Stéphane Dion tells Guelph audience why he opposes the Quebec Charter.
On Oct. 18, the former leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, Stéphane Dion, spoke to a packed auditorium in MacKinnon 107 about the proposed Quebec Charter of Values. Dion argued that the Charter was little more than a political tactic, one designed to exploit francophone angst about cultural fragility by playing on fears of Islamism.
In its current form, the Charter would prohibit employees from wearing religious symbols in most government workplaces.
A self-professed classical liberal, Dion’s speech favoured religious tolerance and the rights of individuals.
“As [J. S.] Mill wrote,” said Dion, “it is easy to be tolerant about what you like. What is more difficult is to be tolerant about something that is strange, you don’t feel comfortable with, or you may not like.”
He added rhetorically: “When we say we love diversity, it is because we need to convince ourselves that we love diversity.” It is critical, Dion argued, that the government be the one to set this example for the private sector.
Dion then warned of the folly of discriminating based on religion.
“The fact that you have employees showing their religion does not mean that they are unable to be impartial in the way they do their job,” said Dion. “If the Minister has proof… he must put it on the table. But he has no proof of that.”
In challenging the Parti Québécois, Dion spent much time addressing the reality that the Charter targets Muslim women disproportionately. The PQ has noted that some feminists actually support the Charter. These feminists argue that, provided the hijab is understood as a tool used to suppress women, the Charter should be welcomed as an implicit censure of that patriarchal custom.
Dion countered that most institutions have been historically patriarchal, and that the answer now, as ever, cannot be to ban these things, but to reform them. Dion went on to say: “If it is the case that some women are under the obligation to put on the veil in order to not be stigmatized by their community, there are other ways than banning them from the public service to help them.”
Dion also spoke at length about why this issue emerged in Quebec and not elsewhere in Canada.
“I think it is stronger in Quebec because of the cultural uncertainty, the cultural fragility of the Quebec society,” said Dion.
To make this point resonate with his Anglophone audience, Dion asked the crowd to imagine what Ontario might look like if the French had won on the Plains of Abraham – had North America become a French continent. If that were the case, Dion suggested, Ontario too might be worried for the future of its isolated “core culture.”
Like most Quebecers, Dion maintains that Quebec’s society requires protection – yet he remains an advocate of multiculturalism in a province where that is a divisive topic.
“For many Quebecers, multiculturalism is a way to say to people, ‘stay as you are, don’t try to accommodate,’” Dion said.
But Dion is confident that Quebecers will “make the right choice” in the end. While the Charter boasted the support of two thirds of Quebecers when it was unveiled, support has dropped to about 50 per cent. Although Quebecers may like the idea of a state where religion is an utterly private matter (though perhaps a bit Catholic), Dion says they do not much like the consequence, which is “to fire people who show their religious preference.”