Quebec Calls Hijab and Kippah Signs of Oppression

Minister "Kippahs and hijabs are incompatible in Quebec"

The newly elected CAQ government is ramming ahead with its attack on religion Islam like a bull in a china shop, with contradictory and incoherent pronouncements and policy objectives making little sense other than to satisfy the bloodlust of voters who want to bloody the nose of Muslim women who dare wear the infamous hijab in Quebec, contrary to current Quebec feminist dogma that brands it evil.

The CAQ government is bound and determined to make good on election promises to come down hard on Muslim women wearing a hijab, something that irks Quebec feminists to no end.

"Quebec's new minister responsible for the status of women says the Muslim hijab is a symbol of oppression.
Speaking to reporters after being named to the portfolio Tuesday, Isabelle Charest said the Muslim head scarf does not correspond to her values and is not a way for women to flourish in society.
She said women should not wear the garment. She objects to it because it represents a command for women to cover themselves, she said."

The next day the minister walked back the statement slightly, saying she respected the right of women to wear what they want but went even further insisting that all overt religious symbols, including the kippah, were symbols of oppression.

"She also expanded her criticism formulated the day before. According to her, any clothing imposed by a religious belief is a form of oppression, including the Jewish kippah." Link{fr}

Now, this is a profound change from the Quebec feminist position that Muslim women are oppressed because of the hijab, niqab, or whatever head-covering which supposedly is imposed upon them by men and therefore incompatible with Quebec values of equality.
She is now saying that men who don a kippah or turban because of their religious beliefs have values that are incompatible with modern Quebec society as well.

It was probably a weak attempt to throw other religions under the bus so that Muslim women wouldn't seem to be the only ones targeted, but the implications are staggering.

She is, in fact, saying that anyone who is religiously orthodox and wears symbols of that orthodoxy hold values that are incompatible with Quebec values!
Wow!

Now  Premier Legault came to her defence telling reporters that her opinion was personal and that he wasn't going to censure ministers from offering personal opinions.
The French media fawned over the Premier's response as well as the minister's original pronouncement telling viewers and listeners that it was a good thing for ministers to tell the public what they really believe.

This, of course, is utter bullshit and runs contrary to Parliamentary tradition where party members, especially ministers must toe the party line in public. The truth is that Legault and the CAQ absolutely hold that same belief in private.

As for the media, especially TV host Mario Dumont who was pleased as punch over the pronouncement and fully supported the policy that ministers could offer personal opinions that may or may not differ from the official party line without consequence.

I wonder how Mr. Dumont would react if the then Heritage minister Mélanie Joly told a group of reporters that Radio-Canada, the French division of the CBC was over-funded as compared to the English side (which it is is.)

If Prime Minister Trudeau defended her saying that she was just expressing a personal opinion, would Mr. Dumont applaud her candour or would he be demanding her resignation in abject fury along with the rest of the French media cabal?

What say you, readers?

At any rate the Premier is talking a big game in the anti-Muslim push, but is, in reality, treading carefully lest he land on the third rail, that is attacking Jews who have powerful allies in the rest of the country and especially the USA and who are not averse to using their massive financial and political clout to punish those who tread on them.

Removing religious symbols from public schools affects the head-covered Muslim women only, you won't find many male Jewish teachers in the public system, especially those few who wear a kippah.

But not so in the private Jewish day schools which are in part funded by the government where women and men do wear religiously prescribed clothing, especially kippahs. Over half of  Quebec's school-age Jews attend these schools, so it isn't insignificant. In ultra-orthodox religious Jewish schools run by the Lubavitch sect of Judaism, male teachers and administrators wear kippahs. But what the general public readily doesn't know is that married women teachers wear wigs for exactly the same reason Muslim women wear hijabs.

All these situations have been strategically left off the table by the CAQ. As I said there is the third rail there and so Legault has tactically decided to omit these schools from any law prohibiting religious dress, a coward's way out of a difficult situation where the law will apply unequally to all.

At any rate, like the tax on Netflix which made huge waves in Quebec, it is a story which is, in Shakespeare's inimitable words...Much ado about nothing.

The Quebec government doesn't even know how many teachers in the public system wear hijabs and were roundly attacked by the Liberal opposition for asking school boards for numbers. Many school boards refused to offer numbers, the idea repugnant.
But it turns out that the Liberals were two-faced in their opposition because it turns out that when in government they asked school administrators directly how many women wore the hijab, which incidentally turns out to be precious few.
As for the police, the Surete du Quebec reported zero of its police officers wear hijabs and there are currently no hijab-clad judges sitting in court.

As I said before the only effect of the law will be to legitimize harassment of hijab-clad Muslim women in public, open season for yahoos with grade school education to verbally attack women going about their daily routine.

When the shit hits the fan and the stories of attacks on Muslim women make the news, no hand-wringing by politicians should be tolerated, with the blame for what will be squarely upon those who made political hay out of abuse.

And by the way, it remains to be seen if the proposed law will pass the "Oakes" test whereby the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the Charter Rights can only be curtailed if those limitations are sufficiently important.

• First, the measures adopted must be carefully designed to achieve the objective in question. They must not be arbitrary, unfair or based on irrational considerations. In short, they must be rationally connected to the objective;
• Second, the means, even if rationally connected to the objective in this first sense, should impair "as little as possible" the right or freedom in question;
• Third, there must be a proportionality between the effects of the measures which are responsible for limiting the Charter right or freedom, and the objective which has been identified as of "sufficient importance".

Not sure it can pass the sniff test.