Quebec commission calls for "open secularism"

By Jim Coggins

A Quebec commission studying the "reasonable accommodation" of religious and other minorities has recommended "open secularism" as a way to resolve tensions. A spokesman for the Protestant community in Quebec has affirmed this approach, saying the commission has done "a good job."

The Consultation Commission on Accommodation Practices Related to Cultural Differences released its 300-page report on May 22. Among other recommendations, early reports in the Globe and Mail and the Canadian Press said the Commission was advocating that Quebec become a "more secular" society.

However, the report specifically rejects a "restrictive secularism" such as is favoured in France. Instead, the report advocates an "open secularism" based on four principles: the moral equality of persons; freedom of conscience and religion; separation of church and state; and the neutrality of the state with respect to religions and deep-seated secular convictions.

According to the report, this means that while the state should not favour any one religion, it should not favour secular opinions against religious ones either. Since freedom of conscience and religion is a goal, the report says the state should encourage expressions of belief. Ordinary individuals and even civil servants such as teachers can thus wear religious symbols from crosses to head scarves. However, certain civil servants who embody the state, such as police and judges, should not.

Instead of pushing religious expressions out of the public sphere -- in effect, isolating religious and cultural minorities -- the report calls for those expressions to be welcomed into the public sphere, which would bring all citizens into the mainstream and unify Quebec society.

Glenn Smith, general director of a research and advocacy group called Christian Direction, helped draft the submission made to the Commission by the Protestant Partnership in Education. He described the Commission's report as "stunning" in this regard. "It is the first time an official government publication has recognized why I shouldn't privatize my faith," he said.

However, Smith expressed some concern that the report, like the Supreme Court of Canada, tends to "make religion a subset of freedom of conscience" and favour "individualized religion." That is, religion is defined as whatever an individual believes and there is less protection for objective, corporate expressions of religion such as organized churches.

A time of turmoil

The commission was established February 8, 2007 by Quebec Premier Jean Charest in response to a number of high-profile incidents: a court ruled that a Sikh student could carry a kirpan to school; a Muslim soccer player wanted to wear a head scarf; a Jewish group asked a YMCA to put in smoked glass so exercising women could not be seen from outside the building; and a Muslim group asked a maple sugar shack to leave pork out of the food it was being served. These incidents created a backlash among French-Canadians, which became most clearly visible when the small town of Herouxville established a policy saying that immigrants must conform to local culture.

The Commission -- called the Bouchard-Taylor Commission after its co-chairs, Gerard Bouchard and Charles Taylor -- described this flurry of incidents as "a time of turmoil" occurring over a period of about 14 months from March 2006 to June 2007. Its investigators discovered that most of the incidents had been distorted and blown out of proportion by the media.

The Commission's report, 'Building the Future: A Time for Reconciliation,' addressed the specific incidents, but it also tried to establish a philosophical framework that would enable Quebec to function as an increasingly diverse society.

A crossover into politics

One of the specific recommendations of the Commission is that while religious symbols should be allowed in public places -- such as the large cross on the top of Mount Royal -- they should be removed from official state locations such as the National Assembly.

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Within three hours of the report's release, however, Premier Charest's government had introduced and received unanimous approval for a motion that the large cross currently above the speaker's chair in the National Assembly should stay there.

This may have been an attempt by all three of Quebec's political parties to curry favour with the conservative French-Canadian majority in the rural areas outside Montreal. The Commission's report observed that concern over religious accommodation was greater in these areas than in Montreal, where most of the new immigrants live.

Charest heads a precarious minority Liberal government which is anxious to increase its political support. The Parti Quebecois has had its strongest support in these francophone areas, but has lost support there because its liberal social policies are more suited to multicultural Montreal. The third party, the Action Democratique du Quebec, became a political force in the last provincial election by harnessing the anti-accommodation backlash in these areas.

Smith suggested that many of these rural French-Canadians apparently want to hang on to the cross as a symbol of their Quebecois history and culture, even though many of them no longer actively attend church.

Political scientist John Redekop told CC.com the cross should remain in the National Assembly as a symbol of the Roman Catholic impact on Quebec culture. Ironically, rather than being a hindrance to freedom of conscience and religion, "it is the Judeo-Christian ethic that allows religious freedom," he said. No other society, he added, whether based on another religion such as Islam or Hinduism or on secularism, has produced such freedom.

Harmonization

In contrast, the Commission report states that a democratic society is based not on Christian beliefs but on "a political moral code" and "non-negotiable principles" -- democracy, human rights and the equality of all citizens.

The Commission report specifically opposes making some rights superior to others, such as Charest's proposal that gender equality be declared to trump religious doctrine.

That proposal is particularly directed at the Muslim treatment of women, symbolized by the head scarf, but could also be used against the restrictions some Christian churches impose on leadership by women. Nevertheless, the Commission's report assumes that the "non-negotiable principles" of equality and human rights would overrule such religious doctrines anyway.

The report makes special efforts to allay the fears that lie behind the French-Canadian backlash against "accommodation," saying:

1. There is no evidence that Quebec society is more intolerant than other societies.
2. There is no evidence that French-Canadian language and culture, as a minority culture in North America, is seriously threatened by the immigration of other ethnicities.
3. Secularists need not fear that allowing religion a place in the public sphere will mean a return to the former Roman Catholic Church domination of Quebec society.
4. There is no danger that Muslims will impose a new religious dominance or that Muslims pose a threat to Quebec's liberal democracy.

1. All religions and cultures be encouraged to discuss their beliefs in a common public sphere.
2. While encouraging Quebecois to learn English and other languages, the report stresses the importance of keeping French as the common language of Quebec so that religions and cultures can discuss their differences together.
3. The report stresses "interculturalism," where all citizens discuss their differences in a common society, instead of "multiculturalism," where citizens are encouraged to keep their unique languages and cultures.
4. The report encourages "harmonization," or citizens discussing points of tension and reaching mutually acceptable compromises, rather than "reasonable accommodation," which sorts out such points of tension using the law courts and human rights commissions.

June 5/2008