The Quebec experts caution the rest of us not to jump to simplistic conclusions about the province’s proposed ban on religious symbols. This isn’t about prejudice, they insist. It’s all about Quebec’s unique history and political culture. Nuance, nuance, nuance…

But let’s be plain: you can nuance it from here to forever, but what the government of Premier François Legault plans to do amounts to throwing the rights of religious minorities under the bus to appease the fears of the majority.

The government hardly bothers to deny this. By invoking Section 33 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the “notwithstanding” clause, it is inoculating its new law from any legal challenge on the grounds that it violates basic rights, such as freedom of religion.

And well it might. Banning public employees in dozens of “positions of authority” — from schoolteachers to court clerks — from wearing crosses, hijabs, turbans and the like obviously runs roughshod over their religious freedom.

If this was happening in any other province, under a conservative government in, say, Alberta or Ontario, liberal-minded people would not hesitate to call it out for what it is — bigotry, even racism given that the minorities most obviously targeted are Muslims and Sikhs.

But because it’s happening in Quebec, many of the same kind of people counsel us not to go down that path.

It’s true, they concede, that Quebec’s white, French-speaking majority is brushing aside the rights of vulnerable, mostly non-white minorities. But it has more to do with a yearning for what’s known as “laïcité,” which is generally translated as secularism but has a much more sweeping connotation in French. Basically, it implies removing all signs of religion from the public sphere.

The reality, though, is that many Quebecers are less concerned with debating the fine points of secularism than with something more visceral. They don’t think they and their society should be required to adapt to the minorities among them. The burden, they believe, should be the other way around.

Quite a few English-Canadians have felt the same way over the years. But political leaders outside Quebec, from all major parties, have generally resisted the temptation to pander to the fear of newcomers. They have upheld the rights of minorities and the importance of the Charter.

Now, though, a major province is going in the opposite direction. It is tossing aside individual and religious rights in the name of majority values. Whatever the historical and cultural explanations, it’s a gross violation of the traditions of tolerance and accommodation that should be the hallmark of any modern, complex society.

It’s quite true that Quebec has the power to do this, and to do it legally under our Constitution. It’s also true that most Quebecers support limits on religious symbols and both Liberal and Parti Québécois provincial governments have tried without success to adopt similar measures.

It’s further true that nothing people outside Quebec do or say will have much effect. It’s good to see all federal party leaders denounce the Quebec ban, but the Trudeau government is not going to go to war with Quebec City by using its disallowance power to override the notwithstanding clause.

Denunciations of Legault’s move outside Quebec, by politicians or even editorial writers, won’t change minds in the province either. That’s much more likely to lead to a circling of the wagons against so-called “Quebec bashing” by the province’s chattering classes. That’s what usually happens.

But there are honourable people inside Quebec, such as Montreal’s mayor, Valérie Plante, speaking out against this measure. There’s hope that reason will prevail over time and those who now back limits on religious rights will come to realize they have nothing to fear from those among them who are different.

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

Beyond all that, it’s important that Canadians hold fast to the principle that the majority should not ride roughshod over the rights of the minority, that mutual accommodation is the only way to make a multicultural society work for everyone.

No amount of nuance can change that fundamental truth.

Read more about: