PM takes ‘ni-ni’ stance on CAQ hijab ban
Trudeau calls plan discriminatory, but doesn’t say what he would do about it
The cover of the December edition of L’actualité magazine is as dramatic as its subject. Justin Trudeau poses in close-up in a dark suit and tie against a dark background. The caption describes the prime minister as “preparing for battle” in next year’s general election. In white letters boldly contrasting with the background, it quotes him saying defiantly, “I’ve chosen my side.”
That quotation from the magazine’s interview with Trudeau refers to his opposition to the proposal by Quebec’s new government to forbid its employees in “positions of authority” from wearing religious symbols. The ban is aimed mainly at female Muslim teachers who wear the head-covering hijab.
“Quebecers know it very well,” Trudeau said of his position. “I will defend the rights and freedoms of all, even if it’s unpopular.”
And now that he’s put himself on the record, what will the prime minister of Canada actually do to defend minority freedoms against the Coalition Avenir Québec government?
The answer suggested by L’actualité’s account of the interview: as little as possible.
“I will always be against discrimination, inequalities and intolerance,” Trudeau said. “I have deep convictions on rights and freedoms and the defence of minorities.”
And “for my government, it’s not true that in a free society we can allow discrimination based on religion. It’s as simple as that.”
Well, maybe not quite that simple. For when interviewer Alec Castonguay asked him whether he will wage a “political battle” against the hijab ban, the country’s political leader answered, “I don’t want to lead a political battle.”
He said he has warned Premier François Legault that the latter won’t be able to introduce “legal discrimination against certain minorities and their religions,” much less “do it quickly, to get it over with.”
He expressed confidence that Quebecers would spontaneously turn against an election promise they liked enough to give the CAQ a majority. But he would leave that up to them.
“I have confidence in Quebecers,” he said, once they realized the “concrete consequences for those who will experience this discrimination allowed and encouraged by the state.”
He recalled his advice to English Canadians to stay out of the debate on the former Parti Québécois government’s earlier anti-hijab proposal, and to “let Quebecers debate the question and decide. I had confidence that Quebecers, once they realized that vulnerable women might lose their jobs, were going to say that it wasn’t a good idea.”
His position could be described as “ni-ni,” for “neither interference nor indifference,” the description of France’s long-standing policy on Quebec independence.
Trudeau’s father and predecessor as prime minister took a similar position when Quebec governments introduced anti-English legislation in the 1970s.
Pierre Trudeau wrote later that, as much as he disliked the legislation, he had no intention of reviving the federal government’s long-disused constitutional power to disallow it.
“The way to change bad laws is to change the government, rather than using Ottawa to coerce a province,” wrote Trudeau the Elder. “The best course was to hope Quebec citizens would challenge the provincial legislation in the courts — which happened to several discriminatory provisions — and to hope as well that the people would become better informed and their politicians more open-minded.”
But while the younger Trudeau doesn’t want to lead a political battle against a Quebec hijab ban, he apparently shies away from a legal fight, too.
A year ago, when humanrights and Muslim groups challenged the former Quebec Liberal government’s legislation against facial veils in public services as discriminatory, Trudeau said his government was considering possible action against the law.
A year later, it’s apparently still considering, and it has yet to join the challenge.
Quebec secessionists have been hoping for a fight with Ottawa over identity to revive their movement. L’actualité’s cover story suggests they shouldn’t count on Trudeau to give them one. Neither should the objects of the discrimination he deplores.