PQ maintains its position on religious symbols: ‘We don’t want any firings’
STE-AGATHE-DES-MONTS Despite rumours of internal divisions, the Parti Québécois still thinks public servants already working for the government should be allowed to wear religious symbols on the job, the interim party leader says.
While not ruling out a possible renewed debate on his party’s standing position, Pascal Bérubé said the PQ’s vision that there should be a “grandfather clause” for existing employees remains intact.
“When they (the government) table their bill, we will reiterate what we always said: We are for secularism, persons in authority should not wear religious symbols and we don’t want anyone to be fired,” Bérubé told reporters Wednesday.
“What we said in the election campaign stands. We don’t want any firings, and we think Quebecers are generally in agreement with this. We have a position and it’s still good.”
Bérubé agreed there would eventually be an internal debate at the PQ caucus, but that will not happen until the Coalition Avenir Québec government decides what its position will be and tables a bill on religious symbols as it promised in the election. The PQ caucus will then examine the wording.
One of the problems in taking a stand is that the CAQ position has changed frequently in the last few weeks, with the government apparently testing the waters on the mood of the people, Bérubé noted.
He made the comments following a report Wednesday in Le Devoir that said the 10-person PQ caucus would be revisiting the issue because unnamed people in the party were not happy with the grandfather clause.
But Bérubé insisted the issue is not on the agenda at this week’s two-day caucus meeting, unfolding at a Laurentian hotel spa. The caucus is being held to prepare for the resumption of work at the National Assembly Feb. 5.
During the last election campaign, then-PQ leader JeanFrançois Lisée said existing rights for public servants would be respected if the PQ formed a government.
The CAQ’s platform on the issue is that people in authority — such as judges and police officers as well as elementary and high school teachers, and teachers in the public daycare system — not be allowed to wear religious symbols such as a hijab or kippah while working.
The CAQ has given mixed signals on what would happen to employees who refuse to remove such symbols. At one point, deputy-premier Geneviève Guilbault suggested such people would lose their jobs.
Most recently, CAQ ministers have spoken about transferring employees who refuse to remove symbols into jobs in which they have no interaction with the public.
But the government hopes to woo some of the opposition in the legislature to give its bill more credibility.
Asked at a second news conference about grumblings of dissent, Bérubé insisted the caucus position is unanimous.
And he questioned the idea that employee transfers might be an option. An employee who spent years studying to be a teacher only to be shunted out of the limelight to do administrative tasks will no doubt lack motivation, he said.
The PQ also has other issues on its plate as it tries to rebuild itself following the “annus horribilis” that was 2018.
“We enter 2019 thinking it can only be better than 2018,” Bérubé told the caucus during the brief time the media was allowed in the room.
The party held one election post-mortem meeting in November with Bérubé insisting Wednesday enough time has been spent dissecting what went wrong. The party fell from 28 seats in the legislature to 10.
Explaining the loss, he said Quebecers were anxious to get rid of the Liberals, and the PQ was unable to position itself as a viable alternative.
The PQ starts the year with one monkey off its back: the days of strained relations with the Bloc Québécois, the PQ’s companion party in Ottawa, appear to be over.
Following the turmoil sparked in the Bloc by leader Martine Ouellet, who ultimately resigned, the party picked a new leader: YvesFrançois Blanchet, a former PQ cabinet minister and a friend of Bérubé, who recruited him into politics in 2008.
On Tuesday, Blanchet, who heads a party with 10 MPs, arrived arm-in-arm with Bérubé when the PQ held a rally at a local pub, which drew about 100 people.
On Wednesday, the PQ had one fresh idea for the CAQ government as it wrestles with the province’s chronic labour shortage: make it more interesting for seniors to return to the workplace.
A simple incentive would be to exempt workers 65 years and older from the obligation to contribute to the province’s pension plan, the PQ said.