Good news from Quebec

Other than the needless vexation of 200 Sikh children and their community, the most frustrating aspect of Quebec’s “psychodrama” (as Montreal city councillor Marvin Rotrand called it) over turbans on soccer pitches was seeing provincial politicians walk on eggshells for fear of running afoul of popular opinion. Frustrating, but not in the least surprising.

Jean Charest seems a kindand-gentle figure compared to the preternaturally miserable Pauline Marois, but he certainly wasn’t one for inclusionary tubthumping. By indulging the “reasonable accommodations” debate — the Bouchard-Taylor Commission, legislation (never passed) to “ban the burka,” etc. — but never really doing anything about it, he both kept it alive and set the bar for moderates low. Ms. Marois has found ample room beneath it.

It is also true, of course, that public opinion did support the ban. A CROP poll conducted June 12-17 for and

found 63% in favour of the Quebec Soccer Federation’s (QSF) initial decision (it backed down on June 15), and 33% against. And a Léger poll conducted June 10-12 for the Association for Canadian

hasn’t run a thing about it since Sunday’s edition except letters and a column from professor and former minister Joseph Facal, who is at least consistently helpful in showing us the problem.

Having previously called turbanned soccer players “fanatics” and applauded the QSF’s initial decision lustily, Mr. Facal now blames Ms. Marois for mistaking an obvious and pressing issue of religious “neutrality” in Quebec’s most popular children’s sport for one of mere “autonomy”; and he blames the international soccer federation FIFA for its proturban declaration, as opposed to the QSF for accepting it.

“For a religious fanatic, sport isn’t in a separate compartment,” he writes of children kicking a ball around a field. “By definition, the fundamentalist wants all spheres of our individual and collective lives to be subordinated to religion.”

“Can you blame them?” he asks of the QSF’s decision. Well why wouldn’t you, if it compromised the very fabric of Quebec society? Surely cancelling a few interprovincial soccer tournaments is worth that. But there’s the rub: When white children were suddenly in danger of being told they couldn’t play soccer, the QSF suddenly remembered on which side its bread was buttered. Even parents who supported the ban in principle wouldn’t have stood for that — though some, to their credit, were vocal in opposing it. Reasonable accommodation may be a philosophical issue for Quebec, but it is vastly less so a practical one.

The Léger poll reveals something else encouraging: Younger Quebecers feel much less threatened by diversity than older ones. On the intriguing question of whether religious symbols are “threatening” to one’s identity, 64% aged 18-24, and 58% aged 25-34, said they are not. Among those aged 65 and up, 60% said they felt threatened and just 33% not. Perhaps as a consequence, the greatest opposition to the QSF’s turban ban — 43% — was also among 18-to-24-year-olds, though more supported it than opposed it in every age group.

Considering how desperate politicians everywhere are for the youth vote, and considering that the most strident proturban position in the National Assembly was taken by Québec solidaire — a radical leftwing sovereigntist party with a youthful base — politicians of a mind to deplore petty demagoguery as such ought simply to muster their courage and do so.