Don’t expect Legault’s racism ‘action group’ to look at Bill 21

Don’t expect Legault’s ‘action group’ to look at Bill 21

You’ve heard the expression “white privilege,” but you don’t know what it means? Here’s an example: It’s me and my white sons not needing to have what Black people call “the Talk.”

That’s when parents of young Black men tell them how to behave so they won’t get arrested or worse, not if they are stopped by police, but when.

Yes, even here in Quebec, which our premier says in effect is the only place in North America where systemic discrimination — briefly, discrimination in effect that may not be intentional — does not exist.

François Legault also likes to say that only “a small minority” of police in our province practise racial profiling. They must be very active, then, judging by the officially confirmed, disproportionate frequency with which police here stop visible minorities.

“I don’t know anybody in the Black community who hasn’t at least once been stopped without reason by the police,” Lionel Carmant, a Black man who grew up in Montreal, was recently quoted in La Presse as saying.

That includes him, a son of two doctors who would go on to be a doctor himself. He said his parents had the Talk with him, and he’s had the Talk with his children. Now Carmant is junior health minister in Legault’s government. This week, the premier named him and the other Black member of his cabinet, International Relations Minister Nadine Girault, co-chairs of an “action group against racism.”

It’s Legault’s response to growing public pressure to do something about the systemic discrimination in Quebec that the premier refuses to acknowledge.

As former prime minister Jean Chrétien said, sometimes, when a politician has painted himself into a corner, he just has to walk on the paint.

Legault’s way out is to create a committee on systemic discrimination. Just don’t call it that.

The “action group” won’t actually take any action. Rather, it will make recommendations to the government in the fall for action in areas including policing, the justice system, the schools, housing and the workplace. In particular, Legault mentioned higher unemployment rates among visible minorities. That sounds like systemic discrimination.

The committee will probably hear that term in its consultations with minority groups and the province’s human-rights commission.

Don’t expect it, however, to look at the most blatant case of discrimination in Quebec. That’s the Legault government’s Bill 21, which has earned our province the distinction of being the only jurisdiction in North America that officially discriminates in employment.

The “laicity” law forbids newly hired teachers and certain other government employees from wearing religious symbols on duty.

While its defenders argue that it applies equally to symbols of all religions, in reality it disproportionately affects Muslim women who wear the head covering called the hijab.

The legislation even includes an admission that it is discriminatory, in the form of “notwithstanding” clauses overriding the protections against discrimination in the Quebec as well as the Canadian Charter of Rights.

The committee, however, is not conducting an independent public inquiry.

Its consultations will be private. And the “action group” is, in effect, an ad hoc committee of the governing Coalition Avenir Québec caucus in the National Assembly.

All seven of its members are Coalition MNAS, and three are members of Legault’s cabinet.

Legault said he didn’t want an all-party committee because that would slow the process and delay action. But having an all-caq group also ensures his complete control over it.

Two members of the committee may be especially sympathetic to the police, since they are former officers.

One is Ian Lafrenière, former longtime spokesperson for the Montreal police. Last year, a report for the city showed that visible minorities were much more likely than whites to be stopped by police. But Lafrenière said this week he was surprised to hear it had happened to Carmant.

Apparently, Carmant needs to have a talk with his colleague. dmacpgaz@gmail.com Twitter.com/dmacpgaz