The nail, on the head – it has been hit, by you!
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Oh, this has literally no chance of getting past the supreme court, and if passed it will get there eventually. It does make you wonder what the point is. One thing it definitely does, without even being passed, is gives racists moral license to attack women in the streets, so if that was the goal, then bravo government of Quebec.
There’s also a the small chance they are actually thinking of using the notwithstanding clause*, which would be a whole different level of fucked up.
As horrendous as that is, I am just dumbfounded by the idea of banning people from buses specifically. Might as well have a separate water fountain law. Like someone just thought to themselves, “How can we evoke Jim Crow?” I’m calling this the Jacque Corneille law, hoping that will catch on.
*The Notwithstanding Clause
Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms which enshrines human rights in law in Canada has a clause in it referred to as a the notwithstanding clause that allows governments to pass laws despite violating the charter. By invoking the clause, the federal or a provincial government can say, “For this law, the charter doesn’t apply.” It doesn’t actually negate the entire charter, but it does negate fundamental freedoms and freedom from discrimination. To do this, though, they would basically have to stand up in the legislature and say, “This law is more important than fundamental rights and freedoms” and then do it again every five years.
I know that sounds nuts. It was basically a compromise to get enough provinces on board to pass the constitutional amendment because provinces were worried to took power away from legislatures and gave it to the courts. Using the clause is a very politically risky and extremely rarely used clause (and the majority of the uses are either moot or pointless grandstanding - I think there are only two times it’s actually meant anything).
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Not so fast. Yes, burqa bans targets people wearing burqas and therefore muslims. No, it does not preclude muslims following the precepts of their religion, as their holy book does not require their wifes to cover their faces. And that is the point here: fundamentalist muslims (not all muslims) advance their nefarious political agenda under the guise of religious requirements. The answer here is that it is not a religious requirement and that is precisely the point.
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Just because something is not part of a religion’s original documents, but rather something grafted onto it by those who came later, does not make that thing non-religious.
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In my opinion, this is a watered-down version of the “charter of secular values” on which the last Quebec election was arguably a referendum. There were other issues of course, but this was a major one and IMO the decisive issue.
The Liberal party won that election from the anti-charter side, but not on a promise to never go there, rather on a promise to do it differently/better. Although I haven’t seen let alone made a detailed comparison, I believe it is indeed watered-down compared to what the Parti québécois was proposing, though I don’t think that defeated proposal included this particular odious element.
In a nutshell, it seems to me like a form of radical, state-mandated secularism modelled on what France has been doing. Even as an atheist, it gives me the creeps. True religious freedom includes the freedom not to be religious, so I hate to see any erosion of that right.
There are a lot of things I love about this province, but its deeply dysfunctional relationship with religion, and otherness in general, is not one of them.
ETA: to go directly to “what’s the point?” … the ruling party believes this will win over certain swing voters. Sadly, it just might.
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You can’t change the requirements of a religion because it suits your particular political agenda, which is exactly what the salafists did with the face cover. Or if you can, then my religion requires that you shut up, please respect my beliefs. Do you see the problem?
Most muslim women do not cover their face.
By that logic, I should think that there are very, very few genuine religions that have lasted longer than a generation or two. Religions (that last) usually change and such change is usually (on some level) political.
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Please watch the following video to understand that wearing a face cover was developed as a political statement:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TX4RK8bj2W0
This is Gamal Abdel Nasser, then president of Egypt, discussing the head cover. It was perceived as so ridiculous at the time, that people burst in laugher. How times have changed.
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It’s watered down in one way (the charter of values applied to hijabs as I recall, this one only to face coverings) but then it’s amped up in the other way (the charter prevented people from delivering public services, not from riding buses).
The origin of it doesn’t really matter. The people who do it are either doing it out of a genuine religious conviction or because they are being oppressed into doing it. If it is a genuine religious conviction then it is protected, if they are being oppressed then this law oppresses them further.
No, because: 1) that’s a requirement that I do something rather than that you do something, freedom of religion is not a freedom to tell other people what to do; 2) that’s bullshit, you hold not such religious conviction. You can argue with (2) and say I don’t know that, but I’m right, aren’t I? It doesn’t matter what can be known in Plato’s cave, it matters how the Supreme Court would rule, and they aren’t going to believe you. Part of the law is human beings doing their best to make good faith judgments.
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Not what I said. Don’t put words in my mouth.
“Their” wives are not incidental accessories. They’re Muslims, as are unmarried Muslim women. The point is not what is required by any book of anyone’s wife. The point is that this sexist racist law targets women. Period.
No, it isn’t the point. It’s the wet tissue of an excuse bigots present to attempt to rationalize their racist laws.
No, it still isn’t. Intent of the law is the point, and the blatantly racist intent is crystal clear for anyone willing and interested in seeing it.
Utterly irrelevant. This law targets those who do, and that’s bigoted. It’s immaterial whether it targets some or all Muslim women.
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The bill has been passed in the house. From a CBC explainer on what it does:
Beyond the face-covering ban, the law sets out broad limits for all requests for religious accommodation.
It says a request has to be “serious,” respect the right to equality between men and women and “the right of every person to be treated without discrimination.”
So if we think your religion oppresses women then we’ll prevent women of your religion from going to university, seeing a doctor and riding the bus. Sure, that’s reasonable.
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Another hiccup: You can’t go to public school with your face covered, but school attendance is compulsory.
And the government has offered no guidance on how to implement this. If a bus driver stops at a bus stop and a person wearing a niqab tries to get on the bus, is the driver supposed to play the role of religion cop? The government has been asked this and has provided no answer. They say they’ll do public consultations to figure it out. You are supposed to do that before you put a law through.
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This is horrible, and it sucks to know that bigotry isn’t just “alive and well” in the US alone.
That said, this whole ‘public safety/we need to see your face’ issue is about to get about to get a whole lot more complicated, as well as ironic:
Ever since wildfire has ripped through Napa and Sonoma, people have been donning air filter masks all throughout the Bay Area.
As poor air quality continues to decline, we could see a rise in people wearing masks to proactively protect their respirartory systems, (and don’t even get me started on the fringe fashion trend of wearing gas masks that’s associated with steam punk.)
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A detail for those who don’t know, Quebec has a unicameral legislature. (As do all Canadian provinces AFAIK.) There is a royal assent step, but it’s a rubber stamp – can’t remember any instance of a Lt. Governor of any province refusing to sign off on legislation. So, it’s about as close as can be to being the law.
A sad day.
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Shoot the kid?
Let’s see. Fair. Blue eyes. Blonde (from the eyebrows).
“Just go right on through, gorgeous!”
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A lt. governor can’t even deny a bill, they can, at worst, refer it to the governor general. Wikipedia tells me the last time this happened was 1961. I think the GG has vetoed a bill once in Canadian history but I can’t for the life of me find the story (it seems like this should be easy to google?). To be totally honest, I don’t think that LGs or the GG can really decide not to give assent. It’s hard to imagine it happening unless the government was acting in an obviously corrupt and unlawful way.
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With all due respect, you are either disingenuous or ignorant or worse. I perfectly understood that your point is that you believe that the law is sexist and racist and I am saying that I do not agree the least bit. What I am saying is that you are manipulated, hopefully against your own knowledge, by extremist religious groups who, under the guise of Islam, freedom of religion and respect of alleged historic customs push your buttons to elicit a response that serves their nefarious interests and deserves the general good in the form of freedom of religion, equal rights for women and peace between cultures.
Contrary to you (apparently), I have visited several muslim countries, discussed these points with practicing muslims, have a fairly good knowledge of the history of the middle east and have first hand contact with the nefarious effects of salafism, which is a relatively tiny minority in Islam.
I am also French and France established similar laws against head coverings, blatant religious signs in schools and religious dress for civil servants in the past decades. France is certainly not a perfect country, but my discussion with school teachers, people who had fled muslim countries, women reporting being harassed for their dress and practicing muslims all convinced me that these laws were, unfortunately, necessary and are generally useful. Several further European countries appear to agree as they established similar laws. I am therefore not surprised that Quebec, with privileged ties with France, has chosen to establish similar laws.
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What I believe, and what a lot of other people here believe is that, people who believe as you do (that is, that people who believe that wearing a face covering is legitimately “religious” are being manipulated by extremist groups) are being manipulated by extremist right wing groups who want us to pass laws to amplify tensions between “the west” and Muslims. (added scare quotes around “the west” because obviously Muslims are a part of western nations)
Though I borrowed your phrase there, I don’t really think you are “being manipulated” by extremist right wing groups. I do think that the argument you are advancing is one that supports right-wing extremism and racism by driving a wedge between secular society and Muslims. By doing so it advances the agenda of extremist groups who are violent in the name of Islam as well. They don’t care about the well being of women in Quebec, they care about fundraising and recruitment. Passing a law like this helps them with both.
If someone argues that you have to uncover your face to get a driver’s licence, I can at least understand the logical basis on which that argument is being made. If someone says it’s necessary for fraud detection in some cases, I can at least understand that as a practical concern. The person making those arguments may or may not be driven by prejudice. But when people make a law that stops the affected women from riding buses they’ve entered into an over-the-top level of oppression that is very hard for me to understand as anything except hatred. They are trying to outdo the Jim Crow south.
My belief is that we should not use women living in Quebec as a playing piece in an international game between the extremist western rightwing and the extremist middle-eastern rightwing (a game which none of us win in any event). Forget the philosophical argument about religious vs. cultural traditions and let the women ride the damn bus.
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If you’re going to insult me (which you do at the expense of your own energy only), you can save time by dispensing with backhanded preambles. They’re not clever. Or you could expend your energy on rational arguments explaining why you believe burqa bans are going to counter the effects of Salafism.
Which is your prerogative.
Your crusade to liberate Muslim women from Islamic extremism by dictating their public attire is misguided and counterproductive. That’s not how you achieve victory in the fight against religious fundamentalists.
Also, if you want to know someone’s world views, you should ask instead of making assumptions.
Your assumptions managed to guess something correctly. I haven’t visited any Muslim-majority countries.
And we’re back to faulty assumptions. I have discussed the utility of burqa bans with practicing Muslims from a variety of backgrounds. However, arguments stand or fall on their own merits. Who you discussed the matters with to arrive at those arguments is immaterial and merely a form of the call to authority fallacy.
Oh I am quite aware that France was one of the first countries to institute burqa bans.
I have no doubt you mean well.
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