National Post (National Edition)
Quebec’s Bill 21
Re: Leaders have failed the public in symbols ban, Andrew Coyne, Sept. 17
To quote William Shakespeare’s Brutus in Julius Caesar: “There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.”
Such a pivotal time now exists for our political leaders to take a stand against a position that cannot hope to be defended within the meaning of being a Canadian.
People in Quebec are being stripped of a basic civil right: freedom of religion.
One wonders what the political consequence would be if Andrew Scheer or Justin Trudeau announced that they would resist the efforts of the Quebec government to enforce this law, not withstanding clause be damned? What would happen if they stated that they would defend the civil rights of Canadians even if it cost them every vote in Quebec?
Perhaps they might find unqualified support in the rest of Canada. Perhaps not. But someone needs to rip the Band-Aid off this scab. Someone needs to say political consequences be damned, this is more important than daycare and climate change right now. This is about the core of who we are as a nation and if 70 per cent of Quebecers are in favour of it then they have no place in my Canada and neither do the politicians who cower from the issue in order to save their own skins to govern a lesser Canada. Harry McKeague, New Hamburg, Ont.