LEGISLATING THE “DIVERSITY POLKA” : WILL QUEBEC’S “CHARTER OF VALUES” PROMOTE “SOCIAL PEACE”, OR PROVOKE A 2ND, POST 1970’S, WAVE OF JEWISH EMIGRATION

Dancing the Diversity Polka: Barbara Kay, National Post, Sept. 4, 2013—Of all Canada’s political party leaders, Pauline Marois may well be Canada’s clumsiest communicator. Almost every pronouncement she makes about language and Quebec culture — little else seems to preoccupy her — draws both internal and external critical fire.
 
Quebec’s Disgraceful ‘Values Charter’: Charles Bybelezer, Jerusalem Post, Oct. 8, 2013—Last week, a Quebec government spokesperson revealed that the Canadian province’s premier, Pauline Marois, received emergency treatment in September at Montreal’s Sir Mortimer Davis Jewish General Hospital.
 
France’s ‘Beautiful Notion’ of Secularism is not a Model for Quebec: Jack Jedwab, The Globe and Mail, Oct. 3, 2013—For a romantic getaway you can’t beat France. It’s a great place to visit, but as a member of a religious minority it doesn’t appear these days to be the best place to live.
 
Charter of Values Hints that Quebec Having Second Thoughts Over Mad Dash for Immigrants: Tristin Hopper, National Post, Oct. 9, 2013—Ever since its birth rate plunged in the 1960s, Quebec has, like the rest of Canada, been on a mad dash to fill its ranks with immigrants from the rest of the French-speaking world.
 
On Topic Links
 
Quebec's Values Charter Forcing Rethink of Catholicism, Religious Identity: Michelle Gagnon, CBC News, Oct 02, 2013
Parti Quebecois Considers Removing Crucifix from Legislature : Ishmael N. Daro, O.Canada.com, Oct. 9, 2013
Charter Of Quebec Values Would Harm Economy, Drive Away Top Talent: Federation Of Quebec Chambers Of Commerce: Katherine Wilton, The Gazette September 25, 2013
 

DANCING THE DIVERSITY POLKA
Barbara Kay
National Post, Sept. 4, 2013
 
Of all Canada’s political party leaders, Pauline Marois may well be Canada’s clumsiest communicator. Almost every pronouncement she makes about language and Quebec culture — little else seems to preoccupy her — draws both internal and external critical fire. It’s hard to know what motivates Marois’s proposed projects, such as the now floundering Bill 14, which would so further constrict Bill 101’s already severe French-language protections that it became an international scandal. Is it racism, or a Macchiavellian strategy to whip up anti-Quebec sentiment, which could raise ethnic wagon-circling to “winning conditions” referendum fervour?
 
Indeed criticism from those in the rest of Canada or from federalist Quebecers may be to Marois what the death penalty is to jihadists: a reward for their martyrdom to a sacred cause. The more opprobrium she receives from outsiders, the more sympathetic she is to “family.” If opprobrium is what Marois wants, she is getting it in spades — internally and externally — for her latest caper, her government’s proposed Charter of Quebec Values. The Charter would reportedly ban anyone in public service from wearing religious symbols like turbans, hijabs, kippas or ostentatious religious jewellery. To many observers, this project confirms what they have always suspected: that Marois is a blatant racist.
 
Quebec Liberal leader Philippe Couillard called such a potential ban “unreasonable.” That was kind compared to denunciations from outside the province from pundits and politicians alike. On Sunday, Calgary’s Mayor Naheed Nenshi said the proposed text was a “violation” of Canadian ethics, and invited any Quebecers committed to religiously significant garb to come on down to Calgary, where “diversity” is celebrated.
 
Ontario Liberal leader Kathleen Wynne weighed in as well, expanding on “diversity” and “inclusiveness” as sources of strength for Ontario. Ontario Citizenship and Immigration Minister Michael Coteau had previously boasted that “Ontario’s diversity and freedom of expression and religion is a model to the world.”
 
I must confess — I realize what follows will earn me the multiculturalism Party Pooper of the Year award — that if I hear the words “diversity” and “inclusiveness” one more time from a misty-eyed politician, I may have to take a Gravol and apply a cold cloth to my forehead. Even worse, I find myself tempted to defend Mme Marois, a politician for whom I have very little respect, and whose government I hope will soon fall.
 
I don’t know whether Marois is a racist. I do know that multiculturalism presents problems that many other politicians are too politically correct to address. Diversity and inclusiveness are abstract terms. Regular prayer sessions in schools, in which girls sit at the back and are excluded when they are menstruating, is a fact. Kitschy endorsements of diversity and inclusiveness are not useful in dealing with such situations.
 
As has been pointed out by other observers, Quebec’s intellectuals and influence-makers take their philosophical positions about society more from collectivist European models than from the British tradition of privileging individual rights. France, a country to which many Quebec intellectuals look for inspiration, has in recent years taken a very tough-love approach to multiculturalism. They banned the hijab in schools years ago and ban the niqab now. Is France a racist society? Or simply a society whose cultural tradition confers greater social value in a uniform public identity than in identifiable cultural silos that fragment an atmosphere of civic unity?
 
Make no mistake. The proposed Quebec Charter of Secular Values is not about kippas, pendant crosses or hijabs. It is, in my opinion, about the niqab. Two years ago, to my regret, Bill 94, a bill proposed by the provincial Liberals that would have banned face cover in the giving and getting of public service, died in gestation.
 
The Quebec government then, and now, made it clear that while diversity and inclusiveness are fine ideals, there are limits to what any society based in democratic principles can tolerate. There are red lines that cannot be crossed in the name of diversity. Face cover is one of them, so I think all this talk of other accessories is just camouflage for the real target.
 
So yes, the proposed Charter goes way too far. Yes, the optics are terrible and portray this government as unfriendly to those not of the heritage culture. Yes, yes, yes to all that. But in spite of all the things that are wrong with the Charter, the fears that are driving it are neither evil nor even unrealistic. What is unrealistic is to assume that dancing the diversity-and-inclusiveness polka is the answer to multiculturalism’s inherent risks.

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QUEBEC’S DISGRACEFUL ‘VALUES CHARTER’
Charles Bybelezer
Jerusalem Post, Oct. 8, 2013
 
Last week, a Quebec government spokesperson revealed that the Canadian province’s premier, Pauline Marois, received emergency treatment in September at Montreal’s Sir Mortimer Davis Jewish General Hospital. More commonly referred to by locals simply as “The Jewish,” the hospital was established in 1934, primarily by Jews, at a time when it was difficult for members of the Jewish community to pursue careers in medicine due to the enforcement of quotas at various universities limiting their enrollment numbers and opportunities thereafter. Nevertheless, the hospital has always been open to service all patients regardless of religion, race or ethnic background. Today, it remains Quebec’s most diverse hospital.
 
It is therefore strikingly ironic – and patently hypocritical – that Marois sought treatment at the hospital, given her status as the leader of the Parti Quebecois, which currently forms the provincial minority government and which recently announced it would be advancing legislation – the “Charter of Quebec Values” – which, if passed, would ban all public sector employees from wearing “overt and conspicuous” religious symbols at work, including kippas, hijabs, turbans, “large” crosses, etc. As part of the Quebec Medicare system, the Jewish General Hospital would be required to abide by any such mandate. Yet it is nearly certain that at least one of the doctors who treated Marois – perhaps even saved her life – wore what she and her party apparently deem unacceptable workplace garb.
 
The Quebec government’s proposed Charter of Quebec Values is part and parcel of an increasingly rampant, worldwide movement – especially and tragically so in Europe, where the enactment of legislation restricting Jewish freedoms preceded the community’s mass extermination on the continent mere decades ago – to ban male circumcision as well as the ritual slaughter of animals; both common Jewish and, for that matter, Islamic religious practices.
 
Canada’s federal government – led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper – has rightfully vowed to review the constitutionality of any such law (were it ever to come into effect), with Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney recently asserting that, “If it’s determined that a prospective law violates the constitutional protections to freedom of religion to which all Canadians are entitled, we will defend those rights vigorously.” Still, the gravity of the situation calls for the immediate implementation of assertive peremptory measures.
 
Just as Israel called last week on the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to annul a resolution against circumcision, the government should likewise instruct its emissaries to Quebec to openly denounce the plan, as well as lobby members of the Quebec National Assembly to defeat the initiative. (As the Parti Quebecois leads a minority government, it would need the support of parliamentarians from other parties to pass the Charter.) This sort of campaign should generally be spearheaded by the organized Canadian Jewish community; however, to date, there has been scant, if any, public condemnation of the proposal on its part.
 
For example, The Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), the advocacy arm of the Jewish Federations system in Canada, responded to the announcement by releasing a tepid statement merely pointing out the obvious, namely that “The proposed Charter of Quebec Values… is at odds with the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The proposed Charter undermines the very sense of unity within Quebec society that it claims to uphold.”
 
Nowhere in CIJA’s three-paragraph statement is there any explicit denunciation of the proposal, nor is any attention paid to how it will infringe specifically on the province’s Jewish population (on whose behalf CIJA is supposed to be advocating). Nor does the Center address the fact that the intended legislation also aims to revise Quebec’s human rights act in order to negate the highlighted contradiction at the provincial level.
 
The Center also made the peculiar choice of issuing a joint statement, in conjunction with the Civic Education Society – located about 3,500 kilometers away from Quebec in the province of British Columbia – whose mandate is to create “A World of Multicultural Harmony.”
 
To its credit, CIJA commendably encouraged Quebec Jewry to participate in large numbers in a recently held demonstration against the proposed Charter, presumably so that the community’s “voice” could be heard. Unfortunately, the rally was organized by the Rassemblement des citoyens et citoyennes engagé(e)s pour un Québec ouvert (The Assembly of Citizens [both masculine and feminine] for an Open Quebec), another multicultural entity. The Jewish community’s message was thus no doubt largely drowned out amid the sea of “humanity.”
 
However, it is imperative to emphasize the Judeo-centric nature of this critical issue given that Quebec society is, in large part, notoriously anti-Israel, often a mask for flat-out anti-Semitism. The overt anti-Israelism of many prominent Quebecois figures is shocking. The most notable of these Israel-haters is Amir Khadir, a member of the provincial government best known for spearheading a boycott of a Montreal-based shoe store, called Le Marcheur, because two percent of the boutique’s inventory comprised Israeli-made apparel.
 
For 18 months, the store’s courageous owner, Mr. Yves Archambault, a native francophone with no previous ties to the Jewish community or to Israel, refused to yield in the face of malicious weekly demonstrations outside his shop, which decimated his bottom line. All the while, and despite his disgusting involvement in the hate campaign, opinion polls consistently found Khadir to be Quebec’s most popular politician.
 
There is also a seemingly endless pool of anti-Israel media personalities in Quebec, inarguably led by Stephane Gendron, who, when not bashing the Jewish state on radio or television, doubles as mayor of Huntingdon, a small town located 75 kilometers from Montreal. Among other things, Gendron has described Israel, on his French-language talk show, as an apartheid regime that does not deserve to exist, and Israelis as modern-day Nazis.
 
Over the past year, two other high-profile French-language radio hosts have come under intense fire for their anti- Israel/Jewish statements. First, Benoit Dutrizac breached the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council’s code of ethics when he called on listeners to honk their horns while passing through a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in Montreal on Rosh Hashanah to protest a bylaw against noisy outdoor activity on the High Holy Days. Dutrizac said the spiteful act was necessary to send a message to the Jews that they would not be permitted to dictate how Quebecers live in their “own” society.
 
Two months later, Jacques Fabi was widely condemned for failing to confront an Arab caller into his show who compared Israelis to dogs and hailed the Holocaust as the most beautiful event in history. Fabi eventually piped up – explaining that he found the behavior of Montreal’s Jewish community “annoying.”
With this kind of venom being spewed across Quebec’s airwaves, it is not surprising that polls show that support for the “Quebec Charter of Values” is growing among the public.
 
In a recent survey conducted by SOM, one of the largest polling firms in Quebec, 66 percent of respondents said they approved of the initiative, a figure which peaked at 71% among native francophones, who comprise 80% of the province’s population. (It is worthwhile noting that CIJA’s website wrongly contends, perhaps inadvertently, that “an increasing number of Quebecers firmly oppose the unreasonable measures set forth by the [provincial] government”).
 
It is impossible to contextualize the Quebec government’s initiative without briefly examining another of the province’s controversial laws, the “Charter of the French Language,” arguably the most xenophobic, insular and “provincial” legislation in the Western world.
 
Commonly referred to as Bill 101, the law, among other restrictions, bans the display of uniquely English-language signs throughout the province, as well as bilingual signs in which the English (or any language other than French) font is more than one-third the size of its mandatory French counterpart. (Imagine, for a moment, the uproar that would ensue if ever Israel were to adopt similar conditions on the use of Arabic.)
 
Today, the Office québécois de la langue française (The Quebec Office of the French Language) – also known to the province’s Anglophones as the “language police” or “tongue troopers” – is tasked with enforcing the law, with a taxpayer-derived budget of tens of millions of dollars. This entity is so extremely dedicated to its work that every few years some absurd incident garners it global media attention.
 
This past February, Montreal’s well known Buonanotte restaurant made worldwide headlines after the tongue troopers found it in violation of Bill 101; its menu contained words such as “pasta,” “pesce,” “antipasti” and “calamari.” The restaurant was even cited for including Italian words on the menu for which there are no French equivalents.
 
Amid this political and social environment, Quebec’s Jewish population has decreased by 25% – from over 120,000 to roughly 90,000 – since the Quebec nationalist/separatist movement rose to prominence in the mid-1970s. And if the “Charter of Quebec Values” is allowed to pass, it is not unreasonable to expect a second mass exodus of Jews from the province.
 
The Quebec government cannot be allowed to add to its anti-democratic and intolerant resume by banning forms of religious expression as it previously did with linguistic freedom. It is our duty as Jews to vehemently condemn, and fight tooth and nail against, the proposed legislation in order to preserve not only the broad rights of Quebec’s many minority groups, but also our specific heritage and customs as well.
 
Charles Bybelezer, former CIJR Publications Chairman, made aliyah last year and now works as a correspondent for i24 News, a recently launched international news network that broadcasts out of Israel.
 
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FRANCE’S ‘BEAUTIFUL NOTION’ OF 
SECULARISM IS NOT A MODEL FOR QUEBEC
Jack Jedwab
Globe and Mail, Oct. 3, 2013
 
For a romantic getaway you can’t beat France. It’s a great place to visit, but as a member of a religious minority it doesn’t appear these days to be the best place to live. Quebec Premier Pauline Marois recently pointed to France as a model for Quebec (and presumably for all of Canada) in its approach to diversity. The French national doctrine of secularism seems to be a source of inspiration for the Premier’s proposed Charter of Values.
 
While cautiously acknowledging imperfection in the French system, Ms. Marois prefers it to the British approach to diversity which she recently characterized as a source of severe social unrest and violence. While presumably not wanting to comment on the Quebec debate during a visit to the province last week, French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici described French secularism as a “beautiful notion” that creates unity – not division. The terms he used resemble those being employed by the Quebec government to describe its Values Charter. The Quebec government conveniently chooses to ignore the deep inter-ethnic divisions around the Charter debate as reflected in public opinion surveys.
 
Underlying the French secularist ideology is the notion that it is the visible public expression of religious differences that causes one to experience discrimination. Presumably in the absence of such display the tensions will magically disappear. In effect the victim of discrimination is to blame because the victimizer was provoked into such behaviour by the sight of someone wearing a hijab, turban or keepa in the public domain. If it were true that the so-called “beautiful notion” of secularism reduced religious discrimination you might think that the proud French government would generate some supportive empirical evidence to that effect. This could be helpful to Ms. Marois the next time she chooses to publicly share her insight and expertise on comparative policies and practices in the area of migration and identity.
 
Unfortunately for Ms. Marois and Mr. Moscovici, the evidence on the French model points to a very different conclusion. Surveys conducted in June, 2012, by Eurobarometer (the polling arm of the European Commission) put France on top of the list amongst the 27 countries of the European Union as regards the extent to which its own population feel there is discrimination in society based on religion or beliefs. Two in three French citizens surveyed see such discrimination as widespread compared with half of the U.K. population. As regards discrimination outside the workplace on the basis of religion or beliefs France (55 per cent) records the highest percentage in the EU of people feeling it is widespread. France doesn’t do much better around the perception of ethnic discrimination outside the workplace with yet another EU record 76 per cent seeing it as widespread.
 
Yet more recent evidence further challenges Mr. Moscovici’s observation about the success of secularism. A March, 2013, study from one of France’s most reputable research firms (TNS-Sofres) conducted for the country’s human rights commission offers a very gloomy portrait of a fractured society that is profoundly divided over issues of identity, immigration and diversity. As regards national identity the report concludes that “far from being a source of unity, French identity is one of the principal sources of division.” The report does reveal that the majority of the French population is proud of its country’s secularism policy. This is likely proof that if you repeat something often enough people believe even with a lack of supporting evidence about its merits. Constant repetition by French officials about the wonders of secularism has likely fostered such a relatively uncritical outlook. The French illusion of unity via secularism is not backed up by causal demonstrations of a salient effect on intercultural harmony and cohesion.
 
With its proposed Charter of Values, the Parti Québécois wishes to borrow something from the French experience and transfer it onto Quebec accompanied by some of the same rhetoric around the potential for social harmony. Underlying the rhetoric the debate in Quebec thus far suggests that the government proposal is motivated by the politics of division and not by a genuine desire to promote harmony.
 
Jack Jedwab is executive vice-president of the Canadian Institute for Identities and Migration

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CHARTER OF VALUES HINTS THAT QUEBEC HAVING
SECOND THOUGHTS OVER MAD DASH FOR IMMIGRANTS
Tristin Hopper
National Post, Oct. 9, 2013
 
Ever since its birth rate plunged in the 1960s, Quebec has, like the rest of Canada, been on a mad dash to fill its ranks with immigrants from the rest of the French-speaking world. With the publication Tuesday [Oct 8] of its proposed Charter of Quebec Values banning the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols by public employees, the Parti Québécois government affirmed its readiness to play politics with minority rights.
Democratic Institutions Minister Bernard Drainville spoke of equality and fairness and said the proposals “promote social peace, harmony and cohesion in an increasingly diverse Quebec.”
 
But from the slogan chosen to promote the Charter to the diagram illustrating which religious symbols the government judges conspicuous, Pauline Marois’ PQ government is fostering an us-versus-them mentality.
Now, after tens of thousands of Moroccans, Tunisians and Algerians have answered the call — North Africans make up the largest block of newcomers to la belle province — the Parti Quebecois’ controversial Charter of Values hints at a government having second thoughts. “The perception of the government’s message is ‘We want you here, as long as you stay completely invisible,’ ” said Haroun Bouazzi with the Association of Muslims & Arabs for Quebec Secularism.
 
Until the 1950s, Quebec had one of the highest birth rates in the industrialized world. But after the Quiet Revolution, a sudden reversal of the province’s conservative, ultra-religious sensibilities precipitated a decline in fertility demographers have since described as “spectacular.” Quebec now has “one of the lowest birthrates in the world,” says the provincial Ministry of Immigration. The response has been to scour the planet for “young people with skills and a knowledge of French.”
 
In the 1950s, foreign-born citizens made up only 5.6% of the total population; the number is now more than 11%. “Quebec’s focus has been on getting immigrants who are able to speak French, and one of the places that such immigration comes from is North Africa,” said Jack Jedwab, executive vice-president of the Canadian Institute of Identities & Migration.
 
As far back as 2006, Arabs were the fastest-growing minority group in Quebec, their numbers having jumped 48.6% in only five years. By 2010, African immigrants represented 36.8% of all new Quebec arrivals, nearly as much as the total number of newcomers yielded by Europe and the Americas together.
 “The immigrants speak French, but you’ll also get a certain percentage that are religious, and within that group you’ll get some hijab wearers and a tiny, tiny group of people who wear the burka,” said Mr. Jedwab.
 
Asia/the Middle East is the No. 2 source of Quebec immigrants, yielding more than 65,000 new Quebeckers in 2007-11. Since 1981, for instance, the province has seen its Sikh population more than double to about 10,000. Under the proposed charter, civil servants would be banned from wearing Sikh turbans.
 
Critics of the new document argue it will badly affect Quebec’s ability to attract new immigrants, or even retain many of those already there. Quebec has the highest rate of immigrant unemployment in Canada.
Indeed, Jews, one of the groups targeted by the charter through a ban on yarmulkes, have been fleeing political instability in the province since the 1960s. From a 1971 peak of about 120,000, there were only 85,105 Jews in Quebec in 2011, according to the voluntary National Household Survey.
 
It was perhaps with this in mind that this week Quebec’s Combined Jewish Appeal launched its new slogan, “I’m here. For good.” Although Mr. Jedwab said he doubts the ability of the minority PQ government to turn the controversial charter into law, the “ironic outcome” of the proposal is it already seems to be pushing religious minorities away from integration. “It’s encouraging people to wear hijabs and kippahs, and so forth, as a response to the government,” he said. Mr. Bouazzi noted there is a real risk if the charter is enacted, Muslims would avoid the hijab ban by sending their children to private schools or even opening Muslim-specific hospitals.  “If we find ourselves separating into religion-specific enclaves, we think that’s really a shame for Quebec,” he said.

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