FROLITICKS

Satirical commentary on Canadian and American current political issues

Dec 5

The Impact of Acculturation and Secularization in the Province of Québec

by bcurry

The roots of the secularism movement in Québec date back to the 1940s and ’50s, when the Catholic Church wielded tremendous social and political influence.  For example, the province’s healthcare and education, had been extensively under the purview of the Catholic Church.  In the 1960s, the Quiet Revolution (Révolution tranquille) was a period of major socio-political and socio-cultural transformation in Québec.  In particular, this period was marked by the secularization of the government, the separation of the state and the church, notably from the Catholic Church.  A primary change was an effort by the provincial government to assume greater control over public health care and education. To achieve this, the government established ministries of Health and Education, expanded the public service and made substantial investments in the public education system.

As part of Canada, Québec’s French language and Catholic religion are guaranteed under the Canadian constitution.  However, Québec has since also been formally recognized by the federal government as a “unique” nation within the Canadian confederation.  Indeed, the issue of maintaining the French language and culture in Québec has always been great concern, which was particularly heightened during the independence movements within the province surfacing during the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s.  The election of the political party, the Parti Québecois (PQ) in 1976 brought the issue of potential Québec separation from Canada to the forefront.  As a result, the issue of secularism temporarily receded into the background.  That all changed on Sept. 11, 2001 as a result of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York triggered a backlash against Islam, and in Québec in particular.  In the years following 9/11, media outlets in Québec began spotlighting – often with sensational headlines – what became known as the “reasonable accommodation crisis,” focusing on concessions made for religious groups.  In 2013, a minority PQ government proposed the notorious “charter of Québec values,” aiming to ban religious symbols for public servants, but it went nowhere after the PQ lost the 2014 election.

The reigning Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government, which was elected before there was a final decision on that bill, took its own stab at legislating “secularism”, reviving a watered-down version of the charter of values which eventually became Bill 21.  In 2019,  as Québec’s current secularism law, Bill 21 prevents some public servants, including judges, police officers, prosecutors and teachers, from wearing religious symbols while on the job.  Learning from previous projects, the CAQ tried to make Bill 21 legally bullet-proof by preemptively using Canada’s constitutional “notwithstanding clause” to override certain sections of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Last May, the Québec legislature also passed a bill requiring immigrants to embrace the common culture of the province.  The law can be used to withhold funding for groups, events that don’t promote Québec’s common culture.  The law appears to be Québec’s answer to the Canadian model of multiculturalism that promotes cultural diversity.

In November of this year, Bill 9, titled An Act Respecting the Reinforcement of Secularism in Québec, sets out to build on two previous secularism laws passed under Premier François Légault.  Indeed, this bill goes much further than the previous laws.  For example, it would ban subsidized daycare and private school workers from wearing religious symbols, such as a hijab or kippa; phase out public subsidies for religious private schools that select students or staff based on religious affiliation, or that teach religious content; and ban prayer spaces in public institutions including universities, as well as group prayers in public spaces such as parks without municipal authorization.

While one can understand the concept of secularism whereby the state is deemed separate from the church as a democratic principle, the Québec government’s initiatives and policies have taken extreme measures which are seen as targeting the rights of minorities.  In particular, they appear to be directed primarily at Québec’s Muslim population.  This targeting is especially interesting since Muslim Québecers, who mostly come from francophone countries, could be an important ally in a province that wants to preserve the French language and culture.

The government refers to this initiative as laicité which takes secularism one step further and is really about separating religion from the public sphere.  I would instead deem these broad initiatives to be a form of “acculturation.” Acculturation is where the state assimilates or causes to assimilate people to a different culture, normally the predominant one.  One thing that could either help settle the debate over these contentious policies — or perhaps exacerbate them even further — is the Supreme Court ruling on Bill 21 expected sometime next year.  Some see the current CAQ government’s initiative as more of a political distraction given Premier Légault’s unpopularity in recent polls and the upcoming provincial election next fall.  Even if the CAQ is defeated, the next government most probably led by the Parti Québecois will very likely continue the contentious policy of acculturation no matter what.

Canada Extremism Quebec Politics Quebec's Bill 21 Race Relations Racism Religion

Leave a comment »
Oct 15

Overriding Canadian Human Rights Legislation Via Use of Notwithstanding Clause 

by bcurry

Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is part of the revised Constitution of Canada created back in 1982.  It is commonly known as the “notwithstanding clause”, sometimes referred to as the override power and was included at the time so as to have the majority of provinces agree to the new constitution.  The clause allows Canada’s Parliament or provincial legislatures to temporarily override certain sections of the Charter when introducing new legislation.  It is unique among the constitutions of democratic countries and gives federal and provincial governments the ability to ignore most of the constitutional rights of Canadians other than the right to vote, the seating of legislatures and the House of Commons, mobility rights and language rights.  One extraordinary provision is that no explanation for such a move is required.  The U.S, Constitution gives no such powers to the states, but it does authorize Congress to remove jurisdiction from the federal courts.  However, not since World War II has Congress mustered the requisite majority to do so.

For much of our new constitution’s history, it was rarely used by provinces (the federal government has never invoked it) and was politically regarded as an option of last resort.  However, the notwithstanding clause has since been used by Alberta in 2000, and Quebec in 2001 and 2005.  In addition, most Canadian provinces, including Quebec and Alberta, have their own human rights Act, which protects people in a province from discrimination in certain areas, such as employment, accommodation, and access to services, based on specified grounds (‘protected characteristics’).  Recently in 2022, Ontario’s Premier Doug Ford of Ontario threatened to invoke the clause to take the right to strike from teachers but subsequently abandoned his plan due to political pressures and the threat of future court challenges.

More recently, invocation of the notwithstanding clause by provinces has to do with the introduction of so-called “parental rights” legislation, similar to that found in Florida and some southern U.S. states’.  Such laws primarily govern the use the preferred names and genders of schoolchildren.  In June of this year, the premier of New Brunswick, Blaine Higgs, introduced legislation which requires teachers to get the permission of a child’s parents if the child is under the age of 16.  Now the issue has surfaced again in Saskatchewan.  Following the lead of Mr. Higgs, Premier Scott Moe recently recalled his province’s legislature to introduce a similar bill.  If passed, it will mandate parents’ consent for a number of things including the use by any pupil under 16 of a new gender-related preferred name or gender identity at school.

One expert observer noted that provinces tend to use the notwithstanding clause to feed their base the idea that we’ve gone too far in human rights and that the courts have been leading us in the wrong way.  The belief is that elected officials need to capture back their power.  It’s also suggested that its use has resulted in more “wedge politics.”  Remember that introducing such legislation will take away the individual rights of those directly affected, such as in the above cases involving the rights of a child.  Psychiatrists and social workers have noted that there are potential harmful consequences of forcing teachers to contact parents regarding such matters, especially where the child may fear a hostile reaction by their parents to gender-related matters.  Where once before a child could turn in confidence to a teacher or school counsellor for information and assistance, the child may now be much more hesitant to do so.  The detrimental result may be the potential emergence of social and mental health issues.

It has been suggested that in some cases the courts might ultimately end the ability of premiers and prime ministers to preemptively set the constitution aside when it comes to human rights legislation.  This was the most recent case in Ontario over the right to strike by teachers.  Never-the-less, the concern over the use of the Charter’s withstanding clause by provinces should remain a serious concern among Canadians.  After all, who’s next to have their individual rights taken away by a government?  Where does it all end?  The continuing use of this provision will ultimately water down those protections afforded to us under both federal and provincial human rights laws.

Canada Charter of Rights and Freedoms Civil Rights Quebec's Bill 21 US

Leave a comment »
Nov 1

The Big Problem With Canada’s Constitutional Use of the ‘Notwithstanding Clause’

by bcurry

Since Canada’s Constitution was patriated from the British Parliament’s authority to Canada’s federal and provincial legislatures in 1982, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (the Charter) was added at the same time.  Section 33 of the Charter is known as the notwithstanding clause.  This override clause, allows federal, provincial, or territorial governments to temporarily override, or bypass, certain Charter rights.  Although the clause has been used only a handful of times by various provinces, it has set out some dangerous recent precedents where it has been used arbitrarily by Quebec and Ontario in particular.

For example, this November the province of Ontario proposes to introduce back-to-work legislation in advance of a potential strike by thousands of education support workers.  The government intends to use the notwithstanding clause as part of a controversial bill that would impose a contract on provincial education workers.  The province wants to avoid a constitutional challenge against the bill by labour unions and others which see the legislation as a violation of their right to collectively bargain, something that courts have agreed with in the past.  Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told CBC News that: “Using the notwithstanding clause to suspend workers’ rights is wrong”.  The federal government has never invoked the clause.  Section 33 was intended for use by governments in extraordinary circumstances, and not to resolve government initiatives by circumventing citizens’ Charter rights.

In 1988, the Quebec Liberal Party invoked the notwithstanding clause to pass a bill that limited the use of English-language signage and advertising in the province. This was clearly a violation of freedom of expression under the Charter.  When it came up for renewal five years later, the legislation was replaced by another bill which complied with Charter rights.  In 1986, Saskatchewan’s Progressive Conservative government invoked the notwithstanding clause in back-to-work legislation that the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal had earlier ruled violated Charter rights.  In Alberta in 2000, the Progressive Conservative government used the clause to pass legislation against same-sex marriage.  However, the Supreme Court ruled in 2004 that marriage legislation was under federal jurisdiction which subsequently led to the federal government making same-sex marriage legal across all provinces and territories in 2005. The Ontario government’s 2021 use of the notwithstanding clause to protect a campaign finance law turned out to be very problematic when it came to actual election financing.

In 2019, Quebec’s government passed Bill 21 into law, the so-called secularism bill, invoking the notwithstanding clause to block individuals or groups from challenging the law for violating Charter rights.  The law bans public employees — teachers, police officers, judges, etc. — from wearing religious symbols at work. The law sparked protests and debate and was criticized by many as a form of legalized discrimination, and is expected to be challenged in the courts.  In 2022, Quebec’s controversial French language law reform was enacted proactively using the notwithstanding clause once again to shield the law from constitutional challenges.  Some experts argue that this law represented a political manoeuvre to avoid having a negative judicial ruling that would be inevitable if they hadn’t used the notwithstanding clause.  With numerous future lower court reviews, most believe that how Section 33 is used will eventually have to be decided when a case reaches the Supreme Court of Canada. 

These are a few examples of the use of the notwithstanding clause under Section 33 of the Charter.  This provision was introduced at the time of the Constitution’s patriation to politically placate the provinces in order to obtain their needed agreement to proceed with the new constitution.  In retrospect, this may have created more jurisdictional problems than it was supposed to resolve.  When the Charter was drafted in 1982, the unprincipled pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause was not envisioned.  Some claim its misuse has become totally unacceptable and all too prevalent.  Governments are hiding their political agenda behind its use, thereby undermining the protections afforded to people under the Charter.  Laws should not be allowed to avoid Charter challenges!  Where in the Constitution does it say that government authority should void the rights of citizens — particularly minorities — without proper recourse through our democratic and judicial processes?

Canada Charter of Rights and Freedoms Quebec's Bill 21

Leave a comment »
Dec 12

Reaction to Quebec’s Bill 21 Could Result in the Province’s ‘Arab Spring’

by bcurry

Quebec’s Bill 21 (An Act respecting the laicity of the State), enacted in June 2019, bans public sector workers such as teachers, police officers, judges and persons in health services and social services from wearing symbols such as crosses, hijabs, Jewish skull caps or kippas, turbans or yarmulkes at work.  The bill also applied to members of Quebec’s National Assembly.  Quebec’s government claims that Bill 21 was enacted to ensure ‘secularism’ (separation of state from church) in almost all publicly-funded services.  This past week, a young third grade Muslim teacher, Fatemeh Anvari, was removed from her class in Chelsea, Quebec, after it was determined by the school board that her hijab contravened Quebec’s religious symbols law.  Although not the first case of such outright discrimination, this particular event caused outrage not only in the affected community, but also in the rest of Canada.  The Prime Minister has not ruled out some sort of legal action by the federal government against Bill 21, setting up an eventual showdown with the province.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) has argued that Canadians should not be forced to make the choice between their religion, their identity and their profession.  The provincial government should not be allowed to impose their beliefs on the people of Quebec, nor should they be dictating to individuals what they can and cannot wear.  The CCLA goes on to declare that people who choose to wear religions garments should also have a right to freedom of expression and religion, and to make their own choices without government interference.

In April 2021, a Quebec Superior Court’s decision was critical of Bill 21, but because the Quebec legislature used the infamous ‘notwithstanding clause’ in Canada’s constitution to override other Charter of Rights and Freedoms protections, the law remains valid.  The court noted that Bill 21 also sends the message to minority students wearing religious symbols that they must occupy a different place in society and that obviously the way of public education, at the level of preschool, primary and secondary does not exist for them.  The Quebec government has already announced it plans to appeal the court’s ruling on the contentious parts.

The case of Fatemeh Anvari reminds me a little of that of Tarek el-Tayeb Mohamed Bouazizi, a simple street vendor, who set himself on fire on December 17, 2010 in Ben Arous, Tunisia.  This one event became a catalyst for the Tunisian Revolution and eventually the wider Arab Spring against autocratic regimes in a series of anti-government protests, uprisings, and armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s.  His self-immolation was in response to the confiscation of his wares and livelihood and the harassment and humiliation inflicted on him by a municipal official and her aides, as well as his desire for political freedoms.  Now, no one is saying that Anvari’s dismissal is as politically significant, but comments by Quebec Premier, François Legault, that: “The school board should not have hired this person as a teacher in the first place given Bill 21”, further angered Canadians and some Quebecers.  When an ‘exclusionist’ law affects the rights of individuals in terms of their livelihoods and freedom to practice their religion, many people are beginning to take notice of the injustice.  Premier Legault has said that he feels Bill 21 represents a reasonable compromise, since nothing will stop public employees from wearing religious symbols in their private lives.  Just don’t do it at work or else!

Since 2019, demonstrations have been held in Quebec in protest of Bill 21 and its impact on the rights of Quebecers, especially minority groups.  Representatives from the Catholic and Anglican dioceses, Montreal’s board of Rabbis, the United Church of Canada, the Canadian Muslim Alliance and the World Sikh Organization of Canada attended several protests.  With the most recent incident involving Fatemeh Anvari, more protests are now expected not only in Quebec but across Canada.  Perhaps this highly emotive moment represents Quebec’s ‘catalyst’ equivalent to the start of the ‘Arab Spring’.  Only time will tell.

Canada Quebec's Bill 21

Leave a comment »
Blog at WordPress.com.