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OTTAWA – The Bloc Quebecois has kicked out a Montreal MP from its caucus after she publicly criticized the Quebec government’s proposed Charter of Values.

Leader Daniel Paille, who doesn’t have a seat of his own in the House of Commons, said he was forced to remove, Maria Mourani, the first woman of Lebanese origin elected to the House of Commons, from caucus because she refused to retract comments that the charter was part of an electoral strategy based on ethnic nationalism.

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[np_storybar title=”Andrew Coyne: Far from certain Quebecers will side with PQ on values charter” link=”http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/09/11/andrew-coyne-far-from-certain-quebecers-will-side-with-pq-on-values-charter/”]

It is the details that clarify. So long as the debate remained shrouded in generalities like “reasonable accommodation” or “secularism” — or, to use the Parti Québécois’ preferred euphemism, “Quebec’s values” — it was possible for people of goodwill to persuade themselves that nothing unusual was going on. Earnest graduate students could still be found to explain how what might appear to be a crude swipe at religious minorities was in fact reflective of a different, distinctly French approach to secularism.