"Naema's Law" to Open Floodgates of Intolerence

Bill 94, Quebec's proposed law banning the niqab and burka from government and para-public institutions, including schools and hospitals, will likely be referred to as  "NAEMA' S LAW," in honour of the young lady, Naema Ahmed, whose extraordinary demands provided the crucial impetus to the government to act on the issue of fundamentalist Islamism and its place in Quebec (and Canada).

While many commentators like Shahina Siddiqui in the Montreal Gazette and Clifford Orwin in the Globe and Mail pan the law based on their view that it is an attack on religious freedom, other liberals chime in that the law is unnecessary in light of the very few woman who actually wear the veil.

On the first point, as to whether the ban is an assault on freedom of religion, there remains fair grounds for debate, but opinion polls show that Canadians across the country are massively in favour of the restriction, rendering the argument moot. 

The second argument, that the law is unnecessary because few actually wear the veil, misses its real point.

Naema's Law is nothing less than a statement that religious fundamentalism that directly attacks the principle of the equality between men and women will not be allowed to be practiced in Quebec, just as is, female genital mutilation or polygamy.


While the law directly affects just a few dozen people, Muslims rightly view the law as a lever, likely to open up a Pandora's box of intolerance.

The public generally take their cues from their elected officials and the niqab bashing by both federal and provincial politicians as well as prominent commentators has added fuel to the fire. The pendulum is swinging dangerously away from the niqab, to outright hostility towards those who wear any type of religious regalia.

Emboldened by NAIMA's actions and the government's reaction, Quebec secularists and Christian heritage defenders have made an unholy alliance (excuse the pun) to attack orthodox non-Christians.


The drive has already started to remove the subsidy to private religious schools and if successful, it will force many orthodox children into public schools where they may be forbidden (unlike in the rest of Canada) to manifest their religious orthodoxy, through dress.  In effect, it will be a case of forced secularization of non-Christians.

A disturbing opinion poll published in the  JOURNAL DE MONTREAL reveals that Francophone Quebeckers attitudes are tilting towards a dangerously indefensible position.

54% of Francophone Quebeckers polled agreed that anyone wearing a religious symbol shouldn't be allowed to work in a hospital or school. This contrasts sharply with the 19% of Anglophones who feel the same way.
 
75% of Quebeckers are against the wearing of a hijab by students in a public school. (and by implication a kippah, turban or kirpan) No numbers were provided for the difference in opinion between Anglophone and Francophones for this question.

Paradoxically, 54% of those polled are in favour of keeping the crucifix hanging on the wall in classrooms in public schools! Again, no numbers were provided for the difference in opinion between groups, but if Francophones alone were considered, the number would very likely shoot up to well over 65% !

54% of Francophones believe that non-Christian immigrants pose a threat to Quebec culture with a contrasting number of 30% in the Anglo community holding the same view.

The results of the poll lay bare the reality that the debate is not really about secularism versus religion, but rather Christianity versus minority orthodox religions, particularly on the Francophone side.

The poll indicates that the majority of Francophones are not secularlists who wish to remove all religion from public life. 
It  indicates that the majority are those who wish to protect their Christian heritage by restricting other orthodox religions from manifesting themselves publicly.

That's a heckova difference!
That is what Naima's Law is going to lay bare.

Quebec Finance Minister Breaks Tradition

As most of those who live in Quebec already know, yesterday was Finance Minister Raymond Bachand's first budget since being assigned to what must be, the most unenviable job in the Quebec government.
The budget itself delivered what was to be expected, increased tuition fees, gas taxes, sales tax and a new poll tax on individuals to help pay for health care. The tax increases were sugar-coated with the promise that the government will cut it's own expenses substantially, but while the tax increases are real, there's little in the historical record of any Quebec government that would indicate that they'll have any success in fulfilling the promise of smaller government.

Interestingly, the Finance Minister broke two traditions that are part of Canadian political lore, the first of which is the wearing of a new pair of shoes to present the budget. Mr. Bachand opted to have an old pair of shoes repaired by a shoemaker, to underline the importance of austerity.
I didn't even know that there's a shoemaker left in Quebec City and I wonder which cabinet minister keeps shoes to the point that they need to be repaired by a cobbler, but no matter, the photo-op was well played.

The second tradition concerning the presentation of the budget, is that secrecy is of utmost importance, as advance knowledge of its contents can be of use, sometimes, in regards to financial markets. The contents of the budget are jealously hidden from outsiders and should the budget leak in any substantial form, the Finance Minister is expected to resign.

Perhaps the most interesting story concerning a budget leak was the case of Federal Liberal Finance Minister Marc Lalonde, who back in 1982 inadvertently allowed a reporter to photograph salient portions of his budget. Instead of facing the music and resigning, he pulled an underhanded move, which I still regard as the most egregious example ever, of disrespect of taxpayer money.
 According to Andrew Coyne in his BLOG;

"To forestall accusations that his deficit forecast of $32.4-billion (or whatever it was) had been leaked (after Lalonde, in a pre-budget photo-op, carelessly let the cameras get too near the document), the minister hastily tacked on $200 million in spending, boosting the deficit to $32.6-billion and allowing him to claim that the correct number had not, in fact, been leaked.

Yesterday, before the Quebec budget was presented, it was leaked, lock, stock and barrel to a Quebec City "Shock Jock," Jeff Fillion, whose acerbic and insulting radio shtick is a genre popularly known in Quebec as Radio "Poubelle" (Garbage.)

Yup, the morning of budget, the JOURNAL DE MONTREAL printed a story which described Mr Fillion's assertion that he had received a complete copy of the budget from an anonymous source.
The paper published Mr. Fillion's version of what was to come and surprisingly, he was dead on, accurately revealing many of the budget's tax increases.

The leak represents the biggest incident of its kind in Canadian history, but so far it seems to be causing not the slightest ripple. The press is preoccupied with the content of the budget, which is provoking slews of wonderful quotes from separatists and labour leaders who complain that tax increases should only be applied to rich people and corporations.

The police have been called in to investigate, so the government has admitted the leak was real.

Surprisingly, Mr. Bachand bucked convention and did not offer to resign as he should have. Even more amazing, is that nobody has called on Mr. Bachand's to do so!

I guess everyone is still numbed that the 38% that the Quebec government takes out of the economy is set to approach 40%, a new North American record!!

And who says Quebec can't be Number 1!

Statistics Can Say Anything- It's a Matter of Perspective

I read a blog entry that touted Quebec's performance at the Vancouver Olympics which asserted that Quebec outperformed the rest of Canada in terms of medal production. The skewed use of data had me scratching my head and so I did a little analysis of my own.....

You might remember a blog entry I wrote about an ex-NHLer who wrote a book 'proving' that Francophones were systematically discriminated against in the NHL. In the book written by Bob Sirois, entitled Le Québec mis en échec (Quebec Body-Checked) the author used a plethora of statistics to prove that Quebeckers are given the short end of the stick and are the subject of an organized conspiracy to keep their NHL numbers low. LINK

Now I never bothered reading the book, because its premise is ludicrous.
As in the entertainment business, sports is one domain where talent wins out. There isn't a general manager in the NHL who is so comfortable in his job that he would hire or draft an Anglophone or European before a superiorly talented Francophone. To believe otherwise is insane.

In a contrasting article written by Louis Fournier, on the nationalist vigel.net, the writer takes the exact opposite view and lists all the Francophones in the NHL, 'proving' that Francophones are overrepresented!
Of course he takes quite a few liberties in discerning who is a Francophone with the most egregious error being his reference to Roberto Luongo as a Francophone-Italo-Quebecker.

Now I know a lot of Montreal Italians and I defy anyone to pretend that they are anything but 99% Anglophones. They refer to themselves as Italian-Canadians, as do the Jews, Greek and the Chinese who live in Quebec.

So statistics can be interpreted with widely differing conclusions and in this spirit I will analyse Mr. Fournier's recent missive entitled  Les athlètes québécois se sont surpassés aux Jeux de Vancouver  (Quebeckers outshone the rest of Canada at the Olympics.)

He starts off by saying that Quebeckers won 28 0f the 90 medals earned by Canadians at the Vancouver games. (This includes all the team medals and individuals medals.) This represents a medal haul of 31% as compared to Quebec's 22% proportion of the population, a good achievement  but not earth-shattering, even if true. At any rate a more detailed look will reveal that this isn't exactly the case and that Mr. Fournier takes the same liberties as he did in his first article.

As I reviewed the list he provides, the first thing that struck me was the over-representation of Anglophones on his list of Quebec winners, who won  6 of the of the 28 medals. With 8.5% of the Quebec population Anglos racked up 28% of the medals!

Again, this is not exactly true, because two of the winners, Clara Hughs and Jenneifer Heil are 'imports' and moved to Quebec for various reasons long after they were successful, but no matter they shall be counted just the same!

By the way, many of the Francophone athletes who medalled are firmly the product of Anglo culture and education system with Marie-Philip Poulin, the star of the gold medal hockey game, currently enrolled in Dawson College and Kim St. Pierre and Charline Labonté both McGill graduates.

If you're going to count as Quebekers, those who moved here, it would be fair to remove from the list those who live outside Quebec on a full time basis. Case in point is Martin Brodeur, the goalie of the New Jersey Devils who actually took out American citizenship just weeks prior to the Olympic games.
If Ryan Miller wasn't clearly the number one goalie for the United States, perhaps we'd have seen Mr. Brodeur sporting a big USA on his jersey! (Remember Tony Espositio?)

Then of course there is Caroline Ouellette who played hockey and was educated at the University of Minnesota and Sarah Vaillancourt who went to Harvard University, not one of your more familiar Francophone schools!

When you remove Marc-Andre Fleury from the equation, because he never actually set foot on the ice, you pretty much find  that Anglos and the Anglophones are responsible for close to half of Quebec's haul.
If you subtract the non-Quebec Quebeckers, Quebec's contribution is just about spot on with what Canada did. (I dare you to make a sentence with three 'Quebecs' in a row!!!)

Anyways, that's what my statistics tell me.

Now before you tell me that my logic is faulty and that I argue opposite points to achieve my preconceived conclusions, that is exactly the point.

When you set out to twist statistics to prove an already formed idea, you are engaging in intellectual fraud and unfortunately most of the 'statistics' and 'facts' that come out of the sovereignty movement are based on these types of  exercises.

It has gotten to the point that when Gilles Duceppe speaks I'm apt to check every fact that he claims and every error of omission that he makes. There's hardly a speech without a factual error or gross misrepresentation or omission. But the faithful eat it up, just the same.

If you didn't have a chance to see the video I prepared of Mario Beaulieu, president of the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montréal, telling one whopper after another, in a speech before a group of ardent separatists watch it HERE.

The problem is that nobody is out there checking the facts, not even the reporters who cover these people and so these people are free to make the most outrageous claims, misrepresentations and errors of omissions.

Dishonesty is the hallmark of the sovereignist movement, starting way back when, with the very first referendum question where the YES camp tried to fool Quebeckers into voting YES by soft-pedalling reality.
In the second referendum the YES side used a campaign poster to intimate that the Loony, would be the currency of an independent Quebec, a concept that was patently false and misleading.

Nothing has changed, the sovereignist campaign still relies on lies and it's strictly a case of smoke and mirrors. The Bloc Quebecois' attacks on Canada and Anglophones are dishonest in any measure. Sadly many Quebeckers believe the lies spun by those who tell them that Canada is an economic and cultural drag on Quebec.
It's comically absurd, but everyday we hear it.

Bloc Quebcois' Sanctimonious Hyprocosy

Two articles concerning the Bloc Quebecois piqued my interest this week and had me shaking my head in disgust.

We have all endured the Bloc Quebecois sanctimonious complaints over greenhouse emissions emanating from Alberta's Oil Tar Sands project, all the while, conveniently ignoring the dollars bills that also flow directly out of the Alberta oil industry and into Quebec's treasury via equalization payments. For the Bloc, that's too many dots to connect or an inconvenient truth and so the relationship between the two elements is pooh-poohed or ignored completely. For the Bloc, the fact that equalization payments from western provinces to Quebec total about 15 billion dollars a year, or about 15% of Quebec's budget is no reason to stop bitching and moaning about Alberta greenhouse gases as long as it plays to a willingly deaf, dumb and blind audience at home.

After being treated to one such anti-Tar Sands lecture from a sovereignist acquaintance of mine, I asked him if his position would be the same if the Tar Sands, happened to be located in Quebec.
He laughed and gave a little smile. "Of course not!"  he said unabashedly. "Politics is always a case of perspective. Positions are always flexible, depending on where you come from" He then went on to say unashamedly that if the Tar Sands were located in Quebec, the province would have been independent many years ago!

And so institutionalized hypocrisy reigns in Quebec's Bloc Quebecois party and while lecturing  other provinces and the Federal government on a wide variety of economic and social issues the Bloc spins along merrily ignoring the very advice it provides to others.

The first case in point is the Bloc's failure to support a motion put forward in Parliamentary committee by NDP MP, Pat Martin last week, who proposed that an annual $250,000 subsidy to an asbestos lobby group be killed.
Now the Conservatives and Liberals voted against the motion, because technically it could have lead to a confidence vote on the House, something both parties don't want to happen just yet.
But the Bloc had no such qualms, if a confidence vote occurred it'd be to the others to prop up the government and to the BQ, it was case of no never mind.

Now I need not remind readers what a foul, dangerous and toxic substance asbestos is, suffice to say, it's use is banned in North America and all over the civilized world. However, that doesn't stop Quebec from shipping out millions of dollars worth of the stuff to third world countries each year, a reprehensible and cynical abrogation of social responsibility, if ever there was.

The Bloc voted against the motion because it is actually a big supporter of asbestos, despite the product being responsible for more deaths than crack cocaine. Asbestos provides thousands of Quebec jobs and so for the Bloc, it means compromising their lofty environmental ideals in the name of expediency.
I wonder what their position would be if the stuff came out of Alberta or Ontario?

In Quebec a new coalition was formed this week to promote the 'safe' use of asbestos and to lobby for continued exports. Of course, the Bloc supports this undertaking and goes along with the fiction that there are safe uses of the product as long as proper procedures are followed. That logic would have us believe that the third world possesses this technology and expertise while we in the Western world do not. Hmmmm.......

According to the  BQ's, newly developed environmental green plan, the Alberta Tar Sands are 'out' while Quebec's asbestos is 'in'. It makes perfect perfect sense....in Quebec!

Nobody in the press seems to bother to call out the party on this ridiculously contradictory position, not even the English press. Perhaps they aren't even paying attention to what the Bloc is saying, which may very well be.

The second item in the news was Mr Duceppe's call on the Quebec government to shelve any idea of raising electrical rates that Quebeckers pay to the provincially owned monopoly, Hydro-Quebec, a rate that is the absolute lowest in North America. While Quebeckers pay just 6.9¢ per kilowatt hour for electricity, Ontarians pay 11.3¢ and New Yorkers 25.2¢. For every penny increase in the rate, Quebec could recoup up to 2 billion dollars a year, so you'd think there would be room to raise prices in order to pay down Quebec's massive debt, but not according to Mr. Duceppe.

Now any increase in Hydro rates would trigger a reduction in those famous equalization payments to the tune of almost 50% and so Mr. Duceppe has no shame in proposing that it is not in Quebec's interest to do anything that would reduce Ottawa's handout. And so he proposes that rates should be left alone and any tax increases should come somewhere else, where equalization is not affected.

Keeping electricity rates artificially low can be considered a scam on the same proportion as the famous "Fishing For Stamps" program run by the Newfoundland government in the 1970's. Back then, fish factories were built with government subsidies so that workers could work the minimum 14 weeks to qualify for federal unemployment insurance.  The factories were uneconomic and operated for a short period of time, just before winter in order to get workers "stamped up," a term derived from the fact that the government issued stamps as proof of employment. At one time it is estimated that up to one third of the Newfoundland work force was using the ruse to bilk Canadians out of billions of dollars of unemployment insurance annually, all with the Newfoundland government's blessing.

Mr. Duceppe's party's open and unashamed call to keep Hydro rates low in order to preserve it's equalization payments is a testament to it's cynical and long-standing policy of sucking out as much money from Canada, while biting the hand that feeds it , all the while  complaining that Quebec is getting less than their fair share.
Oh the hypocrisy!

Crucifix in Parliament is a Large Cross to Bear For Pauline Marois

While everyone was watching the Olympics, Pauline Marois leader of the Parti Quebecois, Quebec's sovereignists opposition party debated Gerald Bouchard (of the famous Bouchard/ Taylor commission) over 'reasonable accommodations' on the popular CBC French language programme "Tout le Monde en Parle"

Madame Marois and her separatist PQ party have been pushing the principle that religion should be removed from government and para-public institutions. This policy was crafted not so much to reflect Quebec's disengagement from the Catholic Church, but rather to put a check on orthodox Muslims, Hassidic Jews and Sikhs whose orthodoxy frightens and annoys most old stock French Quebeckers.

The debate rages on over the principle of 'reasonable accommodations,' a concept wherein exceptions are made in public policy to accommodate people on the basis of religious convictions.

An example of a religious accommodation is a patient asking that she be seen by a female doctor, for modesty purposes. Another accommodation is to allow the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal, a public institution to continue to serve Kosher food only.

Some accommodations are tiny, some are big, but most Quebeckers are tired of them all and in opinion poll after opinion poll, hold by a large majority that no religious accommodations should be tolerated at all.

The issue cuts across political lines, with the most radical sovereignist part,  Quebec Solidaire,  solidly in favour of allowing accommodations, while The Parti Quebecois  proposes that no religious dress or signs be worn by employees in court, government offices, schools or para-public facilities in general. This means that no niqabs, hijabs, kippas, turbans or large or ostentatious crosses would be allowed.

While this position appears fair and seemingly impacts all religions equally, it's clear that the proposal targets Muslims who are just about the only religious minority that works for the government in any numbers. (You're never going to get served by a Hassid at the license bureau!) This  'fair' proposal was attacked by Mr. Bouchard on the television show and Pauline Marois did some neat tap dancing to explain that while the province should project a religiously neutral face, Christian symbols and customs should be maintained.

Crucifix in Quebec Parliament

Mr. Bouchard asked Ms. Marois that if her policy was to be put in force, whether the Crucifix that sits over the Speakers chair in the Quebec Parliament would have to come down to reflect this new secularism.

Errrr. Noooo, because..err.....well.....you see..... uhmmm.......

"Because it is part of Quebec Heritage!" The Crucifix.... it should stay. It is part of Quebec's history which shouldn't be erased!" She finally blurted out.

And so a new policy is born.
Christian symbols are no longer necessarily Christian, when they are part of Quebec's heritage

Serge Charbonneau reminds us in a piece on vigile.net that the Crucifix was installed by  the Premier of Quebec Maurice Duplessis back in 1936;

"The crucifix was introduced by Duplessis to affirm that the leadership of the Quebec government  was "guided" by the hand of God himself through his humble disciple."

So much for the Crucifix not being a religious symbol.

By the way the Jewish General Hospital, built  by the Jewish community, opened it's doors in 1934 and always served kosher food. Do you think that Madame Marois would also consider this a part of Quebec heritage that should be maintained? Not likely.

During the Bouchard/Taylor Commission, the Jewish General Hospital was a popular target of so-called secularists, who even objected to the name. The fact that almost every large city Quebec has a "Hotel Dieu" or "Notre Dame" hospital is beside the point, those names represent Quebec heritage, according to the PQ.

The position of the Parti Quebecois remains laughably hypocritical.

Crucifix over Mont-Royal

Referring to Quebec 'heritage'  to justify a policy of supporting Christian symbols is a clumsy cop-out to maintain the status quo, while barring the public display of other religions, traditions and culture.

 And so in the new secular Quebec, no religion will be favoured except that the 15,000 place names based on the Christian bible will remain. We can continue to live on Saint Andre Street, on Jesus Island, near the Saint Lawrence River. The celebration of Christian holidays as the only officially paid religious holidays will remain. Crucifixes in public buildings, including schools, hospitals and government offices will remain and  Christian prayers may be recited before town council meetings.

And of course no religion will be favoured over another, at least not officially, according to Madame Marois....