge of tears at times.

Philosophy Department Statement on Bill 21

http://www.concordia.ca/artsci/philosophy/news/Bill21Statement.html?fbclid=IwAR27WQ-fe36TtyDEPwMVgUPYOkVVCL5XVJQfFqCUt0YQN4GyjzWNK7LQdVQ

Concordia University and other universities in Québec and Canada are working to make our research, teaching—and society—more equitable, diverse, and inclusive.

Dialogue across diverse perspectives is needed for knowledge, learning, science, and democracy itself. This need is especially felt in philosophy, where key contributions have been made by outcasts and outsiders, where members of minorities have opened important areas of study, from feminist philosophy, to philosophy of race, and more.

Québec’s recently tabled Bill 21, An Act respecting the laicity of the State 21,  runs counter to these advances, including Québéc’s own advances in inclusive democracy. Laïcité is a crucial feature of political life and democracy in Québec. But it is not under threat by any dominating religious authority of power. Here, now, dress that symbolizes a person’s religious belief or identity is simply that—it poses no threat to läicité as a shared principle. There is no need to regulate dress for us to live together in our democratic society.

Francophone groups outside Quebec support EMSB's fight to keep schools

Minority francophone groups outside Quebec say they are ready to create a common front to help the English Montreal School Board keep its schools.

https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/francophone-groups-outside-quebec-support-emsbs-fight-to-keep-schools?fbclid=IwAR1yuE5DDoiHwZai8X9PryvplIZMotvV-p9Lq4m3RN0oHbMIuuR9EpIrND4

Minority francophone groups outside Quebec say they are ready to create a common front to help the English Montreal School Board keep its schools.

Citing a desperate need for class space in its francophone school system, Quebec Education Minister Jean-François Roberge decided to transfer two English-language EMSB schools to the Pointe-de-l’Île school commission, one less than had been originally planned.

Geoffrey Chambers, head of the Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN), has said the decision is an assault on the linguistic rights of anglophones in the province and that the Legault government should have negotiated longer before imposing the decision by ministerial decree.

Qu'est-ce qui nous distingue, au juste ?

https://www.lapresse.ca/debats/chroniques/francis-vailles/201906/23/01-5231414-quest-ce-qui-nous-distingue-au-juste-.php?fbclid=IwAR16w70GzzQwuaXwKonhmiM1HjuHuNkg7K5xxnK__Ark1JDW889ZUTl9a1Q

La question identitaire a toujours été importante au Québec, en raison de notre statut minoritaire en Amérique. Mais aujourd'hui, en 2019, qu'est-ce qui fait notre spécificité, comme peuple ? Comment les Québécois se distinguent-ils ?

Ne sommes-nous pas, au fond, qu'une masse d'individus sans autres points communs que notre propension à consommer, à manger, à nous déplacer ? Des Nord-Américains parlant français ? Les Québécois ont-ils une âme qui leur est propre ?

Il y a trois semaines, lors d'une conférence à Québec, l'universitaire anglais Paul Collier, de l'Université Oxford, est venu dire la grande importance pour une société de se définir des valeurs partagées, communes, gages de cohésion sociale et de prospérité économique. Surtout en cette ère où les immigrants sont de plus en plus nombreux à se joindre au noyau de la communauté, et où il y a un clivage entre les villes et les régions, à bien des égards.