Martin Patriquin: A nationalist double standard on minority rights

Some haven’t realized that removing the veil (or turban, or kippah) from someone’s head is like silencing the language in their throats.

https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/martin-patriquin-a-nationalist-double-standard-on-minority-rights?fbclid=IwAR0XPQfM9gpomEkAu_q59QsVxwmHE5s9bF7YFw7r48QbTI_xm5Tnx0VNeAA

Many of the Journal de Montréal’s columnists have been falling over each other to denounce Doug Ford. Ontario’s 26th premier, you’ll recall, announced a couple weeks ago that he was cutting the province’s French-language services commissioner and shelving plans to build a francophone university. While the move came in for sharp criticism in pretty much all Quebec newspapers, the flurry of spit-inflected invective in the Frontenac Street tabloid was on a level all its own.

“Doug Ford’s vicious offensive” was nothing short of a “war on francophones,” decried Denise Bombardier. “Hypocrisy,” bellowed Joseph Facal. “An attack by the Orangemen,” roared Mathieu Bock-Côté, using a term for members of the anti-Catholic fraternal league birthed in Northern Ireland more than two centuries ago.

Richard Martineau denounced the “hate” of English Canada toward francophones, then suggested French-speakers in Ontario should move to Quebec where they can live comfortably among the majority ...

Quebec justice minister troubled by calls for conscientious objection to religious symbols ban

https://ottawacitizen.com/pmn/news-pmn/canada-news-pmn/justice-minister-troubled-by-calls-for-conscientious-objection-to-religious-symbols-ban/wcm/0a28b10b-7ccf-4d42-92da-bffe66cf0834

MONTREAL — The Quebec government scrambled Tuesday to explain how its proposed secularism law would be enforced as a growing number of organizations said they are prepared to disobey it.

One cabinet minister said the police could be called in and another said injunctions could be sought, while Premier Francois Legault said he prefers not to specify what measures would be used.

Public Security Minister Genevieve Guilbault said citizens will need to respect the law and suggested the authorities could get involved. “People will notify the police. It’s like any other law,” she said, declining to elaborate.

Macfarlane: The NDP is wrong on secession, the Clarity Act and the Supreme Court

http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/the-ndp-is-wrong-on-secession-the-clarity-act-and-the-supreme-court/

“The Reference requires us to consider whether Quebec has a right to unilateral secession. Those who support the existence of such a right found their case primarily on the principle of democracy. Democracy, however, means more than simple majority rule.”

This was a unanimous Supreme Court of Canada in 1998’s reference decision on Quebec secession. The Court went on to declare that only “a clear majority on a clear question” could compel the federal government and the other provinces to engage in negotiations with Quebec on the matter.

It is true the Court did not specify what would actually count as a “clear majority” (55 percent? 60? 67?). That, the justices said, was a matter for the political actors to decide. What is crystal clear, for anyone with the scarcest smidgen of reading comprehension, is that a “clear majority” is something more than 50 percent plus one. The highest court in the land has made an explicit distinction between “simple majority” and “clear majority.”

Editorial: Religious symbols bill is divisive, wrong and unnecessary

https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-religious-symbols-bill-is-divisive-wrong-and-unnecessary

Thursday was a sad and shameful day. In a move rooted in traumas of the past and unjustified fears in the present, the Legault government introduced legislation that is toxic to Quebec’s future.

Bill 21, “An act respecting the laicity of the state,” bans the wearing of “religious symbols” by certain public officials. Its application is broader and its terms harsher than expected.

While it ostensibly applies to adherents of all religions, the practical impact will be on observant Muslims, Jews and Sikhs for whom wearing hijabs, kippahs or turbans is not just religious expression, but religious practice. And these are not easily tucked behind a shirt, as a cross or crucifix might be. The government’s disturbing recourse to the notwithstanding clause to override the guarantees in the Canadian and Quebec rights charters testifies to the fact that fundamental rights are being abrogated, as does the insertion of laicity into the Quebec charter as something for which a proper regard must be maintained in exercising other rights ...

Quebec has no plans to change history curriculum despite scathing review

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-history-jean-francois-roberge-1.4927887?fbclid=IwAR3lt9-vQNn4iG2MVfN8RrouCvPkP0IW8ChpkPNcvC5A22lCLUpxU1SIK-E


Quebec's education minister says he has no plans to change the high-school history curriculum — and order a batch of new textbooks — despite a review that found it failed to reflect the province's diversity.

Jean-François Roberge said the current textbooks have already been revised after "many consultations with the Indigenous and anglophone community."

"Of course, history will always be subject to debate. I think it's normal to not have unanimity on that matter," he said ...

Cops could enforce Bill 21, minister says, then backtracks

https://montrealgazette.com/news/quebec/cops-could-enforce-bill-21-minister-says-as-legault-plays-coy

QUEBEC — With his ministers saying the police or the courts will be responsible for applying Quebec’s secularism bill, Premier François Legault stayed vague — saying only that the government will take the necessary means for the law to be respected.

Following reports of possible acts of civil disobedience emerging following the tabling last week of Bill 21, Public Security MInister Geneviève Guilbault sparked a controversy Tuesday when she said police would ultimately be responsible for enforcing the legislation.

That means, in theory, they could be sent into a school board to force it to apply the law which states newly hired teachers cannot wear religious symbols ...

Kelly McParland: Here's what Liberals are asking you to believe about the SNC-Lavalin saga

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/kelly-mcparland-heres-what-the-liberals-are-asking-you-to-believe-about-the-snc-lavalin-saga

In order to believe Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s version of his dispute with his former attorney general, you have to accept that an astonishing series of missteps, misunderstandings and lost opportunities were entirely innocent.

You have to believe that when Jody Wilson-Raybould told Trudeau in September that she had made up her mind and would not interfere with the decision to proceed with a prosecution against SNC-Lavalin, he either didn’t grasp what she was saying, or didn’t accept how serious she was.

You have to trust that none of the numerous complaints she made over the ensuing weeks, warning that the pressure being exerted was inappropriate and had to stop, made it through to Trudeau ...

TheConversation.CA: The hypocrisy of Québec’s move to ban religious dress

http://theconversation.com/the-hypocrisy-of-quebecs-move-to-ban-religious-dress-105194

The newly elected government of Québec has indicated that it intends to ban civil servants in positions of authority (including police officers and judges) from wearing religious dress or symbols such as the turban or hijab.

The new government views the wearing of religious dress by civil servants not as an act of personal religious or cultural expression but instead as a political act — an act of the state — that is incompatible with the requirement that the state remain neutral in matters of religion.

The ban will have the effect of excluding the members of certain religious minorities from civil service jobs. And it will, almost certainly, breach religious freedom under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Jedwab: Debate made more divisive by use of notwithstanding clause

Denial of recourse to domestic courts leads to civil disobedience and has a negative impact on social harmony, Jack Jedwab says.

https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/opinion-debate-made-more-divisive-by-use-of-notwithstanding-clause
Upholding the principles of diversity and inclusion in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada requires the defence of the freedoms that are enshrined in the Quebec and Canadian charters of rights. Paradoxically, in Quebec, it’s the Ministry of Immigration, Diversity and Inclusion that is failing to uphold minority rights with its presentation of Bill 21, which bans the wearing of religious signs by designated persons in positions of government authority.
A yet further paradox sees our minister responsible for inclusion adding a notwithstanding clause in Bill 21 to curtail legitimate recourse to the courts on the part of those directly affected by the legislation and/or others that are concerned over further possible infringements on freedom of religion as well as other charter rights. Although the minister insists that there is no rights violation in Bill 21, no legal opinion has been offered to that effect. It seems entirely  reasonable for Quebecers to conclude that the presence of the notwithstanding clause in the bill is an admission on the part of the government that the ban does indeed infringe on freedom of religion.
Even though it is made available to legislators, the notwithstanding clause should only be used in the event of an urgent threat to social harmony. To date no one has offered any meaningful evidence of any such threat emanating from teachers wearing hijabs, kippahs or crosses. And given the lack of police, judges and prison officials wearing religious signs, the legislation would, at best, address an imagined threat.

MtlGz: English, French hold differing views on integration of newcomers: Leger poll

While both hold positive views of immigrants, they are divided on how newcomers should assimilate, according to surveys conducted by Léger   

http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/english-french-hold-differing-views-on-integration-of-newcomers-poll

While a majority of both groups said they held positive views of immigrants, francophones were more likely to respond in the affirmative when asked whether immigrants should give up their customs and traditions, or if the influx of non-Christian immigrants posed a threat to society ...

In the latest survey, titled Multiculturalism versus Interculturalism: Myth vs. Reality, the survey found that 63 per cent of francophones held a positive view of immigrants, as compared to 74 per cent of anglophones. Asked whether immigrants should be “encouraged to give up their customs and traditions and become more like the majority,” francophones were more likely to either strongly or somewhat agree (65 per cent) as compared to anglophones (47 per cent) ...

At the same time, francophones were more likely (58 per cent) than anglophones (40 per cent) to feel that “our society is threatened by the influx of non-Christian immigrants to Canada.”