Time for party leaders to take high road

Some compassion is needed for those communities facing unrelenting bigotry

Leaders of at least two major Quebec political parties must have been relieved Friday to learn “arrivals are diminishing” at Quebec’s southern border with the United States.

While the Liberal premier and co-spokespeople for the progressive Québec solidaire tread carefully, others have been taking a manageable crisis and exploiting it as incendiary political fodder ahead of next year’s provincial election.

As the flow of asylum seekers lightens, so too should the intensity of debate on their future integration; and about the integration of all ethnic communities, under a cloud of suspicion throughout Quebec’s decade-long reasonable accommodation crisis. These debates have long passed the point of relevance.

Vigilance on issues related to the integration of ethnic communities can be productive, but in excess it can also feel, for members of communities disproportionally scrutinized, as an attack. Attempting to make the sanctity of the border a national obsession can understandably be confused with primal xenophobia (eliminating illegal crossings into Canada will remain impossible for the foreseeable future).

It’s time to take a collective deep breath, and to reflect on better methods of galvanizing uninspired Quebec voters.

It may be an inconvenient truth for the fiercest opponents of multiculturalism, but the reality is that Canada, haunted by past abuses and imperfect as it may be, has been better at immigration than almost every other nation, according to studies and surveys conducted in recent years.

Concerned citizens are welcome to criticize government policy on immigration, but Quebec party leaders should be discouraging them from fomenting panic and engaging in public displays of xenophobia. Canada’s capacity to receive refugees, certainly when compared with many other G20 counterparts, is stable.

Violent incidents committed against minorities are on the rise across North America and Europe. There is no time like the present for Quebec parliamentarians leading an essentially pacifistic jurisdiction to lead by example, and appeal for calm and respite. If all major party leaders were to consider taking the high road, they could begin by agreeing Bill 62 and debate on religious garb in the public sector should be placed on the back burner.

This is, of course, wishful thinking.

On the contrary, Parti Québécois Leader Jean-François Lisée, displeased with the prime minister’s welcoming tone, has referred to the migrants as “Trudeau’s guests.” Even senior PQ members like Louise Harel are reining him in.

Lisée’s insistence on lowering the debate on integration is a more aggressive direction for the embattled political strategist, once considered a steadfast social democrat. Lately, he’s trafficking in socially conservative dog-whistle expressions, praising his own resolve to ask “real questions,” or noting he doesn’t suffer from a “langue de bois” (a wooden tongue, one that spouts politically correct doublespeak).

Lisée’s more aggressive tone seems closer to far-right talk radio, and not unlike that of Coalition Avenir Québec Leader François Legault; both leaders appear to be courting socially conservative voters.

While some interpret Legault’s rising popularity as a tectonic shift in Quebec politics, few polls have shown the CAQ leading, and none surging toward a majority government. From last summer’s musings on a burkini ban to Legault’s declaration last month that Quebec has “attained its capacity of integration,” the CAQ has proven itself to be a niche nationalist party not unlike the PQ, also struggling to build a wider, sustainable political movement.

Being nice is not the losing strategy many Quebec nationalists think it to be.

One might hope that an argument for augmented compassion toward ethnic communities facing unrelenting bigotry, sometimes in the form of extreme violence, would be enough to persuade Quebec’s more cynical, hawkish nationalists to temper their xenophobia. If it isn’t, the fact that xenophobic rhetoric barely works anymore should be.