Civil liberties groups explore 'creative' ways to challenge Quebec's charter-proof secular bill

'We are studying the law, and we are studying what possible recourses we might bring': lawyer

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-secular-bill-challenge-1.5077731


The mayor of Montreal calls it "very concerning." Religious groups say it's discriminatory. And civil liberties groups have vowed to fight.

But what legal options do these groups have in the face of the Coalition Avenir Québec government's secularism bill, and what will the government do once it's passed, if people don't comply with it?

Tories would not challenge proposed Quebec ban on religious symbols in the workplace, MP says

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-tories-would-not-stop-proposed-quebec-ban-on-religious-symbols-in-the/?fbclid=IwAR3f14xTcHXgR5bawRsf5643CWEU4vLHM5GZSgH7-YveTaLqZP3Lg8g1_lQ

The federal Conservatives say they would not stand in the way of the Quebec government if it moves to bar some provincial employees from wearing religious symbols at work.

In an interview, Conservative MP Gérard Deltell said his party accepts the incoming Coalition Avenir Québec government’s right to introduce legislation on the matter, would not oppose the possible use of the notwithstanding clause to make it Charter compliant and would not join a legal challenge of the legislation.

The Conservative position differs from that of the Liberals and NDP. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau does not believe the Quebec government should be legislating on the issue of religious symbols and opposes in this case the possible use of the notwithstanding clause. The federal NDP also objects to attempts to override the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in this case.

Fourth time's the charm for secularism in Quebec? Not likely

Why Premier François Legault might be overly optimistic in hoping he can settle decades-long debate

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/secularism-quebec-bill-22-1.5076196

For the better part of two decades, an emotional debate has raged in Quebec about the compatibility of religious symbols with the province's modern secular identity.
Premier François Legault seems to think his government can settle the matter in the next few months.
On Thursday, his became the fourth consecutive government to draft comprehensive legislation attempting to regulate what accommodations should be made for religious minorities
.

Jedwab: Scorn for multiculturalism in Quebec yields troubling results

http://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/opinion-scorn-for-multiculturalism-in-quebec-yields-troubling-results


Last week, news broke that the Parti Québécois had quietly tried to block prominent lawyer Tamara Thermitus’s candidacy for the presidency of Quebec’s human rights commission. Unnamed sources suggested that despite her impeccable credentials, her job with the federal government was a liability and, worse, she was suspected of harbouring multiculturalist beliefs.

This bit of backstory should raise more than eyebrows.

It is well known that multiculturalism is verboten among Quebec’s political and chattering classes, regardless of partisan affiliation. However, to have multicult-phobia actually move a political party to reject a qualified candidate (who also happens to be a black woman) should tell us something about how pernicious the current ideology is ...

Macpherson: Selectively secularizing a land of 10,000 saints

Neither the Quiet Revolution nor "Quebec liberalism" is a convincing explanation for the CAQ government's anti-hijab bill.

https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/macpherson-selectively-secularizing-a-land-of-10000-saints

“It’s not xenophobia,” we are assured, about the Coalition Avenir Québec government’s “laicity” bill targeting minority religious symbols.
Premier François Legault said it’s necessary to protect “our identity.” And a poll conducted just before the bill was presented suggests he was right when he claimed the support of the “vast majority” of the people.
So, if fear of “outsiders” doesn’t explain the anti-hijab bill, what does?

English community will fight on for school boards despite Legault's warning

https://montrealgazette.com/news/quebec/english-community-will-fight-on-for-school-boards-despite-legaults-warning?fbclid=IwAR2admpRmEoIhlQPM1dV0bo-lWuuYpY3AlVasAGwv4zCuINnNPyCwfdGcJY

The English-speaking community has no intention of dropping its battle to protect the existing anglophone school board system.

The Quebec Community Groups Network (QCGN) — which includes almost 60 English-language community organizations across Quebec — said in a statement Friday it “has absolutely no intention” of heeding Premier François Legault’s advice to give up because they will lose in court.

“We disagree most emphatically,” QCGN president Geoffrey Chambers said in a statement. “The Supreme Court’s ruling in Mahe versus Alberta was crystal clear.

Religious symbols: 'It is time to stop denying racism' in Quebec, coalition says

Seven groups including Amnesty International and Quebec’s main women’s federation attacked the secularism bill as discriminatory.

https://montrealgazette.com/news/religious-symbols-civil-liberties-muslim-groups-vow-to-fight-bill-21

Groups opposed to the Legault government’s proposed law on state secularism wasted no time Friday skewering the plan as “racist”, saying it presumes that only a heterosexual white male can be impartial and lays the groundwork for veiled Muslim women to suffer “daily violence” if it is adopted.
Bill 21 would ban the wearing of religious symbols by some Quebec government employees, including police officers, prison guards and elementary and high-school teachers.
Safa Chebbi, of the Table de concertation contre le racisme systémique, described the proposed law as clearly racist.

Quebec's Human Rights Commission is too white and too French: Fo Niemi

https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/quebecs-human-rights-commission-is-too-white-and-too-french-fo-niemi?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1539131765

The head of a rights advocacy centre on racial discrimination is sounding the alarm about what he calls a lack of diversity in Quebec’s Human Rights Commission.

Fo Niemi, the executive director of the Center for Research-Action on Race Relations, said Tuesday he was concerned about the resignation of the last commissioner whose mother tongue is English.

Niemi said he recently learned of the actions of Richard Janda, who sent a letter of resignation to the National Assembly several weeks ago. He was the third commissioner to resign so far this year, Niemi said. The letter has not been made public, and Janda has so far declined to comment on the reasons for his departure. However, that leaves the commission with three vacant seats, out of five, for matters relating to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the two remaining are both white francophones, according to Niemi.

Chris Selley: Quebec steps into the past with bill aimed at ending ‘reasonable accommodations’ debate

Bill 21 absolutely will not put the debate to bed. But if there is hope of stopping this bastardized secularism, it’s with Quebec’s impudent youth

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/chris-selley-quebec-steps-into-the-past-with-bill-aimed-at-ending-reasonable-accommodations-debate

Well, here it is then. Here’s the grand compromise that Quebec Premier François Legault hopes will put to bed the province’s decade-plus debate over what religious people should be allowed to wear, and in what circumstances. Bill 21, tabled Thursday in the National Assembly, bans religious symbols from civil servants in positions of authority including police officers, bankruptcy registrars, government-appointed arbitrators, Crown prosecutors and other lawyers arguing government cases, members of myriad boards and agencies and also, crucially — and which was not recommended by the Bouchard-Taylor Commission — elementary and secondary teachers, vice-principals and principals.
It absolutely will not put the debate to bed.
There is no reason to believe the people who pushed for the strictest possible regulations won’t continue to push. Notably, teachers in publicly subsidized private schools, public daycare workers and before-and-after-school caregivers are exempt.
Bill 21 is actually more generous to niqab-wearing women than the previous Liberal government’s Bill 62: Bill 62 required an uncovered face to receive government services, period; Bill 21 only does so when it’s necessary for identification or security. It is a safe bet that such nuances will not filter down to the sorts of people who take photos of women in niqabs shepherding toddlers around town, or riding the bus, or otherwise living their lives, and pitch them into the racist frenzy of social media. That’s going to get some media coverage.

Opinion: School boards are an existential question for anglophones

No 'service centre' plucked from the imagination of some bureaucrat is going to fit the bill. 

https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/opinion-school-boards-are-an-existential-question-for-anglophones?fbclid=IwAR0f372hfKyF7uF9rdaGi_LcPir8DKxciqFX6LYL7gWXqNOdduHYaXIcMfs

What association would the courts make between the existing school board and the government’s proposed service centre? The determination of Education Minister Jean-François Roberge to replace the former with the latter, coupled with the unavailability of the notwithstanding clause in matters of minority education rights, means we may soon find out.

The third-way politics of Premier François Legault and his stated desire to unite Quebecers after decades of division might yet give him pause, assuming that anglophones, too, are part of the plan for “national” reconciliation. There is precedent. The Couillard government climbed down from the ledge after the entreaties of the Quebec English School Boards Association, the anglophone lobby in education matters. But the Quebec Liberals are heavily doped on the anglophone vote. The Coalition Avenir Québec formed a strong majority government without it ...