Drainville puts values charter back on the front burner
With a day left before the crucial leaders’ debate, the Parti Québécois tried to refocus the election campaign on the one issue it thought could bring in the votes, regardless of Quebecers’ views on the economy or Quebec independence: the proposed Charter of Quebec Values.
At a news conference Wednesday, Democratic Institutions Minister Bernard Drainville, flanked by four female candidates of North African origin, urged Quebecers to vote PQ or say goodbye to the charter of values, as his is the only party proposing a solution to the never-ending conundrum of reasonable accommodation — and a ban on religious symbols.
Noticeably absent, however, despite her fervour for the charter, was PQ candidate Louise Mailloux, who in public statements has equated circumcision to rape, and evoked the notion of a “kosher tax,” by which rabbis and imams are “scamming” people into paying more for kosher or halal food to finance religious wars.
About Mailloux, Drainville was short.
She made those statements before she became a PQ candidate, Drainville said, she apologized (“if ” any- one was offended by them) and she’s a staunch supporter of the charter. End of story.
Drainville, the principal architect of the charter of values, had a lot more to say about his 15-day tour of the Quebec regions, during which he barely surfaced in the media — that is, until Wednesday.
Wherever he has been since the campaign began, support of the charter was strong and spontaneous, Drainville said.
“Don’t give up on the charter!” he says people told him. “We’re with you!”
But Drainville, who stopped in 15 ridings during those 15 days, has not yet toured Montreal, where poll after poll shows support for the charter is much weaker than in the regions.
Meanwhile, his fellow candidates, who largely stayed away from daycare centres where veiled women could lose their jobs, and toured instead old age homes and shopping malls, suggested that people in Montreal are afraid of showing their support for the charter, lest they be accused of being anti-Islam, xenophobic or racist.
They are the “silent majority,” said Yasmina Chouakri, PQ candidate in Anjou–Louis-Riel.
“It’s as if today it is shameful to be pro-charter,” said Chouakri. “But people said to me, ‘Don’t be afraid, we’re with you on the charter.’ ”
Candidates Djemila Benhabib, in the Laval riding of Mille-Îles, Evelyne Abitbol in Acadie, and Leila Mahiout in Bourassa-Sauvé also said they were given silent approval for the charter, in the form of winks and nods, as they toured their ridings.
To many observers, it seemed the PQ was hoping to redirect the campaign away from the troublesome question of sovereignty, and toward the identity politics issue that led the PQ to broaden its base of support and call for an election.
Asked if he was feeling “distressed” by recent polls, such as the CROP one released Tuesday that puts Phillipe Couillard and the Liberals three points ahead of the PQ, Drainville said not at all — it was always part of the “game plan” that on Day 15, the charter would reemerge as one of the fundamental issues of the campaign.
According to the same poll, Drainville was the most popular PQ candidate, with a 67 per cent approval rating (by those respondents who knew who he was), while 49 per cent of respondents said they were in fa- vour of the charter.
On the other hand, a Léger poll last weekend revealed that only 27 per cent of respondents wanted to hear more about the charter.
Drainville told reporters only a majority PQ government could keep the charter bill on the table, given that all opposition parties, including the Coalition Avenir Québec and Québec solidaire, are against it.
Couillard’s Liberals, Drainville continued, were even “sub-Charest” when it came to fighting fundamentalism, because they haven’t even proposed a version of former Premier Jean Charest’s bill, which would have prohibited receiving or giving government services with one’s face covered, by a niqab or burqa, for example.
Drainville urged Couillard to consent to continuing the process of the parliamentary commission on the charter after the election, or “we will have to start at zero again.”
Though he has said the PQ is open to improvements to the charter — as long as they don’t relate to the prohibition on the wearing of religious symbols by public employees — he could not name a single good idea presented before the commission since hearings began in January.