April 28, 2014: New Quebec government should just let go of the secular charter issue

By Michael Regenstreif

In my March 17 column, I argued that the Parti Québécois (PQ) government’s proposed Charter of Quebec Values, which sought to ban public sector workers – from government bureaucrats to police and from daycare workers to doctors – from wearing clothing or symbols that signify their religious beliefs (including headgear such as kippot, hijabs and turbans, and jewelry such as necklaces with a noticeable Magen David or cross) was perhaps the main issue of Quebec’s provincial election on April 7.

The election was “very much about values,” I wrote, “and it remains to be seen which values Quebecers will choose.”

I wrote that column on March 7. A couple of days later – with then-premier Pauline Marois at his side – media baron Pierre Karl Péladeau declared his candidacy for the PQ and, with a now-famously raised fist, he made Quebec separation the ballot box question.

Everything changed in that moment. Clearly, the vast majority of the Quebec electorate had no interest in holding another divisive referendum on separation. While the charter remained an issue – and the PQ tried in vain to re-establish it as the main issue, thinking it was the key to their potential victory – it was Quebec separation that ruled the election. Marois called the election because polls indicated she could use the charter to turn her minority government into a majority. Instead, Quebecers, in their wisdom, handed the PQ a most humiliating defeat.

Watching the election results come in on April 7, one could almost hear all of Canada breathe a collective sigh of relief.

And, with their defeat, the PQ’s Charter of Quebec Values was dead in the water.

But, the day after the election, Philippe Couillard, the Quebec Liberal leader and premier-designate, said his government would bring in its own charter of secular values, affecting a more limited range of public sector officials in “positions of authority.” While the range of those positions was not defined, it would apparently not include most bureaucrats, doctors, nurses, teachers and daycare workers.

But, still, the question must be asked. Why is there a need for a solution to a problem that does not exist? Couillard’s new government should take the same position as the federal government and the other nine provinces and just let the issue go.