Faced with accusations of discrimination after a teacher had to stop teaching because of his veil, Minister Benoit Charette passed the buck to elected federal officials on Canada’s record on racism.
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“Some people like to judge others and that allows them to forget or put aside their own record in this area. So I don’t stop at the perceptions of others, ”the Minister responsible for the Fight against Racism commented on Friday. Mr. Charette did not wish to draw up a list of the chargeable items in the Canadian balance sheet.
Even though Bill 21 was passed two years ago, the teacher at an English-language elementary school in Chelsea, Outaouais, on Thursday became the first known person to have to leave office due to the ban on signs religious for government employees in positions of authority. She remains employed by the Western Quebec School Board, where she will work on “inclusion”.
Several Liberal elected officials in Ottawa denounced this situation. “This type of discrimination does not reflect the Quebec society in which I want to live,” declared the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, Marc Miller.
“It is time for politicians to stand up for what is right. We must oppose Bill 21. In court, in the House of Commons and in the streets, ”said Conservative MP Kyle Seeback.
Despite everything, Benoit Charette said he was convinced that “Quebec society is one of the most tolerant”. “I’m not saying that there is no problem with racism, we saw it again yesterday with the assessment we made, but frankly Quebec is a more than welcoming society,” said Benoit. Charette, referring to the results of his government’s actions in the fight against racism presented the day before.
- Listen to Richard Martineau’s commentary on Benoit Dutrizac’s microphone, on QUB radio:
Hired despite the law
Questioned on the sidelines of an end-of-session report, Prime Minister François Legault argued that the law must be respected. “The school board shouldn’t have hired that person,” he says. So, I live well with the choice that we made, as France has done, as other countries have done: the choice of secularism, to say there is a separation, when people are in authority, they cannot wear religious symbols. ”
Its Minister of Education, Jean-François Roberge, made a similar speech. “I find it hard to understand why the school board hired someone in violation of the law, but it was regularized,” he said briefly.
Like the Catholic clergy
For Benoit Charette, Bill 21 is part of a historic process of secularization in Quebec.
“There are a lot of people who lose sight of Quebec’s history. The secularization of Quebec society did not start with Bill 21, he says. If we go back to the late 1950s and early 1960s, with the clergy to whom restrictions were imposed on their attendance or their clothing in class … decades later, the secularization of school boards. ”
“So it’s not a new process,” he added. And it is certainly not a process that targets any particular religion. When I talk to you about the 1960s, it was mainly the Catholic clergy that was targeted. ”