What does it mean to be Canadian?

Re: Quebec’s cloak of cowardice, Oct. 21.

It is once again apparent that actions in Quebec are being interpreted by outsiders and editorial writers as a blatant attack against one particular set of Canadians.

While Muslim women appear to be the target of the legislation, the real target is the lack of standards around what it means to really be a Canadian.

The Citizen editorial goes so far as to state that “the banning of the niqab is not OK in freedom-loving Canada.” What this suggests is that any behaviour must be good because the standard in Canada is to accept it, since we’re open to all cultures and habits.

We know this is not true, however.

The attack on the pedophile predators of Bountiful, B.C. pointed out unacceptable activity to the majority of Canadians. Neo-Nazism and skinheads have been denounced as unacceptable.

Government mistreatment of Indigenous peoples has been discredited as “non-Canadian.”

If these actions can be denounced as unacceptable, then the government of Quebec has the right (perhaps even the duty) to identify where the line is to be drawn in the creation of a standard of acceptability.

There are countries in the world where the wearing of facial covering is acceptable. But this activity is not based on religious freedom or political standards.

It is the outcome of practices by males who demean women by ensuring that their behaviour is subservient to the male population (men are not required to cover themselves in public).

In these same countries, it is unacceptable to shake the hand of a single female but no such rules exist against single men.

Quebec politicians, much to their credit, are making a statement that says, “To live in Quebec we neither encourage nor condone any actions that demean one sector of the population.”

Quebec has been a leader in recognizing the need to respect women, LGBTQ and other minorities within the same standards of living as those that comprise the majority.

Being open to recognizing faces is the standard that the legislators of the province have set, an opening salvo for the rest of Canada. George Pappas, Orléans