Chrétien sees common sense prevailing in debate over religious symbols

OTTAWA — Jean Chrétien says Quebec’s political class is “trapped” in a pointless debate over a nonexistent problem: how to accommodate religious minorities.

And the former prime minister predicts the furor over whether public servants should be banned from wearing religious symbols will eventually fade away as common sense prevails.

“When you ask (Quebecers) the question, ‘Do you want them to lose their jobs?’ — (they say,) ‘Oh, no,’” Chrétien said.

The issue has been boiling in the province for more than 10 years, leading to a year-long study of “reasonable accommodation” by the Bouchard-Taylor Commission, the short-lived Parti Québécois government’s charter of Quebec values and the late Liberal government’s “religious neutrality” law that bans anyone providing or receiving public services from wearing face-covering religious garb.

Last week, the Liberals suffered a stunning defeat by the upstart Coalition Avenir Québec, which promises to ban public servants in positions of authority — including teachers, judges, police officers and prison guards — from wearing religious symbols. Premier-designate François Legault has threatened to use the Constitution’s controversial notwithstanding clause, if necessary, to override the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and enforce the ban.

Legault is also promising to cut immigration to Quebec by 20 per cent and expel newcomers who fail to pass French language or Quebec values tests within three years.

Chrétien said the debate reminds him of the political quagmire that resulted in the late 1980s and early ’90s over Quebec’s demand for recognition as a distinct society in the Constitution.

“You remember when everybody was trapped in the debate on the distinct society, (I said) ‘We’re stuck in the snow ... What do we do when we’re stuck in the snow? Relax, (move) a little bit forward, a little bit backward and eventually you’re back on the road,’” he said.

“Everybody was furious with me saying things like that, but it turned out that I was right ... I knew that the guy in Shawinigan didn’t give a damn.”