There is a wide chasm between the views of progressive Quebecers and the rest of Canada about social inclusion. The divide is most sharply revealed over Bill 21. Many Quebecers cannot see the racial and cultural offence that the bill’s purported defence of “laicity” — a secular state free of religion — inflicts on citizens of non-Christian belief.

That the council chambers of Quebec city halls remain free to display large crucifixes, and a turban clad man cannot be a school principal does not spark the same wide-eyed anger in Quebec as it would in most other parts of Canada, reveals once more how deep still run “les deux solitudes.”

Canada’s great philosopher Charles Taylor, ranked as one of the world’s authorities on social inclusion and the co-author of Quebec’s commission on the subject of integrating new Canadians of different cultural backgrounds observes, each of us can be tempted by demagogues preaching fear of “the other.” And each of us can be drawn away from that dark side: the only variable that matters is leadership.

Social, religious, business and political leaders help determine which way their communities move on issues of prejudice. Quebec had an isolationist demagogue as its leader for an entire generation, Maurice Duplessis. He prolonged the Catholic Church’s deep hold on Quebec values, education and even health care for a generation, all the while denouncing protestant Christians, especially Jehovah’s Witnesses, and fostered a quiet anti-Semitism.

He was succeeded by two giants of Canadian political history, Jean Lesage and Rene Levesque; each had fought the Duplessis racist agenda for their entire careers. Quebec opened its heart and its communities first to francophone Africans, then to Haitians, and became a modern success as a French-speaking multicultural community. Those transformational leaders would not be pleased what their partisan successors have endorsed in Bill 21.

The consensus about a multicultural Quebec collapsed with ambiguous language and debate that were often perceived to be anti-Islamic. It started with the new provincial conservative party in the ’90s, the ADQ, then became a subtext for the federal Conservative party in 2015. Today’s governing CAQ’s Bill 21 made explicit the attempt to resurrect a more isolationist Quebec.

The Harper campaign’s open politically driven attack on the niqab failed utterly to resonate in English Canada The polarization put significant pressure on progressives in Quebec, killed the NDP campaign, after Thomas Mulcair’s fumbled response.

Some polling claims that 7 out of 10 Quebecers support the ban on the display of religious symbols — including a woman’s veil or a man’s turban — by public servant managers in the province. They have not been persuaded by the cries of anguish from orthodox Jews, Quebec Muslims, Sikhs; and ironically, even evangelical Christians. This election revealed powerfully that systemic and potentially dangerous cultural nationalism is thriving — even seen as a positive shared value by those who have grown up in such an atmosphere.

The lesson of history is that Quebec leaders who preach reconciliation, tolerance and inclusion can swing its political discourse. If federal progressives focused on the power of social inclusion, and the inevitable failure of an exclusionary Quebec, the pendulum would begin to move.

If Quebec’s business, union and community leaders were to return to the messages so effectively championed by their fathers in demolishing the stranglehold of the Catholic Church on the province’s schools, hospitals and values, they could begin to flip public support.

Genuine laicity is probably impossible to achieve. The power of majority religious values always creeps back into society. That’s why a focus on inclusion and a strong anti-hate and discrimination measures are the more effective foundation on which most developed societies build.

Quebec has a deep and growing skilled labour shortage, and a provincial government trying to restrict immigration. It has a net outflow of immigrants and one of the lowest birth rates of any Canadian province. If only out of self-interest the pro-Bill 21 advocates might want to reflect on the economic damage they are bequeathing to their children, if it drives thousands of potential new Quebecers elsewhere.

Today’s leaders might also want to reflect on this. Quebec threw off the shackles of an intolerant clericalism more than two generations ago. It awoke and arose into the model of a Francophone community with its eyes on a global, not a culturally protectionist future. A proudly multicultural community competitive in the world. Why would one endanger that achievement?

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

RS Robin V. Sears is a principal at Earnscliffe Strategy Group and was an NDP strategist for 20 years. He is a freelance contributing columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @robinvsears

Read more about: