What's the difference between a hijab, a niqab and a burqa? If you're a woman working in any part of Québec's public sector, the answer is: none whatever. When you go to work, leave your religious headgear at home.
So says the Charter of Québec Values, introduced today by the separatist government of La Belle Province. Also verboten -- oops, défendu -- are yarmulkes, turbans and kirpans. The special underpants that religious Sikh men wear are OK, because they are not "overt religious symbols". By the same token, Christians can wear a small cross or crucifix, but not a large one. Small earrings and finger rings are OK too.
Ever since the gist of the proposed legislation leaked out earlier this summer, those who celebrate diversity and promote multiculturalism have been whining that the Charter is an attack on religious minorities, discriminatory, and (of course) racist. Their argument was helped by remarks made last week by Premier Pauline Marois, who said multicult was responsible for "bomb-throwing" in England, and that the wearing of the hijab/niqab/burqa by Muslim women is an act of submission.
Mme Marois kept quiet over the weekend, handing le micro over to one of her predecessors, Bernard Landry. Appearing on Global TV's West Block, M Landry said flatly -- in English -- that Québec is not a multicultural society, and doesn't want to be one! Multicult, he said, was imposed on Québec, which continues to reject the idea to this day.
“You [the rest of Canada] like multiculturalism, go on,” M Landry continued. “My prediction is that within some years you will regret that attitude, but it’s your problem.” Wow! The ghosts of Charles DeGaulle and Enoch Powell could be heard applauding.
Poor Len Canayen wants to explain something to all the champions of multiculturalism and human rights industry types. The Charter of Québec Values is not about promoting Christianity and/or putting down non-Christian minority religions. The politics of the Parti Québecois is and has always been secularist.
The PQ was born out of Québec's "Quiet Revolution" of the 1960s, which slammed the door hard on the values and teachings of Holy Mother Church, which had long dominated the Québec society. The PQ is by nature leftist and "rationalist", the antithesis of the conservative Union Nationale and Libéral parties it displaced. The values which its proposed Charter enshrines are not those of true liberalism -- such as freedom of religion -- but those of secular humanism, man-centred, not God-centred.
Religious Québecois should, according to the principles of the Faith, oppose the new Charter. But the religious -- Christians or otherwise -- may, sadly, be in the minority. The proposed legislation is a clear winner in public opinion polls, being supported by those who feel, like Bernard Landry, that the waves of immigrants coming into the province must be "managed" and made to accommodate themselves to mainstream Québec society, rather than the other way around.
That is the real intent of the Charter. It has huge support from Québecois of all parties because they think that they will no longer have to look at legions of people walking down the Main attired in veils, turbans and funny hats. And that may be right, but not because the Muslims, Sikhs and Jews will conform, but because they will head west to the city where multicult is king, namely Toronto. Kathleen Wynne's Liberal government is already planning to widen the 401.
Further reading: "Multiculturalism: a failed experiment?"
"'I told you this would happen!': Enoch Powell"
"Charles De Gaulle warns about Muslim immigration"
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