Is Quebec ready to accept Jagmeet Singh?

Hard not to see turban as a liability, given attitudes toward religious symbols

First, congratulations are in order. By winning a seat in the British Columbia riding of Burnaby South, Jagmeet Singh becomes the first visible minority leader of a federal political party in this country’s history.

He did so in the face of withering critiques, notably from former NDP leader Thomas Mulcair, as to his prospects and abilities, as well as a dominant narrative that suggested the Liberal Party of Canada was quickly usurping the NDP as Canada’s leading progressive voice. We are better as a country with Jagmeet Singh in Parliament.

Now the bad news. Although he is now leader of a political party with significant representation in Quebec, Singh soon wouldn’t be allowed to guard prisoners, police the streets, serve as a judge — or even teach schoolchildren in the province. That’s because the provincial government plans on banning religious symbols from the bodies of certain civil servants, teachers included, in the name of secularism.

And were Singh to show up at the National Assembly to protest the forthcoming legislation, he wouldn’t be allowed in. Unlike Canadian Parliament, the National Assembly still considers the kirpan, the ceremonial dagger worn by many practising Sikh men, to be a dangerous weapon. He wouldn’t make it past the X-ray machines.

I bring all of this up not to relive the long and often tiresome debate about the place and space allowed religious minorities in Quebec, but rather to illustrate the uniquely challenging political context Singh now finds himself in the very province that helped launch the NDP’s rebirth eight years ago.

In a few months’ time, Singh will be tasked with campaigning in a province that overwhelmingly supports the above-mentioned legislation. It has the potential to be a jarring spectacle.

Policy-wise, the NDP under Singh, an unabashedly progressive counterpoint to Thomas Mulcair’s Liberalesque leadership, is the stuff of dreams to the province’s centre-left electorate. Yet it is tough not to see the party’s sudden and inherent disadvantage: Its leader happens to be a brown guy in a turban.

Quebec’s political class is obsessed with identity issues like immigration, which took up an outsized proportion of the oxygen during the last provincial election, according to Influence Communication, a Quebec-based media analysis firm. For this you can at once point to history (francophone Quebecers’ collective and existential worry about the survival of their language and culture) and blame politicians for exploiting this worry for political gain.

This tinder is regularly turned to flame by way of certain columnists — almost all of whom are from the Journal de Montréal — who tend to portray Quebec’s religious minorities as an invading horde bent on undermining Quebec’s proudly secular society.

The end result is a zealous rejection of conspicuous religiosity.

Consider how some 61 per cent of Quebecers, far and away the largest percentage of respondents in the country, say the wearing of the turban or other religious symbol by teachers is “unacceptable,” according to a national Léger Marketing poll published last December. Never mind that at least three teachers’ unions have said the government’s proposed ban is patently unworkable.

The decade-long politicization of the issue has ensured gut feeling, not cold logic, rules the day.

Singh is about to step into this politically perilous breach, his religion conspicuously displayed. To be fair, he has a lot going for him. He’s good on TV and great on the stage — a necessity in the Trudeau age of campaigning. Most important, his French is excellent. And on the island of Montreal, at least, he has a multicultural beachhead where his appearance is an advantage, or at least less of a disadvantage.

But beyond our fair city? I worry we aren’t yet ready for a leader like Jagmeet Singh. I can only hope I’m proven wrong. twitter.com/martinpatriquin