Montreal City Weblog

Kate 09:03 on 2019-10-09 Permalink Reply  

• Meezly 09:25 on 2019-10-09 Permalink

  This! Thank for sharing that.

• Kevin 09:32 on 2019-10-09 Permalink

  Francois Legault said last week that Bill 21 is a violation of the Charter of Rights.

• Chris 10:47 on 2019-10-09 Permalink

  I was going to say Raj’s use of the word “discriminatory” should be uncontroversial, since “to discriminate” merely means to “recognize a distinction; differentiate”.

  But then again, the OED describes “discriminatory” as “making or showing an unfair or prejudicial distinction between different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex.” We discriminate by age a lot. If you’re 17.9 you can’t buy beer, but if you’re 18.1 you can. That’s making a distinction by age. But is it unfair or prejudicial? Most would say not. Is Law 21 unfair or prejudicial? That’s a value judgment. So indeed categorizing it as “discriminatory” is perhaps a phrasing an unbiased journalist should not use.

  I’ll also note that the 3 specific instances the OED gives (race, age, or sex) are things that are unchoosable and immutable. Religion is not such a thing. Discriminating based on something someone has no control over is a whole different level than discriminating based on something someone chooses or thinks. Certainly both can be wrong, but the former much more so. People conflate these a lot.

• Kate 11:14 on 2019-10-09 Permalink

  Chris, you do hammer on the idea that religion is a purely free individual choice. For many people it is not. It’s part of who they are as individuals and as members of a culture and a community.

• Michael Black 11:25 on 2019-10-09 Permalink

  But that’s where the concept of a “gay gene” comes in. One group is against homosexuality, and bases it on “it’s a choice” even though nobody fusses over what type of ice cream someone likes. So a big search for something to explain why it’s not a choice. It”s far simpler to challenge the concept that discrimination is okay.

  You’re again diminishing people’s connection to religion. For many people, it comes early, hence can’t be a choice, But once you treat it as a “mere choice” it allows you to dismiss religion, without regard for the people who are religious.

  “Let’s cut off those heathens’ hair” said the Europeans, and endless trauma resulted, the results still affecting many people. Long hair on the cousins may be “a choice” but that doesn’t make it okay to do so.

  Age discrimination may be similar, but generally there is some real basis, either to protect someone too young, or protect people from someone whose faculties may not be so fast. Banning religious symbols is discrimination since it targets specific types, and at best the excuse is that it’s being done “for their own good” as if they were children and need adult supervision.

  Arguing semantics is in this case just a means of making the discrimination acceptable.
  One way to challenge the bill is to vote NDP, since having Jagmeet Singh as prime minister would hopefully make people think about how they see people who “are different” and might outrage some to show their discrimination. His comments moments after Trudeau’s blackface photo makes Jagmeet Singh a good leader in this regard. There is no difference between my Metis great, great grandmother Henrietta feeling the results of discrimination and how someone black or native or wearing a hijab or other religious symbol feels the discrimination against themselves.

  Michael

• Tim S. 11:37 on 2019-10-09 Permalink

  This is going to sound more relativistic than I like, but it’s also not really a choice if you happen to think it’s true – did you choose to be an atheist, Chris, or is it a position that best accords with the facts as you see them?
  Personally, I would say that the Bill is discriminatory because it doesn’t target religion as such – it’s not asking civil servants to sign a declaration that they hold no religious beliefs (though I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s next). Rather, it discriminates between religions which have symbolic clothing as part of their beliefs, and those that don’t.

• Kevin 14:03 on 2019-10-09 Permalink

  @Chris

  Legally we are not bound by the dictionary: we are bound by the Charter, which states that it is illegal and unlawful to discriminate against religion.

  Article 2.
  Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
  (a) freedom of conscience and religion;

  (b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;

  (c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and

  (d) freedom of association.

  Someone could attempt to argue that banning religious symbols is a “reasonable limit” that could be “demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society”, as allowed by Article 1, but that’s a very, very steep bar to hurdle, one that nobody in our provincial government has even tried to leap.

  Now the CAQ has taken it upon themselves to alter the Quebec Charter of human rights, deciding to add “Whereas the Québec nation considers State laicity to be of fundamental importance;” to the preamble in order to justify Bill 21, since even the Quebec Charter contends in Article 1.3 that
  Every person is the possessor of the fundamental freedoms, including freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, freedom of opinion, freedom of expression, freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association.

  But that opens up a whole can of worms about how a province that is ostensibly secular has so many churches, state funerals in churches, and places and streets named after saints.

• jeather 14:35 on 2019-10-09 Permalink

  Schools named after saints! If you can’t wear a hijab in a school, it shouldn’t be allowed to be named after religion either.

  I don’t really object to state funerals held in churches for people who deserve a state funeral but were also religious, though of course this is rank hypocrisy if you are okay with this and also Bill 21.

• Michael Black 15:06 on 2019-10-09 Permalink

  I shouldn’t post this, but I will. The CBC has a story about a shofar that was in Auschwitz, which apparently gave some hope. And when the prisoners were marched out, someone who was too ill gave it to the man who kept it until the camp he was marched to was liberated.

  It’s a sad story that makes me cry. But also a reminded of a time when a religion was discriminated against, to the fullest extent, and when people still wouldn’t deny their religion. Yes, some children were sent away to hide as Catholic or Protestant, but that wasn’t a denial of religion, it was an attempt to keep their children safe.

  It doesn’t work. Discrimination against religjon tends to make people resist, so it doesn’t go away. I think I’ve said it before, my friend Rusty says he doesn’t believe in religion, but he won’t deny his Jewishness, in part because of what happened in WWII. I would rather be classified as Jewish than see such things happen again, and I’d hope I had the strength to stand up to such forces.

  Again, similar things happened to the distant cousins, that desire to erase them because they were different. I can find a quote from Sitting Bull where he says be knew James Ross, Henrietta’s brother. Louis Riel, who is distantly related by marriage (but in Red River enough interaction that the distance seems less) of course stood up to Canada. And distant cousins are on the Colville reservation in Washington state, where Chief Joseph went after he said he’d fight no more forever (and I think I have relatives related to him). Three of the most visible instances of native resistance intersect with my family. It’s not an exception, it’s an understanding of the harm done with discrimination.

  I don’t care if people don’t believe in religion, I really don’t. But that’s not a reason to dismiss those who do believe.

  Michael

• Meezly 15:52 on 2019-10-09 Permalink

  As an atheist and secular person who does not care for institutionalized religion, I also understand that religion is a human trait and recognize that people have a right to their own beliefs and to practice their religion free from hostility and intolerance in our society. One of the reasons is that religion is so closely intertwined with culture.

  What I don’t understand is the nit-picking from those who seem to feign objectivity of this so-called law, but ultimately do not contribute to any constructive discussion of BILL 21. I feel that they have not experienced any real discrimination in their lives.

• Jack 19:48 on 2019-10-09 Permalink

  Montpetit tweet was inspired what he read in the Journal. In QEB radio Richard Martineau balado is entitled,
  “Je suis sur le bord de repartir le FLQ”. One of the things that people need to realize is the dominant message in Quebecs franco media is populist and dangerous. Bill 21 is what they have given birth to, more is coming.

• Chris 13:19 on 2019-10-10 Permalink

  Kate, it’s not binary. Do you not agree that religion is more of a “free individual choice” than skin colour? I personally know numerous people that have switched from religious to irreligious, don’t you? Know anyone that has changed skin colour? Changed race? It is a pet peeve of mine I guess. People often treat religious belief like it’s totally unchangeable.

  Michael, yes, for many people, religion comes early, so indeed it’s not a choice at first. But eventually children develop the mental capacity to decide to continue to believe or not, that’s when the choice starts.

  Kevin, yes, someone (not me) could argue it’s a “reasonable limit”. The European Court of Human Rights for example has upheld full face veil bans in public. Something much harsher than 21.

  Anyway, I wasn’t trying to argue that I personally do or don’t think 21 is discriminatory or not, I was saying that a journalist trying to be unbiased shouldn’t presuppose it.

• Kevin 13:57 on 2019-10-10 Permalink

  @Chris
  If Bill 21 put people who wear religious symbols in an internment camp nobody would deny it was discriminatory.

  The discrimination of Bill 21 is self-evident in that it prevents people from certain religions from working in certain jobs.

  The hypocrisy is that the legislation specifically does not affect the religious belief that is shared by the majority of Quebecers.