Since the Quebec government banned schoolteachers, police officers, prosecutors & other public servi

[calamity]

Re: Since the Quebec government banned schoolteachers, police officers, prosecutors & other public s

There was a time when Montreal was Canada's most important city. Now...it's like Montri-who?

My how fast being non-English speaking can take you down.

 

[Jean-s]

Re: Since the Quebec government banned schoolteachers, police officers, prosecutors & other public s

This law represents another example of resurgant conservatism trampling on the liberal values that have made Canada such a great place to live. Bad as it is, I'm confident it's just a momentary backslide.
The French language isn't a problem here.

There is nothing conservative in forbidding a fundamentalist Protestant teacher to wear a cross in his lapel.

 

[can2man]

Re: Since the Quebec government banned schoolteachers, police officers, prosecutors & other public s

There was a time when Montreal was Canada's most important city. Now...it's like Montri-who?

My how fast being non-English speaking can take you down.

:lamo

 

[Felis Leo]

Re: Since the Quebec government banned schoolteachers, police officers, prosecutors & other public s

My definition of secular, in the context I was using it, was that the Catholic Church no longer controls the province and the people are far less religious than they once were. I’m a Franco Ontarien and live very close to the border and work in Quebec often. Definitely an element of xenophobia there, that’s not unique to Quebec. I can’t say I agree with this law, it goes too far - but I also don’t like to see women placed in bags.

Well, let me make myself clear. I do not like women being placed under the mind-forged manacles of a religion (or pressured by their religious community) into accepting being part of a permanent lower order. I despise Islam as a religion and as a political force, as many despise Catholicism, Mormonism or Jehovah's Witnesses for their oppression of people within the confines of their communities. My mother, her family and her friends suffered as members of a religious minority in Iran, a country dominated by political Islam, and I hold many of the exponents of the religion in complete contempt.

That having been said, I do not hate the practitioners of Islam. And neither I nor anyone can say "I care so deeply about the oppression of Muslim women within Islam-dominated countries and communities!" but then turn around and force these same women out of public life. Anyone who claims that they are doing this for the good of practicing Muslim women...forcing them to choose between their faith and community versus a career and a public life are speaking out of both sides of their mouths. The same goes for Jews, Sikhs and Hindus.

I only hope that the national government cracks down on this and does more than shake a disappointed admonishing finger at these bigots.

 

[Felis Leo]

Re: Since the Quebec government banned schoolteachers, police officers, prosecutors & other public s

There was a time when Montreal was Canada's most important city. Now...it's like Montri-who?

My how fast being non-English speaking can take you down.

Or being a member of a non-white religious minority, for that matter.

 

[Evilroddy]

Re: Since the Quebec government banned schoolteachers, police officers, prosecutors & other public s

Call it what it is. The current Quebec government are run by a bunch of regressive xenophobic bigots who are using this supposedly "secular" law to crack down on non-Quebecois racial and religious minorities. This is what allowing separatist accommodation within a sovereign nation does: the fostering of balkanization. Canada should never have forced the recognition of French as its official second language in order to placate the Quebecois. It only serves to foster further division.

Felis Leo:

English was the second European language of Canada, French was the first.

Modern Quebec has had a hate-on for organised religion since the late 1950's. That hate-on was born out of the suffocating control of the Roman Catholic Church in Quebecois' lives and today is mostly directed against the Roman Catholic Church. Yes, Quebec is xenophobic and tribal in places but this is about breaking the power of any organised religion and entrenching a determined commitment to secularism. i strongly disagree with the law but I also understand where it is coming from.

The religious symbols law was not just the product of the present governing party of Quebec (the CAQ) but was also advanced by the Parti Quebecois and less enthusiastically by the Liberal Party of Quebec. Quebec is a tribal society and has been for 412 years. But this law is about secularism and assimilation of what is called "Quebecois Values".

Ironically the reason that the French language, French civil law and Roman Catholicism were legally preserved in Quebec/Canada was because of the threat of rebellion in the 13 colonies which would become the United States of America. The Quebec Act of 1774, which preserved these rights for French Canadians, was an attempt to get the French Canadians and their excellent militias to fight on the side of the British Empire rather than to join the rebel colonies. So you folks and the threat of your uprising actually made the preservation of French and Catholicism (and the civil law which restricts religious symbols today) possible. Thanks for that. We're better off for it as our culture is richer and a our linguistic melieu is more varied.

The religious symbols controversy will work itself out in the court system and will likely be struck down or hollowed out by the courts. Quebec could override court decisions using Section 33 of the Canadian constitution which is politically onerous but eventually they will bend to the law.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.

 

[Carjosse]

Re: Since the Quebec government banned schoolteachers, police officers, prosecutors & other public s

Here is the problem, Carjosse. I think you are confusing regional differences with the suppression of individual liberties under the law. This defense of regional sovereignty could just as easily have been raised as a defense of segregation in the 1960s of the American Southern states, or of Apartheid South Africa. A particular manner of dress, or dance, or language, or cuisine is perfectly acceptable. I do not argue for total homogeneity. But I argue for equal treatment under the law. Treating entire classes of people as second-class citizens for failing to belong to the correct race, religion, or culture is not something a sovereign nation in which rule of law remains like Canada has to accept, nor should it accept.

That is not a problem with Quebe's place in Canada and it being afforded some special privilege, the problem is the notwithstanding clause of the constitution that any province can use, otherwise this law would be struck down immediately. However this law is being challenged in court regardless.

 

[calamity]

Re: Since the Quebec government banned schoolteachers, police officers, prosecutors & other public s

Or being a member of a non-white religious minority, for that matter.

Huh?

My point is pretty clear. Montreal used to be the most important city in Canada. Now, due to the insistence to stick with French, it's a distant third, behind Toronto and Vancouver, neither of which are exactly "white." T-Town is probably the most racially diverse city in North America. And, Vancouver is basically Asia East.

 

[stevecanuck]

Re: Since the Quebec government banned schoolteachers, police officers, prosecutors & other public s

That is not a problem with Quebe's place in Canada and it being afforded some special privilege, the problem is the notwithstanding clause of the constitution that any province can use, otherwise this law would be struck down immediately. However this law is being challenged in court regardless.

I was in a shopping mall in Toronto and thought there was something odd about the couple ahead of me. And then I realized it was because they were speaking English.

 

[Carjosse]

Re: Since the Quebec government banned schoolteachers, police officers, prosecutors & other public s

Huh?

My point is pretty clear. Montreal used to be the most important city in Canada. Now, due to the insistence to stick with French, it's a distant third, behind Toronto and Vancouver, neither of which are exactly "white." T-Town is probably the most racially diverse city in North America. And, Vancouver is basically Asia East.

Economically and politically Montreal is still far more important than Vancouver.

 

[Carjosse]

Re: Since the Quebec government banned schoolteachers, police officers, prosecutors & other public s

I was in a shopping mall in Toronto and thought there was something odd about the couple ahead of me. And then I realized it was because they were speaking English.

I don't know what your comment has to do with anything.

 

[Drawdown]

Re: Since the Quebec government banned schoolteachers, police officers, prosecutors & other public s

I once drove past a KFC in rural Quebec. The sign was only in French: Poulet Frites a la Kentucky.

My wife brought home from Vancouver a box of English muffins. The labeling was bilingual. The French version: Les Muffins des Anglais.

Something in the post reminded me of some place that used to sell fried biscuits. Now all I can think about is I want one of those fried biscuits but for the life of me I cannot recall what fast food chain used to sell them.

 

[stevecanuck]

Re: Since the Quebec government banned schoolteachers, police officers, prosecutors & other public s

I don't know what your comment has to do with anything.

It was clearly is support of your statement - "T-Town is probably the most racially diverse city in North America".

If i had added, "unlike most of the other shoppers", would that have helped?

 

[Evilroddy]

Re: Since the Quebec government banned schoolteachers, police officers, prosecutors & other public s

Well, let me make myself clear. I do not like women being placed under the mind-forged manacles of a religion (or pressured by their religious community) into accepting being part of a permanent lower order. I despise Islam as a religion and as a political force, as many despise Catholicism, Mormonism or Jehovah's Witnesses for their oppression of people within the confines of their communities. My mother, her family and her friends suffered as members of a religious minority in Iran, a country dominated by political Islam, and I hold many of the exponents of the religion in complete contempt.

That having been said, I do not hate the practitioners of Islam. And neither I nor anyone can say "I care so deeply about the oppression of Muslim women within Islam-dominated countries and communities!" but then turn around and force these same women out of public life. Anyone who claims that they are doing this for the good of practicing Muslim women...forcing them to choose between their faith and community versus a career and a public life are speaking out of both sides of their mouths. The same goes for Jews, Sikhs and Hindus.

I only hope that the national government cracks down on this and does more than shake a disappointed admonishing finger at these bigots.

Felis Leo:

Canadian Provinces are far more politically and usually economically powerful than American states. The idea that the Federal Government can tell the province's what to do in areas of provincial jurisdiction is largely wrong. The Federal Government of Canada does not have the political or jurisdictional clout to stop the Province of Quebec from doing this. Provinces are very powerful institutions in Canada. Since this Quebec law applies to only public employees in Quebec who are under Quebec's jurisdiction, there is little that the Canadian Government can do except attempt to use moral suasion upon the province and its government.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.