In fear of a Burka-clad proctologist

An observer at Thursday’s hearings into the Quebec government’s proposed charter of values could be forgiven for believing that speakers on the issue were divided into two camps: those who argue the Charter is unnecessary, divisive and a violation of fundamental rights; and those who worry about women in veils poking at their naked hindquarters.

As most Canadians already know, Quebec’s proposed charter would create two classes of Quebecers: People allowed to hold public-sector employment because they meet the separatist government’s view of acceptably secular citizens, and those who must decide between their religion and paycheques, because they wear clothing or adornments that advertise their faith.

Many of the province’s eminent institutions and civic leaders oppose the proposal. In a 35-page brief released Thursday, the Quebec Bar Association declared that the charter would not meet even the mildest legal challenge, violates both the Canadian Constitution and Quebec Charter of Rights, is not in accord with international treaties on civil liberties, is unjustified and cannot even be said to represent a coherent set of “values.”

The bar noted that the government has offered no evidence to indicate a need for the charter or its restrictions, since there is no socio-cultural crisis in Quebec that requires remedying.

On Monday, Canada’s newest cardinal condemned the charter as both divisive and frightening. “We’re dividing people,” Quebec archbishop Gerald Cyprien Lacroix, named Sunday by Pope Francis, said. “People are every day more afraid of each other. Instead of bringing us together and bringing our cultures together and sharing the richness of who we are, we’re starting to build walls and be afraid of each other.”

In denouncing the charter, the lawyers and the cardinal join Quebec hospitals, municipalities and universities, at least two former separatist premiers, the former leader of the federal separatist party and a separatist member of Parliament who quit the movement over the charter’s contents. Former premier Jacques Parizeau, the man who came within a hair of winning a referendum to break up the country in 1995, says the division of church and state has long since been established and the charter is really a veiled attack on Islam. He’s joined by Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi, the first Muslim to head a major city in Canada, who says the charter is about “intolerance … plain and simple.”

The French-language University of Montreal, the province’s biggest university, echoes the bar association in arguing that the charter addresses a crisis that doesn’t exist. With 64,000 students from 130 countries, it searched through 20 years of files and couldn’t find a single incident that might fall under the charter’s purview.

Of course, what do lawyers, teachers, priests, medical experts or fellow politicians know about anything next to supporters of the charter like Yves Gauthier, a retiree who outlined his views at Thursday’s hearings?

As reported by the National Post’s Graeme Hamilton, Mr. Gauthier told Bernard Drainville, the minister responsible for the charter, that he wouldn’t want to look up from a digital rectal examination and find himself confronted with a doctor in a burka.

Mr. Drainville, who is overseeing the hearings, could sympathize with that, having already raised a similarly obscure scenario: What if a young Muslim homosexual, rejected by his family because of his sexual orientation, goes to see a doctor and bumps into a nurse in a hijab?

“Can you understand that the religious symbol can sometimes be a message of rejection for those who see it?” asked Mr. Drainville.

Such are the feverish imaginings of the Parti Québécois worthies behind the charter. Although there have been no recorded cases of female Muslim doctors peering at the privates of offended citizens, you never know. Most of the support for the charter comes from areas of Quebec where there are few Muslims anyway, so imaginations are free to run wild.

Fantastic or not, Mr. Drainville is sticking with his views. He made that clear Monday when he declared that, while the hearings are scheduled to last for weeks, he’s already made up his mind. The ban on hijabs, kippas, turbans and crucifixes is a “just, moderate and balanced position,” and not open to negotiation, he said.

“To be credible, this neutrality has to be visible, apparent, concrete,” he said. “For this religious neutrality to be real, it has to be expressed through people.”

So opponents of the charter are free to fire away with their briefs and criticisms. They just shouldn’t kid themselves that the government is actually listening.