WE’RE ALL QUEBECERS
The Bouchard-Taylor commission on reasonable accommodation began work in 2007 amid a climate of fear of the Other. Hérouxville’s code of conduct was receiving well-deserved scorn for its insulting and gratuitous targeting of Muslims, but the underlying belief that religious minorities were set to impose their ways on Quebec society was shared by many. Those who made reasonable, voluntary accommodations to respect adherents of minority religions came in for criticism, like a sugar shack’s decision to remove pork from its pea soup and a YMCA’s decision to frost its windows.
Then there was a physical threat, some feared, from a Montreal-area Sikh who defended his religious right to wear a kirpan, a small knife, at school. Supreme Court of Canada found in the student’s favour. By now, the issue is largely forgotten outside the Sikh community.
A decade later — only days after the mosque shooting followed by a display of solidarity with the Muslim community — it’s disconcerting to see energy still being wasted on non-existent problems and heavy-handed “solutions.”
The 2013 Charter of Values justly ended up on the scrap heap of history.
But now, pressure is building on the Quebec Liberal government to add new discriminatory provisions to Bill 62, its already-flawed legislation on religious neutrality, face coverings and religious accommodations. Opposition MNAs are calling for a ban on the wearing of religious attire by public employees who wield state authority, something recommended in the 2008 Bouchard-Taylor report.
Advocates of the measure say there is a social consensus for it. Even if that were true, it would still be wrong. Minority rights are protected constitutionally precisely because they are not to be decided by majority rule. There are no reasonable grounds for barring those who consider the wearing of a kippah, turban or hijab to be a religious obligation from serving as judges, police or prison guards. Such a prohibition would be discrimination, pure and simple.
That the state has no religion should not deprive its agents of their right to practise one (though of course they must act impartially), any more than the state’s lack of gender means its agents must appear to be androgynous.
That these discriminatory measures are being proposed so quickly after the Quebec City shootings adds a measure of insult to profound injury. One had hoped the new-found focus on human beings and not their headgear would last more than a few days.
It’s essential that Premier Couillard, who displayed such principled leadership in the aftermath of the tragedy, stand his ground. Better still, he should drop Bill 62 altogether.