Women’s rights group calls for calm
Important to debate issues ‘serenely’
The head of one of Quebec’s largest women’s rights organization is pleading for calm, as the debate over the government’s proposed charter of values threatens to cleave a rift in the feminist movement.
“There is unanimity within the feminist movement concerning the need to ensure secularism of the state and to fight religious fundamentalism,” said Alexa Conradi, president of the Fédération des femmes du Québec in a statement Wednesday.
“At the heart of the debate are respect for women’s rights and the struggle for equality. Considering the importance of these issues, it is important to debate them serenely.”
Conradi was reacting to reports that a new, pro-Charter women’s group is being formed to combat the federation’s position against the government’s proposed ban on the wearing of religious symbols by public employees.
In a position adopted in 2009, the group supports a secular state, and “vigorously opposes” the forced wearing of religious symbols by women. But it does not believe the state should ban the wearing of religious symbols by public employees. The only exception is the niqab or burka (garments that cover the face, or face and body), which the federation believes should be banned on the grounds they interfere with communication and “enclose women into a state of second class citizenship.”
Le Devoir reports that a new group called Pour les droits des femmes is being organized to combat what they see as the federation’s defence of the Islamic veil. Former Parti Québécois minister Louise Beaudoin, former Supreme Court judge Claire L’Heureux-Dubé and anthropologist Luce Cloutier are reportedly to be among the founding members.
Cybel Richer-Boivin, a federation spokes woman, denied that the group is breaking apart over the issue. She said none of the 120 associations and 600 individual members who comprise the federation have threatened to leave because of the federation’s position on the religious symbols issue. Beaudoin, L’HeureuxDubé and Cloutier are not individual members, she added.
Meanwhile in the National Assembly Wednesday, a Liberal motion criticizing the PQ government for interfering with the independence of the Conseil du statut de la femme passed with the support of all three opposition parties. The motion demands the recent nominations to the Conseil be suspended.
Last week, the president of the Conseil revealed that the government had suddenly appointed four new pro-charter members to the Conseil in order to ensure that body would support the proposed charter. Before those nominations, the Conseil had been calling for a study on the impact of the charter on women, to determine whether public employees who now wear the veil would quit their jobs or remove their veils if the charter becomes law.
A coalition of 13 women’s groups issued a statement Wednesday accusing the government of breaking the law that governs how members of the Conseil du statut de la femme are to be named.
The law states the Conseil must be composed of a president, four people recommended by women’s associations, two recommended by business groups, two by labour groups, and two from university settings. The nominations of Julie Latour, Leila Lesbet, Ann Longchamps and Lucie Martineau would leave the 10-member Conseil with two fewer than stipulated from women’s groups and two more than stipulated from business groups.
The nominations are not only illegal, the groups say, but they compromise the independence of the Conseil by favouring the point of view of the government.
“The Conseil is supposed to have an independent role to offer advice on government policies and analyze proposed laws for their impact on women, but by interfering in the nomination process and naming people because they agree with the government ... that removes this critical role for the Conseil and that’s problematic,” said Blanche Paradis, co-ordinator of the Réseau des Table régionales de groupes de femmes du Québec.
The minister responsible for women’s issues, Agnès Maltais, told reporters Wednesday the nominations were done according to the rules. She also denied knowing the nominees’ positions on the charter.