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The latest spat between Outremont residents over Jewish community school buses is a sad reminder that culture clashes remain unresolved in the very community where Quebec’s modern “reasonable accommodation” crisis was born.

The Hérouxville scandal of 2007 may have been the most politically consequential event (a small Mauricie town’s council passed a xenophobic code of conduct aimed at hypothetical immigrants). In that year’s election, the Action Démocratique du Québec (ADQ) rose to first Opposition after a campaign relying heavily on divisive rhetoric of the sort.

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But the first controversy in this wave of nationalist cultural panic is rooted in Montreal’s otherwise elegant Outremont borough, historically home to premiers, magnates and much of Quebec’s political class.

In late 2006, the Parc Ave. YMCA, technically situated a few feet outside Outremont, succumbed to pressure from leaders of a Hasidic Jewish congregation, frosting its windows to shield young worshippers from the sight of women wearing activewear. Even within much of the broader Jewish community, the decision was seen as an unreasonable accommodation, but would certainly not justify the discriminatory rhetoric that would follow over the next 11 years.