(Ottawa) After Calgary the day before, here is Toronto rallying, Thursday, to the initiative of Brampton, where Mayor Patrick Brown wants to launch a crusade against Bill 21 by providing ammunition – read: money – to the parties who challenge the law. In Montreal, Quebec City and Longueuil, they are opposed to an end of inadmissibility.
The reassignment of a 3-year-old teachere year of Chelsea, in the Outaouais, which was in contravention of Bill 21 since she wore the hijab in class, visibly rekindled the ardor of opponents to the ban on the wearing of religious symbols for employees of the Quebec state in position of authority.
The mayor of the Ontario city of Brampton, Patrick Brown, has called on the first magistrates of dozens of cities across Canada to join the ongoing battle in the courts by providing financial assistance to organizations trying to overturn the law passed in June 2019.
Calgary’s new mayor, Jyoti Gondek, posted on Twitter on Wednesday evening that an urgent motion to this effect would be presented to city council next Monday. “We stand united to protect racialized communities from discrimination,” she wrote.
The mayor of the largest city in the country followed suit on Thursday.
“I continue to oppose Quebec’s Bill 21. Toronto City Council has also repeatedly expressed its opposition to this bill. Today [jeudi], I will ask the city council to participate in the financing of the legal fight against Bill 21, ”wrote Chief Justice John Tory.
In all three cases, we are talking about a donation of $ 100,000 of public money to the war chest for the protest led by the National Council of Canadian Muslims, the World Sikh Organization of Canada and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
No thank you, say the cities in Quebec
Mayor Brown, former Conservative MP and ousted leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, invites 100 major Canadian cities to join his initiative. “It has received positive responses from the mayors of Calgary, Toronto, Winnipeg and others,” said Gary Collins, its director of communications.
In Montreal, Mayor Valérie Plante does not intend to embark. “Cities and provinces across the country have the right to disagree with legislation in place elsewhere,” she said in a statement sent by her cabinet on Thursday.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, PRESS ARCHIVES
The Mayor of Montreal, Valérie Plante
“We are, however, uncomfortable with the fact that other Canadian cities are funding groups to oppose a law that falls under the government of Quebec,” she added, indicating that the City of Montreal did not would not use “public money to challenge laws introduced by other Canadian provinces”.
The story is the same in Quebec.
“We do not intend to interfere with this request. It is a law adopted by the National Assembly. We have a lot to do with municipal jurisdictions, and we respect those of the provinces, ”explained Thomas Gaudreault, at the office of Mayor Bruno Marchand.
A similar feeling transpires in Longueuil.
“I am very uncomfortable to see my counterparts from other Canadian provinces taking such a frontal position against a law duly passed by the National Assembly, and, even worse, financing the challenge of such a law ”, communicated the mayor Catherine Fournier.
A “legitimate and democratic” choice
Needless to say, the sling ulcerates the Government of Quebec.
“It is up to us to determine the foundations of our living together”, reacted Thursday in an email Élisabeth Gosselin, press secretary of the Quebec minister responsible for secularism, Simon Jolin-Barrette.
“Quebec has made the legitimate and democratic choice to separate the state and religions. The rest of Canada must understand and respect the fact that Quebec is a distinct nation, which has the right to develop according to its own characteristics within the Canadian federation, ”she continued.
Head-on collision between the Bloc and the Liberals
In Ottawa, the Bloc Québécois quickly seized on the issue. And the training does not intend to stop making its fats. Thursday, the parliamentary House leader, Alain Therrien, took up the pilgrim’s baton to denounce this “party of smearing Quebecers”.
“They don’t even know what they’re talking about! They don’t understand secularism, they don’t understand Law 21, ”he exclaimed during question period.
After declaring that the Trudeau government was “in agreement with Quebecers who defend their rights in court because they find this law unjust”, Minister Chrystia Freeland called on her interlocutor to stop sowing chaos.
“Please don’t try to create quarrels between us and Quebec,” she dropped.