No Exceptions

Order and rationality require consistency. Accommodation toward others is a nicety we extend as decent human beings. On the other hand, those who insist that it is their prerogative to bypass social conventions, the political contract and engagement with the entire society as equals accepting the prevailing values because of exceptionalism in religious devotion and custom have not quite understood their obligations toward that society.

And this is not the fault of immigrants who have arrived in Canada, viewing it as a place of opportunity and personal advancement, a refuge and a haven where they may feel comfortable in transporting all of their heritage and customs and religious paraphernalia and maintain themselves in isolation from the larger community. They are encouraged officially to this point of view.

For, in fact, they are merely viewing their place in the country through the lens of official multiculturalism; a social device installed by law and by custom in a rather paternalistic, short-view attempt to make all of Canada's immigrants feel included. They were to feel included as valuable participants in society by encouraging them to exclude themselves. In their own enclaves where ethnicity, language and custom prevailed.

Discouraging integration most effectively.

Encouraging in large part the natural enough need for new immigrants to feel they need not relinquish customs they would prefer to retain, customs that would otherwise be looked at askance as bizarre accouterments that embellished religious or cultural belief. Discouraged in large part from expectations that the social customs of the host country would become their own in good time.

In the interests of gender equality, Canadians have discussed the feasibility of banning women's face coverings. Useful as well, in encouraging women accustomed to fading into non-notice with veils, that social interaction is best relaxed in a free society. And now the Quebec National Assembly has determined that the ceremonial Sikh kirpan is to be forbidden entry to the provincial legislature.

Effectively overturning provisions for acceptance incorporating it and Sikh turbans in RCMP uniforms, in permitting Sikh MPs entry to Parliament with their religious artefacts, and Sikh boys to wear their wrapped, concealed daggers at school. As Pauline Marois of the Partis Quebecois archly noted, multiculturalism is a Canadian, not a Quebec value. She is wrong of course, because Quebec is still part of Canada.

On the one hand it seems unfair to deny these freedoms of religious and custom to prevail. On the other, it is unfair to single out one religion only to impose restrictions upon. Yet it is only those cultural or religious customs that impinge deleteriously on society - or are perceived to - that are being rejected as having no place in Canadian society.

In seeking to oppose Quebec's Bill 94 which would ban wearing of Islamic face coverings in the receipt of or dispensing of government services fearing its passage would impact on them, the Sikh delegation brought attention to their own religious/cultural accoutrements and the result was unexpected.

The thing of it is that such symbolic wear as face coverings and ceremonial kirpans may be construed as having the potential for social harm; one psychological the other physical.

What then of other symbols of religion, such as wearing a cross or a Star of David? They do no harm to anyone other than offend intolerant sensibilities. It is when the users of these special religious-based or culture-based objects impinge on the social fabric, as when someone of one faith requests special dispensation for services in a manner that reflects their values that the line is drawn.

Of course Quebec was originally a religious society of majority Roman Catholic devotion. It is no longer so, with the population having become far more secular than religious in outlook. But Christianity remains the heritage religion of the province. And although in Canada there is a separation between Church and State, the province takes pride in its heritage, and symbols of Roman Catholic heritage remain respected in public buildings.

The argument for the removal of official multiculturalism having the effect of drawing all people into a larger, more inclusive circle of shared values and mores is one long past serious attention. Maintaining official multiculturalism is insulting to the very concept of Canadian citizenship. If specific ethnic or religious or cultural groups want to maintain and retain vestiges of their place of origin it can be done casually or intensively, but not at the cost of bypassing Canadian identity.

Multiculturalism, as a PQ MNA originally from Cameroon, Mako Kotto, described it: is a source of "ignorance, solitude and division".

In the final analysis it is a question of respect, and while respect traditionally has gone to immigrants from the majority population, there has been a lack of respect emanating from the immigrant population toward the prevailing social mores and customs of Canada under multiculturalism. It was not always so, before the advent of multiculturalism.