Trudeau takes a swing at Quebec plan to ban religious garb
Doctor warns move could drive medical professionals away
MONTREAL Justin Trudeau on Wednesday became the first prominent federal politician to oppose Quebec’s controversial plan to ban religious headwear for public employees.
The Liberal leader castigated the idea and said the Parti Québécois government would damage Quebec’s reputation if it proceeded with such a policy.
Trudeau, who was in Quebec City on Wednesday, added the topic to the agenda of a previously scheduled meeting with Premier Pauline Marois.
Other party leaders, meanwhile, avoided comment.
A media report this week published leaked details of the controversial PQ proposal — saying it would prohibit people such as doctors, teachers and public daycare workers from donning turbans, kippas, hijabs and visible crucifixes.
After his meeting with Marois, Trudeau said they agreed to disagree. The Liberal leader said the plan was motivated by a defensive “fear of the other” and unworthy of modern Quebec.
“Like we saw with the (recent) soccer turban ban, people laughed at Quebecers,” said Trudeau, a Quebec MP.
“And I don’t think it’s who we are and I don’t think it honours us to have a government that does not represent our generosity and openness of spirit as a people.”
The Prime Minister’s Office, for its part, said, “It’s a debate that will occur at the provincial level.”
The previous day NDP Leader Tom Mulcair, whose party has nearly five dozen seats in Quebec, sidestepped the issue by calling the leaked report a “trial balloon.”
Trudeau said the purported plan was responding to a non-existent problem and said he couldn’t understand which rights the PQ was seeking to protect that weren’t already protected in the Canadian or Quebec charters of rights.
He said state institutions should indeed be neutral, like the Quebec government says, but added that the individuals who work there are entitled to their religion and freedom of expression.
News of the impending details prompted a warning from some health-care workers: Pass this, and prepare for longer wait times at the hospital.
Quebec will lose doctors if the government insists on banning religious symbols in the workplace, said one physician from Montreal’s Sikh community.
Dr. Sanjeet Singh Saluja, who wears a turban as part of his faith, said Wednesday that the PQ’s controversial “Charter of Quebec Values” would drive people from the Sikh, Jewish and Muslim communities away.
“The sad thing is I don’t know if I’d be able to stay here in Quebec,” said Saluja, an emergency-room doctor with the McGill University Health Centre.
“Even though I love my practice here in Quebec, my faith is something that’s important to me and I don’t feel comfortable giving up that part of my persona and I don’t think a lot of people would be willing to, either.”
Saluja, who was born and raised in Montreal, said this type of legislation could have a significant impact on hospital wait times in Montreal because many resident physicians in the city come from Middle Eastern countries and wear hijabs.
“One of the reasons why we are able to sort of diminish these wait times is because we have these residents who come in and take on patient loads,” said Saluja, who believes young doctors would choose other provinces over Quebec if they didn’t feel welcome here.
Quebec has been bleeding residents to other provinces for decades, with net losses in migration that have diminished the province’s economic and political clout.
Its political weight consisted of 27 per cent of the House of Commons seats in the late 1970s, is 24 per cent today, and will drop to 23 per cent in the next federal election.
“This is not only one group that’s being isolated here,” Saluja said.
“This is an entire section of the Quebec population (so) it’s not going just to be the matter of one doctor, it’s going to be a matter of doctors many doctors leaving.”
Another Montreal health-care professional warned that if a single person left her department wait times there could grow nearly 50 per cent.
By losing just one staffer, speechlanguage pathologist Kathy Malas estimated that the wait times would easily grow from 17 months to 25 months.
“It’s actually very sad that they’re using people’s sentiments and this kind of subject, which is very sensitive, as a political tool,” said Malas, a born-and-raised Montrealer who wears a Muslim veil.