Lisée wants action, not talk, on racism
Jean-François Lisée had just finished his speech Saturday when two young men stepped forward and asked the Parti Québécois leader a pair of questions that cut to heart of his political future.
The first accused Lisée of wanting to have it both sides on the question of Quebec nationalism. He suggested, in an era where farright ethnic nationalism is on the rise in Europe and in America, the PQ wasn’t doing enough to distance itself from the fringe. He said the party is walking a tightrope between Quebec’s political left and right and it needed to take a stand.
“What will the PQ chose when it’s time to make choices in the election of 2018?” the man asked. “Will it chose a more civic-minded nationalism or an identity-based nationalism? Will it chose youth or will it chose old age? I’m sorry to put this fault line so bluntly, but I want to know who will you chose, (in order) not to fall ass over tea kettle in 2018?”
One of Lisée’s staffers stood off to the side and glared at the young man, shaking his head and repeating the word “no.” The PQ leader had just given a cogent speech outlining his vision for the future of Quebec’s economy before a packed audience at the Recontres maîtres chez vous at HEC Montreal.
In a 30-minute address, Lisée presented his plan for a sort of hybrid government that invested in private enterprise while also gutting some of the bureaucracy that impeded entrepreneurs.
He even compared Quebec’s tax agency to a Mafia-style “protection racket” — which, in a room full of business students, was greeted with raucous applause.
And now this young man was trying to force the PQ leader into a corner.
But in the face of a rather blunt question, Lisée appeared unfazed. He took a sip of water and smiled at his interrogator.
“Oscar Wilde once said: ‘Be yourself, everyone else is already taken,’ ” Lisée said.
“The PQ will be itself. We do not determine who we are based on what others say, we determine who we are based on what we think is right.
“The reason why reactive nationalism is on the rise globally, is that nations have been denied. When you deny that the nation is the place for compromise, for arbitration, for decisions, nations shrivel and go toward the extremes.
“The PQ thinks that the nation exists, has always exists and must always exist and that it’s the place for arbitration and to live together. We think it’d be even better if that nation had its own state.
“On the question of identity. Identity is a question of balance. Too little of it creates frustration, too much creates close-mindedness. So, as political leaders, we have to find that balance. In Quebec right now, we don’t have it.”
If the question of identity is, in fact, a balancing act, Lisée has stumbled in the past. And this is by his own admission.
During Quebec’s contentious debate over religious symbols in its public institutions in 2014, Muslim groups accused the PQ, and Lisée in particular, of fanning the flames of division for political gain.
The Quebec City mosque attack last January — in which a white Quebecer with far-right views shot six people to death as they prayed — raised questions about the provocative rhetoric Quebec politicians have used when referring to describe Muslims.
After the shootings, Lisée apologized for suggesting last year Muslim women wearing burkas in Quebec could be concealing AK47s under the garment. And Saturday, he said Muslim Quebecers routinely experience discrimination while searching for work in the province.
“After 12 years of the Liberals in power, you a have 40 per cent better chance at getting a job interview if, in your resumé, your last name is Auger than if it’s (a Muslim name).”
Despite his recognition of the problem, Lisée will not support the Liberal government’s plan to open an parliamentary commission into systemic racism in Quebec. Such an inquiry, Lisée said, will only put Quebec “on trial” and ignite existing tensions.
“We don’t want to debate whether racism exists or not in Quebec. There’s no debate, it exists,” he said. “More than elsewhere? Less than elsewhere? We can debate that. The important thing is to fight it.”
And then the second young man stepped to the microphone and further pressed Lisée on the topic of racism.
“I’m a Quebecer, I’m black ... I’ve never been able to rent an apartment in Quebec, Montreal or Gatineau unless I first visited it with a white friend,” he said. “It’s the same thing, they read my resumé and see my name and say: ‘Oh he’s a Quebecer.’ They see me in a job interview and they say: ‘Whoa, he’s darker than we expected.’
“I’d like, just like any of the white people in this room, to be able to rent an apartment without having a white person vouch for me. ... When you talk about Quebecers being on trial, what I get about this commission is that for Quebecers like me, who aren’t white and who have challenges, what do you propose for us? We’re not white, but we’re Quebecers.”
Lisée applauded the young man and encouraged the audience to join in.
“After the mosque attack ... I put forward 20 measures to be applied immediately against discrimination in housing and on the job market,” Lisée said. “For a pilot project about anonymous resumés, to take harsher measures against employers who are repeat offenders for discrimination.
“The premier said no (to these measures) . ... We need immediate action. It’s been six times that we’ve consulted Quebecers on issues of racism, secularism and identity issues since 2006. Quebecers have been consulted to death. The solutions exist. What’s missing is the political will to apply them.”
Quebecers have been consulted to death. The solutions exist. What’s missing is the political will to apply them.