Looking at why Quebec is debating values again
I’m left wondering where the CAQ is coming from and why they have such broad support
Like many Quebecers, I feel deeply unsettled by the ratcheting up of identity politics in the aftermath of last week’s election.
The newly elected Coalition Avenir Québec government doesn’t just want to reduce immigration and expel newcomers who fail language or values tests, they also plan to outlaw religious garb for teachers, judges and police officers, and override any charter challenges by invoking the notwithstanding clause.
The prospect of turning Quebec into a society hostile to immigrants and minorities is appalling. Nevertheless, I’m trying to wrap my head around where the CAQ is coming from and why these kinds of policies enjoy broad public support. Here’s my best shot.
The roots of identity politics are, of course, national identity, in this case the Québécois identity. Over 400 years of history, preserving the French language and a distinct culture from drowning in a sea of North American English has been a constant battle, with the latest challenges being demographic. That Quebec has survived — and continues to thrive — despite an aging population and a declining birthrate is no small feat, and due in large part to laws and policies that have not always been popular.
Bill 101 requiring immigrant children to attend school in French, laws dictating the size of lettering on signs or the language of the workplace — even the much-derided motion in the National Assembly to discourage Montreal retail employees from greeting customers with “bonjour/ hi” — are born of this desire to protect the Québécois culture, language and identity. This is a laudable objective. At this point, even anglophones and allophones who may not necessarily agree with all these initiatives get it. Over time, many have come to accept them.
Quebecers also harbour deep antipathy toward religion. During the Quiet Revolution, Quebec emerged from the long shadow of the Catholic Church and its outsize influence over so many aspects of their daily lives. This has resulted in a rejection of faith on a personal level, in many cases, and state secularism on a societal level.
This suspicion is exacerbated by a poor understanding of other religious identities. Many don’t quite comprehend that signs of religions expression like Sikh turbans, Jewish kippahs, or Muslim head scarves are not just symbols, but actual articles of faith; that they can’t just be taken off, permanently or temporarily, like a T-shirt with a political slogan. Yet individual devotion is not meant as proselytism.
What’s more, Quebecers place high value on the equality of the sexes. Many therefore view Muslim women choosing to wear the hijab with deep skepticism. In their eyes, the woman is submissive rather than making a conscious decision to submit to her religion; they fail to see the strength, independence and dignity it takes to make a very personal choice that is not anathema to feminism.
History, identity, struggle, self-preservation, bias, misunderstanding, stereotypes and stigma all underpin support for restrictions on minority religious rights, as well as getting tough on immigrants. But another big contributing factor driving these kinds of policies is fear, whether CAQ premier-elect François Legault and his ilk admit it or not.
We catch glimpses of it at times, like that moment captured in a Rimouski bar just before voting day, when a woman urged him to clamp down on newcomers.
“I have nothing against immigrants, but bring in the good ones because the ones that are coming right now, they’re erasing us,” she told him. Legault later conceded her comments were “close to racist.” But the encounter illustrates how politicians nevertheless capitalize on fears, rather than dispel them.
To some degree, it’s natural to be afraid of what you don’t know. A third of Montrealers hail from different cultures, races, religions or backgrounds. But the farther one gets from the metropolis, the more homogeneous the population.
Studies have shown that proximity to diversity reduces fear of it. Research from the London School of Economics demonstrated that those who live it every day are more comfortable with it. Not surprisingly, those who see people of other backgrounds and cultures the least are the most anxious. But interestingly, it also found those who live in proximity to it, who view it from a car or a train window, but don’t actually experience it up close, also tend to be suspicious. Support for the CAQ and its policies in Quebec’s regions as well as the suburbs and exurbs around Montreal, make sense in this context.
None of this is justification for making immigrants feel unwelcome or threatening the jobs of hardworking people because of the way that they dress.
It is precisely because Quebecers are a French-speaking minority within Canada and North America that it shouldn’t be picking on other minorities; precisely because Quebec rightly wants to uphold equality of the sexes that it shouldn’t be telling Muslim women in particular what not to wear; precisely because Quebec is a modern, secular state that it doesn’t need to outlaw individual expressions of faith; precisely because Quebec is a distinct society with a proud history, culture and identity that it doesn’t need to squelch the identities of others.
Quebec is better than that. To preserve the just, open, welcoming rights-based society we all love, we must work on trying to better understand each other.