Several years ago, in a report, a Canadian colleague, a guy from Edmonton otherwise charming in all respects, told me that he would have liked to participate in the love-in of October 27, 1995, in Montreal. In fact, he was a hair’s breadth away from jumping on a plane to take part in this great manifestation of love for Quebec.
He told me that in all sincerity. With almost touching naivety. I must have pouted. He hadn’t understood my reaction. It had deeply surprised him.
When we talk about two solitudes …
I had to explain to him that, for many Quebecers, this unsolicited declaration of love had gone wrong. Three days before the referendum on sovereignty, this demonstration seemed less to them proof of attachment than a huge electoral fraud in favor of the No camp.
Above all, they did not need tens of thousands of Canadians from coast to coast, so pure were their intentions, come and tell them what to think. They didn’t need their hugs; rather, a furious urge to tell them to meddle with their business.
***
The very last episode of the soap opera Law on the secularism of the State has a little warm taste of this love-in which was not, at least not for all parties involved.
For the past week, one Canadian city after another has promised to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to contest a Quebec law adopted by Quebec parliamentarians.
Since 1995, this is probably the worst initiative that Canadians have taken to support their allies stuck on this decidedly inhospitable Quebec land …
Calgary, Toronto, Winnipeg… Cities are jostling to join the fight. They think they are helping those who oppose Bill 21. Without suspecting for a second that their actions are counterproductive.
Brampton got the ball rolling. This Toronto suburb has promised to pay $ 100,000 to groups challenging Bill 21 in Quebec courts. Pushing the plug further, Mayor Patrick Brown urged Canada’s 100 largest cities to “join the fight”.
Patrick Brown explained to Globe and Mail that the opponents needed financial assistance to be on a level playing field against the government of Quebec, which has immense resources. “I have been inundated with calls from mayors and councilors across the country wanting to contribute. ”
I want to believe in their sincerity. I am willing to believe that they are all deeply convinced that Bill 21 is unjust and discriminatory against religious minorities. But the fact of not realizing at this point of the negative effect that their crusade will have in Quebec… it is staggering.
The two solitudes, indeed.
***
You are going to tell me that you do not believe for a second in the sincerity of these city councilors, that they brazenly spend public funds to display their virtue and that I am decidedly very naive. And yet, I believe in it.
I believe in it, because between Quebec and English Canada, there is a total lack of understanding about Bill 21. It must be said that, on both sides, we are too rarely in the dark. when the time comes to address this angry question.
Many English Canadians regard this law as racist. Final point. We rarely bother to explain to them that many Quebecers support it in the name of the religious neutrality of the state.
Remember the leaders’ debate in English, when the president of the Angus Reid Institute ruled that Yves-François Blanchet was denying “the problem of racism in Quebec” before asking him why, then, he was promoting discriminatory laws …
The case sparked a huge wave of indignation in Quebec. In English Canada? Not the slightest ripple. As if the question were obvious. As if it went without saying to talk about a problem of racism in Quebec.
Last June, when a Muslim family was wiped out on a sidewalk in London, Ontario, Anglo columnists found a link between the attack and the Law on the secularism of the State.
Nothing to help our Canadian friends to form a fair and balanced opinion of Quebec legislation.
***
Likewise, Quebec nationalist commentators increasingly portray opponents of Bill 21 as true traitors to the nation.
Those who dare to recall its discriminatory nature – it is not for nothing that it contains a derogatory clause exempting it from the application of the Quebec and Canadian charters of human rights – are treated as cowards, elites. righteous, dishonest bastards or useful idiots for fundamentalists.
Any criticism of Bill 21, even legitimate, is considered an attack on Quebec and its sacrosanct secular values. We have lost all sense of proportion.
Since Hérouxville and the ham banned from sugar shacks, this debate is spoiled in Quebec. Today it is rotten to the bone. It doesn’t have much to do with wearing religious symbols anymore. It has become an ideological battle on the backs of the minorities, who have asked for nothing.
And now it turns again, this time, into a Canada-Quebec clash. François Legault was probably not asking for so much. Opponents of Bill 21 can only hope that their new Canadian friends will eventually realize that the best they can do in this debate is to meddle with their own hands.