Minority Accommodation

"All Canadians understand that francophone Quebeckers feel themselves under threat as a linguistic minority in an English-speaking continent. But the levels of xenophobia we see in these findings, especially in rural Quebec, are truly troubling."
Lorne Bozinoff, Forum Research president

On the other hand, support for the provincial Liberals has leaped to 42%, an increase of over ten points since the 2012 election when voters slapped the Liberals hard for its unpopularity and brought back the ever-restive-separatist Parti Quebecois to government. If an election were to be held this week those gains would translate into a "hair thin" majority, according to a Forum Research poll conducted for the National Post.

The proposed new values charter has dropped slightly in popularity among Quebecers. No doubt a reflection of how they perceive the rest of Canada and indeed those minorities living in Quebec have responded to the proposal to be made into law that would forbid public servants wearing visible displays of religious devotion like a turban, a skullcap or a hijab. The former two thrown in for 'equal treatment'; the latter the target.

Yarmulkes and turbans, in fact, seem relatively inoffensive. Whereas women wearing head coverings required by custom and tradition to remind them that they must be modest in their bearing and wearing burqas, niqabs and hijabs aid to deflect male attention from their womanly attributes, brands those women as being victims of inequality. An offence in a secular society such as Canada's which lauds its equality under the law provisions of a just society.

Support fo9r the Parti Quebecois sits at 35%. It is highly, hugely unlikely that the minority government's wish to enact cultural discrimination as it now sits in the proposed charter will ever pass into law. Were it to seem close to succeeding, Quebeckers seem fairly well aware that they would be chastised internationally and that the federal government would override any such laws that run counter to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The prohibition of public servants wearing overt religious symbols or clothing has a 45% approval rating in Quebec. Some 32% of Quebeckers responding to the poll agree the proposal should be extended to the private sector, not just government workers. Among respondents 43% agreed that encountering people in service wearing a turban, hijab or yarmulke evokes discomfort in them.

Europe, with a far greater number of Muslim immigrants in the multiples of millions, has encountered a situation that appears to culturally overwhelm the receiving culture and its traditions. In some ways that situation has become threatening and anti-social in its nature. And Germany and France among other countries, including the Netherlands, have brought in laws against wearing face coverings in public offices, and schools.

Quebec's attempt to narrow choices down for immigrants from particular backgrounds and customs some of them relating to religious observance was clumsily done. Quebecers are responding to a concern, that of the regions, while the more cosmopolitan Montreal with its far greater numbers of immigrant stock has responded otherwise.

It is all, however, grist for the mill.