What an alarming landscape! Affordable housing and access to healthy and sufficient food are lacking for many Quebecers. Members of racialized communities observe with concern the rise of the far right and identity nationalism while continuing to suffer discrimination in their daily lives. Health care workers are living a violent reality that has been exacerbated with the pandemic, amplified by the willingness of governments to stifle their claims through courts and decrees. The right to education of children attending public schools is compromised by the lack of personnel. Public services are suffering the inevitable consequences of years of austerity, putting many human rights at risk.
Added to this maddening portrait is a serious anti-democratic tendency, since the state of health emergency has now reigned for more than two years and has been extended until next December 31 through, note the irony, the Law to end the health emergency. In the context of the present election, we are particularly concerned about this mode of governance by decree, which has the effect of sidestepping the debates essential to the exercise of democracy.
Thus, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights have been abused, and this, in an accentuated way for a few years. This constitutes a real danger for democracy, and for the dignity of all. In this regard, Quebec is unfortunately added to the list of many places in the world where the pandemic state of emergency has resulted in democratic backsliding while accentuating several pre-existing situations of non-respect of human rights. of the person.
Even as a libertarian and populist conception of “freedom” takes root in a more or less lasting way in certain sections of the population and as neoliberal authoritarian governance becomes normalized, it is high time to reaffirm the importance of charters and international conventions that should govern the conduct of states.
Moreover, as we stated in the editorial of the last magazine Rights and freedoms (Spring 2022), the holders of rights — that is to say us — have “the need, even the duty, to show solidarity and be organized in order to challenge the authorities to their duties in terms of human rights and practices democratic, to set out our views on the immediate and the future”.
During the two leaders’ debates, the perspective of human rights was conspicuous by its absence… even though they are implicit in all the issues of the day: from the right to a healthy environment to the right to health, including the right to education, the right to housing and the right to an adequate standard of living. Remember that states are responsible for ensuring the respect and implementation of all human rights, nothing less. It is these rights that must represent the way forward for a just and inclusive society, which should be at the heart of both the election campaign and the decisions that will be made by the next government.
Along with others, the League of Rights and Freedoms (LDL), as an independent and non-partisan organization, contributes to this relentless effort to promote and defend human rights. This year, the LDL celebrates its 60th anniversary, an important anniversary in a situation that continues to confirm the relevance of its mission. His expertise and his perspective, acquired through the realization of many struggles and actions, are useful in confronting a reality that is sometimes difficult to accept: rights and freedoms must be constantly defended in the face of the repeated attacks they suffer and tirelessly brought back to the fore. agenda.