Charter of Secularism...Death Rattle of the Sovereignty Movement

In politics as in life, you never really know how events will play out, but when you embark on a foolish or ill-thought out course of action, it shouldn't be surprising when things blow up in your face.

This week, I watched a news story about a young Quebec couple who sold off everything, quit their jobs in order to set sail with their two young children on a year-long adventure, sailing the Caribbean. Asked by the interviewer if they had enough sailing experience to embark on such an adventure, the couple admitted that they didn't, but they were going to wing it just the same.

How do you think that's going to work out?

As I watched the story, I could not help but worry for the children, victims of idiot and reckless parents.

Such is the Charter of Secularism, a singularly stupid idea brought forward by an idiot and reckless government, with the very real potential of harming individual citizens and wreaking what social harmony we now enjoy.

So it isn't surprising that the wheels are falling off the bus of this latest and most desperate gambit of the sovereignty movement, the so-called Charter of Secularism.

While the rubes in Herouxville applaud the government's attempt to turn Quebec immigrants into poutine/maple syrup/bacon lovers who enjoy the music of Marie-Mai and the humor of Mike Ward, all I can say is...

T'aint gonna happen....

It remains a simple undeniable fact that if you allow for Muslim, Jewish, Sikh or Buddhist immigration, you are going to end up with Muslim, Jewish, Sikh and Buddhist citizens and forcing them to dress up as Santa Claus just won't change that fact.
This is the fantasy of the Charter of Secularism, where the old dictum of getting what you pay for is  suspended in favour of an altered perception of reality, where one hopes that the pizza ordered from Dominos, will actually taste like poutine.

At the onset, the Charter had enough popular support to make it's chances of being passed into law, while not a slam dunk, highly likely.
But of course, the devil is in the details and it hasn't taken long for reality to catch up with fantasy, the cold hard truth a sad reminder that you shouldn't go off sailing with no plan, no experience or technical know-how.

Last week we learned that the Charter of Secularism hasn't a snowball's chance in Hell of passing the most rudimentary constitutional challenge.
Clever La Presse reporter Yves Boisvert, realized that Quebec Justice Minister Bertrand St-Arnaud's strange silence meant that something was rotten in Denmark,
A little digging by the reporter turned up the fact that the PQ government was advised by its own legal department that the proposed law was undeniably unconstitutional.
And so the government sought a favorable opinion, from an outside jurist.
The best they could come up with was an opinion by Henri Brun, a constitutional lawyer who told the government that the case was pleadable, but not much else. He also told them that the chances of success would increase if the law pertained only to government employees in positions of power (police, judges, guards, etc.)

And so the government is proceeding, knowing full well it will lose in court, exactly the path chosen by Camille Laurin who included clause after clause of nonsense in the original Bill 101, full well in the knowledge that the Supreme Court would invalidate the unconstitutional parts, in a cynical, but not unsuccessful manoeuvre to enrage Quebecers against Canada.

But things are unraveling quickly, yesterday a reader (Vincent Beaudry) pointed out a story of intolerance in Quebec city where a Muslim woman was actually physically assaulted in a shopping mall, because of her veil, a perfectly predictable reaction to the targeting of non-Christians of faith. Link{fr}
I warned you that this would happen a while back, it wasn't exactly a bold prediction, the logical extension of a policy of the demonification of Muslims. What is most difficult to accept is that the PQ also understood that these types of reactions were inevitable, but proceeded anyway, willing to roll the dice in a sad attempt to breathe life into the moribund sovereignty movement.

We are now living the theatre of the absurd as highlighted by another story, one that hasn't really made the rounds because it was hidden behind a pay wall in Le Journal de Quebec. Link{fr}
As farcical as Alice in Wonderland or as stupid as the promotion of the non-religious nature of the Crucifix in the National Assembly is the story of a Christian chapel, located directly within a government building  and this for the last twenty years. It seems that public employees of faith can celebrate Mass twice a week without leaving the comfort of the building housing their government office. The chapel is provided by the government rent-free and a Catholic priest ministers to the faithful.
So when all this was revealed one would expect the government to quickly declare that in the new secular Quebec, it would no longer be acceptable to tolerate the chapel.
If you thought that, you would be wrong.
In a illogical leap of faith, the assistant to Bernard Drainville said that the issue is complex and needed to be studied further, as the chapel could be considered a reasonable accommodation and that non-Christians had equal access to the facility.
I kid you not.
I am not even going to get into arguing why this is wrong, I have too much respect for readers who can no doubt draw their own conclusion.
Now readers, do not for a moment conclude that I am advocating that the chapel be removed, I'm just pointing out the absurdity of the utterly incoherent PQ position.

Last Thursday, the head of the Bloc Quebecois kicked out Bloc MP Maria Mourani from caucus because she spoke out harshly against the Charter. It was a singularly stupid move, one that everybody on the Charter side recognized as a supremely clumsy,  self inflicted wound with the direst of consequences.
After all, if the PQ cannot convince one of the most ardent separatists from the ethnic community of the worth of the Charter, how on Earth will they convince ordinary ethnics to come along for the ride?

I've no sympathy for Madame Marouni, a useful idiot extraordinaire who has tried, mostly in vain, to get Ethnics to ignore the ethnocentric nature of the sovereignty movement .
Maria Mourani is was as militant a separatist as they come, she was a founding member of the Mouvement Montréal français and was named as Patriot of the year by none other than the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal.
I wonder if she will be asked to return the award like Lance Armstrong who was forced to return his Olympic medals because of doping. Surely Madame Mourani has heaped a commensurate measure of humiliation upon the movement.

Mouroni, a maronite Christian from Lebanon gave an impassioned news conference on Friday denouncing the wedge politics of the PQ and then headed off to a mini-debate with none other than Louise Beaudoin on Radio Canada.

I make mention of the debate because Madame Beaudoin gave a hilarious performance where she actually lost her composure screaming at Mouroni that in order to be included as one of the family, the hijab had to go. Beaudoin became so enraged that the moderator had to grab her arm, in order to calm her down. This surreal exchange can be seen here, the good part taking place at the 5:00 minute mark. Watch the video

It occurred to me while watching the video that people like Beaudoin and Drainville are clueless as to what makes up the beliefs of people of faith.
To them, suspending one's religious commitment for a few hours a day is a reasonable and viable solution.
For an atheist it makes perfect sense, for a person of faith it is beyond the pale.

Should the law ever come to pass whereby teachers, nurses and doctors are subject to the removal of religious head wear, (it will never happen) there will be no doubt those who comply.
But make no mistake about it, there will be thousands who won't.
For them, commitment to religious principles trumps all and there isn't a chance in heck that they will conform, regardless of the repercussions.

I give as an example the great Los Angeles Dodger pitcher, Sandy Koufax, a three time MVP  and the author of an amazing four no hitters.
In 1965, the first game of the World Series fell on Yom Kippour, the holiest day of the year for Jews.  As the star of the team Koufax was slated to pitch but declined on religious grounds, despite the fact that he he wasn't particularly religious.
But to play on Yom Kippour would send a message to the Jewish community that he wasn't prepared to do. Read a stirring account.

"The Dodgers lost that game 8-2. Future Hall-of-Famer Don Drysdale, who started in Koufax's place, gave up seven runs in the first three innings. It is rumored that when Dodger manager Walter Alston headed out to the mound to take Drysdale out of the game he said, "I know, Skip. Right now you wish I was Jewish, too."
The rest of the story is that Koufax returned to start three of the remaining six games and was named the Series MVP after pitching a shutout in the deciding Game 7." Another link

It is perhaps, beyond the ability of Beaudoin, Marois and Drainville to understand religious commitment, for many Quebecers, faith cannot be suspended, put on or taken off, as a coat.

There are thousands of Sandy Koufaxs in Quebec, people who will never comply with the anti-religious edict, damn the torpedoes.
What will happen when a teacher shows up to class with a hijab in defiance of the  law? Will she be dragged out of the class?
How about a doctor or nurse who shows up to an emergency room shift in illegal attire?  Will they be refused the right to work and will patients be deprived of medical attention?
The truth is that those with options will leave rather than knuckle under and the sad reality is that the most talented are the ones who have the most options.
Will Quebec be better off and can we really afford to lose so many of our productive citizens or will the familiar Quebec refrain of "We don't need no stinkin' doctors/nurse/teachers be struck up once again?

In all of this I am convinced that the Charter of Secularism is the death rattle of the sovereignty movement, a last ditch effort to to play the ethnocentric card, because all else has failed.

It will not work.

Sovereignty has been dead for a long time, dumping on people of faith inside the ethnic community has washed away any chance of support the movement had outside White/Catholic/Francophones.

Die hard separatists, those who are open and truly inclusive (there are many) must be saddened that the ethnocentric caricature of the separatist movement as painted by opponents has turned out to true.

Separatism is not about building a French nation comprised of different elements, it is about exclusion of any and all who will not conform to the separatist ideal.

Sad, desperate and singularly illegal and unenforceable, that is the Charter of Secularism, another PQ masterpiece of failure.