Since Amira Elghawaby’s anti-Quebec prejudices are now public knowledge and Justin Trudeau and English Canada openly support them, while the vast majority of Quebecers are offended by them, we are entitled to ask ourselves how the “two Canadas” can so diverge of opinion after two and a half centuries of cohabitation.
English Canada is distinguished from the United States, above all, by the fact that it never really severed its ties with British imperialism. The fact that he wants the head of the Church of England to remain the official head of Canada says a lot about that.
The British Empire has always delighted in parading before the good English people as many representatives of their colonies as possible dressed in the most exotic costumes. This showed the world the greatness of this empire “on which the sun never set” and allowed the Anglo-Saxons to puff out their chests and revel in their feeling of superiority.
That both exhibited their kilts, their turbans, their boubous, their hijabs, their niqabs, their burqas, their chadors, their saris, their dhotis, their chivaras, etc., only served to better distinguish them from the gentlemen’british» subject to particularly strict dress codes that vary according to the time of day (in the select clubs of Montreal, the turtleneck is still prohibited; whoever wears it cannot enter…).
This great open-mindedness was intended only to mark, at all times and in all places, that the empire was built on a hierarchy of distinct groups, castes and ethnic groups dominated by the Anglo-Saxons and that no one was to impersonate the other.
For its part, French secularism is the daughter of the Age of Enlightenment, of the French Revolution and of the spirit of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789, article 1 of which proclaims that “Men are born and remain free and equal in rights”.
The declaration of 1789 clearly distinguishes between the rights of citizens and those of the Nation. From this distinction later derives the duty for the State representing the Nation to display total neutrality towards religions by separating the Churches from the State and by rejecting the idea of a State religion, hence the concept of secularism.
Our Quiet Revolution is the daughter, conscious or unconscious, of the French Revolution. And it carries with it the rejection of British imperialism, of which English Canada remains the most obvious vestige (more than Australia or New Zealand).
That Justin Trudeau, born and raised in Ontario (until the age of 12) to a half-British father and a British Columbian mother, does not understand this should come as no surprise.
On the other hand, that French-speaking Quebec does not understand that its submission to English Canada even compromises its survival can only astonish the peoples of the 110 countries that have gained independence since 1945.