Great article by Amira Elghawaby on the new law passed in QC strongly impacting the rights of religious freedom. Indeed, polls show higher support among rural Quebec for the charter even as critics, including constitutional experts, decry it as discriminatory and anti-democratic. Are they not aware of how desperately Quebec needs to employ its immigrants, and attract new ones? Or does that matter little to those who simply want to pretend the province will never change, remaining a forced and static bastion of French culture and identity; a shared dream that negates the role and presence of the First Nations to begin with, and those minorities who came later? As one young aboriginal activist told me, everything about their culture is sacred — religious. So would an aboriginal be able to come to work wearing a medicine pouch, or any other spiritual symbol? Not under this proposed charter. How ironic then that the original inhabitants of the province would be prevented from expressing who they are in its public institutions. But then again, to fully recognize the “other” would mean acknowledging a reality at odds with the PQ government’s narrative — a narrative that strikes at the very core of our collective identity and at the truth of our country’s history. thestar/opinion/commentary/2013/09/03/the_other_has_no_place_in_pqs_charter_of_values.html
Posted on: Thu, 12 Sep 2013 16:43:56 +0000