Quebec's Proposed Charter of Hate

Bernard Drainville -Religious intolerance personified

It isn't a new manoeuvre, governments in trouble have for centuries used the strategy of targeting minority groups as a scapegoat to deflect attention and responsibility for running an incompetent or racist state.

"QMI Agency has learned the Parti Quebecois government plans to amend the Quebec charter of rights and freedoms and ban most religious signs and symbols from public institutions such as daycare centres, public schools, hospitals, clinics, and other government buildings.
Visible crosses, yarmulkes, hijabs, niqabs, burkas and turbans would all be banned.
According to sources close to the government, all health workers, public school teachers and public daycare workers would have to leave their religious symbols at home when they go to work." Read the rest of the story

And so the PQ is going down that very same road, hoping to save themselves at the expense of some of its most vulnerable citizens.
The first part of the plan has already borne fruit, that is convincing the public that there is a problem, one that needs fixing.

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and hence clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.-  H.L. Mencken

 Sadly, when governments promote fear and hate, they find a receptive audience, such is the frailty of our human nature to blame others for our personal or societal problems, real or imagined.

Mr. Drainville, the chief PQ architect of the Charter, tells us proudly that he is exercising the will of the people.
It isn't surprising that a majority of Quebecers actually support this new Charter of Hate, they have given in to the ignorance and fear, egged on by selfish, manipulative fools who don't understand the evil they will unleash.

This has always been the PQ's specialty, frightening the public with horror stories and claims of impending doom. But in targeting minorities, Drainville has channelled the xenophobic nature of Quebec's insular and exclusive society, where the only immigrants that are to be tolerated are ones that don't speak English, act too foreign or religious.

The real problem with the Charter of Hate is that it serves as a blueprint for all of society, not just the interaction in hospitals, schools and government.

The PQ government's message is clear, it opposes all things religious, and the logical result is that this attitude will spill over into the private sector where religious intolerance will become acceptable.

Long ago I recounted an incident that I witnessed in Canadian Tire in St. Laurent, where a seventy-something francophone woman decided to browbeat a teenage cashier for wearing the Hijab.
She told the young lady in no uncertain terms, who was actually quite stylishly dressed, that she was a disgrace, a religious slave and a fool, unable to think for herself.
The poor girl was brought to tears and the manager had to come out and replace her.

This readers, is our future, that type of incident will multiply and spread as the people are encouraged by the government to hate.

Yet on an interestingly note, the law is already designed with enough loopholes to sail a crucifix through, all in a cynical effort to protect Christian signs, symbols and patrimony.
As for the Jewish General Hospital, the PQ has promised an exemption. The question is, why?

The answer is simple, the Charter of Hate is aimed at but one group, Muslims, a minority group that is roundly feared and despised by xenophobic Quebecers, who are collectively afraid that they will be over-run in the long term..
Including all religions in the Charter of Hate, is just window dressing, that is why there will be exemptions for Jews and Christians..

It's all too transparent, a faltering government targeting its least popular element, to deflect attention and somehow win a reprieve.
It remains to be seen who in the National Assembly will actually stand up and salute this monstrous assault on personal freedom.
I'm not confident.

And so gentle readers, whether you are for or against the principle of removing religious symbols from 'public' life in Quebec, understand that the consequences goes far beyond that of removing a hijab at the license bureau or a kippah in the hospital.

We've seen it with Bill 101 where citizens are assaulted by other citizens for speaking English, why should this be different?


P.S.
If religious regalia is to be banned in public institutions, how about political messages?

Or union messages, here the Montreal police union have added a  message on the backs of their vests complaining about their three day week  being taken away.

Should people be banned from wearing a Rainbow, Lady Gaga, or Justin Beiber T-shirts to cegep?

Just what is offensive... that is the question.

I imagine the day that this t-shirt will also become illegal in Quebec, promoting unhealthy attitudes.... IT CAN HAPPEN!

For those who have French, here's an interesting take written by Charles Taylor in the Journal de Montreal  absolutely  pillorying the potential law, entitled :  Charles Taylor fait un parallèle avec la Russie de Vladimir Poutine 
Mr Taylor savages the PQ government, comparing it to that of Vladimir Putin, who recently enacted anti-gay legislation in Russia.

Of particular interest are the comment s under the story.