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QUEBEC CITY: REPORT ON MINORITIES PUBLISHED
A commission looking into how people in Canada's mainly French-speaking province of Quebec should treat minorities calls for the integration of immigrants and open secularism. The Bouchard-Taylor Commission says the Canadian vision of multiculturalism will not work in Quebec because the population is a French-speaking minority within Canada. Instead, the commission recommends that the province function on the basis of interculturalism. Under such a model, immigrants and minorities in Quebec would learn French. The commission also recommends open secularism by which the population can openly practise its faith, whether, Christian, Muslim or otherwise. Government offices, however, would remain secular and not display religious symbols.
Wednesday 21 May 2008
QUEBEC LOOKS IN THE MIRROR
The National, CTV News, the Globe, the Post and La Presse go inside on the latest flap over the Bouchard-Taylor report. The controversy over “reasonable accommodation” of ethnic and religious minorities was a humiliating step backwards for public discourse in Quebec, as tabloids and opportunistic politicians gave full flight to their most demagogic tendencies. Now the report on the issues raised in the controversy, commissioned from political philosopher Charles Taylor and historian Gérard Bouchard by the provincial government, is causing controversy itself. After portions of the report—officially to be released tomorrow—were leaked to the Montreal Gazette last Saturday (which has put a three-part PDF of the material online) the provincial opposition parties are clamouring for the government to release the whole thing. In La Presse, ADQ leader Mario Dumont calls it “ridiculous” that “everyone who hasn’t seen the report is talking about it, and the only ones who have seen it aren’t speaking.” The Globe seems to attribute the flap to the report’s careful parsing of issues of language and identity—the hallmark of Taylor’s enormous and widely respected body of work. The report openly muses on the ambiguous ethnic and civic connotations of the term “Québécois” and speaks of “the resurgence of an over-cautious French-Canadian figure, suspicious of the Other.” The Post phones up Hérouxville, the tiny town in the middle of nowhere whose town council caused an international uproar by lecturing its nonexistent Muslim residents about the illegality of public stonings. Sure enough, Councillor André Drouin is happy enough to intone that “tolerance has a limit” and demand that “these people know how we live and that the state is the absolute law. No religion in here.”
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New statistics show a sharp decline in the number of tourists visiting Canada, as an overlooked sector of the economy looks for ways to rebound. The Bouchard-Taylor report on cultural relations in Quebec provokes its own kerfuffle after portions are leaked to newspapers. Opposition MPs warn the government that they will derail an attempt to make significant changes to the way that Canada processes immigrants.
Wednesday May 21, 2008 Francophones' response is what matters
The anger of some Quebec nationalists at Charles Taylor and Gérard Bouchard is misplaced and a little premature. Mario Beaulieu of the Mouvement Montréal français, for example, is just dead wrong to accuse the co-chairs of Quebec's commission on reasonable accommodation of targeting French Canadians as being responsible for the province's inter-ethnic tensions.
Wednesday May 21, 2008 What do you think of the report on reasonable accommodation?
A draft of the Bouchard-Taylor report on reasonable accommodation that was obtained by The Gazette urges...
Tuesday May 20, 2008  'Enough about the hijab'
There's nothing wrong with it. It's no real threat to Quebec values. And most women here wear it by choice, not because of coercion.
That's what the Bouchard-Taylor commission has concluded after a year of study costing $5 million.
Monday May 19, 2008 Time to change our lingo
Be kind and say "adjustments," "adaptations" or "harmonizations," not "accommodations." Diana's Reasonable Accommodation
As premier stays mum, French language activist calls report 'revolting'
While the rest of Quebecers were talking, Premier Jean Charest kept silent about a leaked draft of the...
Hérouxville councillor warns commissioners
The man who put a Quebec town's code of conduct for immigrants on the world stage says a commission ...
Sunday 18 May 2008 MONTREAL: REPORT ON REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION ADDRESSES IMMIGRANT ISSUES
A report on the integration of immigrants in the Canadian province of Quebec recommends that native English- and French-speaking citizens should learn each other's language, and a third language too. The report says that Quebec's traditional split between French- and English-speaking people has been replaced by some people's anxiety toward immigrants. The report is by the Bouchard-Taylor Commission, a government-appointed group that held extensive public forums last year to determine how far people are willing to accommodate immigrants and foreign cultures. Immigrant culture became an issue last year when a small town in Quebec passed a controversial regulation that compelled all immigrants to adopt traditional Quebec culture. In its report, the Commission says that citizens' objections to immigrants are often a result of misconceptions. The report recommends mutual respect and tolerance, particularly on the part of the province's majority French-speaking population. The full report will be made public next week. Parts of the report were made public on Saturday by the Montreal newspaper, The Gazette.
Saturday May 17, 2008 Dissident decries 'whitewash'
In fact, one of the commission's closest advisers is highly critical of it.
The Bouchard-Taylor report won't please everyone.
In fact, one of the commission's closest advisers is highly critical of it.
Jacques Beauchemin, a dissident member of the commission's advisory panel, blames commission co-chairperson Gérard Bouchard for getting soft on Quebec independence and says the report runs roughshod over French Canadians by denying their majority status in Quebec.
Taylor ranked among world's top thinkers
Author and philosopher Charles Taylor, a co-chairperson of Quebec's commission into accommodation of...
Time for Quebecers to be more open: report
Learn more English, be nicer to Muslims, get better informed.
Saturday Apr 19, 2008 School program is faithful reflection of Quebec
In September, all Quebec schools, public and private, will start teaching the province's new Ethics and Religious Culture program, which replaces moral and religious education courses at every level from Grade 1 to Grade 11.
April 3, 2008
Yesterday, Statistics Canada’s own data analysts released reports that showed a significant increase in the population of visible minorities in Canada. Today, the Big Seven are captivated by this new research, and discussion of Canada’s multiculturalism abounds. Flying off the pages are results in the form of tables, graphs, statistics, and big, bolded numbers. One out of every six Canadians, or “a staggering 16.2 percent,” as the Globe puts it, classify themselves as visible minorities. That’s more than five million people, among Canada’s modest population of 31.6 million. The Globe reports that visible minorities are growing at five times the rate of the rest of the population, meaning the group could account for one-fifth of the total population by 2017. More than two hundred ethnic origins are represented and, for the first time, South Asians have surpassed Chinese to become Canada’s largest visible minority group.
The Big Seven dedicate much room to various urban centres; most notably Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and the GTA, and Vancouver. La Presse speaks with Annick Germain, sociologist with the INRS, who says that immigrants with a French-language background make up the majority of visible minorities in Montreal; many hail from Morocco, Lebanon and Algeria. The Citizen, in discussing Ottawa’s rapidly increasing population of visible minorities, quotes a StatsCan analyst who remarks that the growth in visible minorities is “largely because of recent immigrants coming from non-European countries.” The Globe offers a slightly more insightful look into the intricacies of immigration, raising another statistic that shows a decrease in the number of people who self-identify as “Canadian.” Interestingly, Quebec has the highest percentage of people who call themselves Canadian.
Thursday Apr 3, 2008 'Visible minorities' grow by one-third in five years
Blacks, Arabs, Latinos - Quebec has more of those and other "visible minorities" than it did five years...
Only 8.8 per cent of Quebecers and 16.5 per cent of Montrealers are visible minorities, compared with 42 per cent in Toronto and in Vancouver, Statistics Canada reports.
But the number of Quebec minorities - South Asians, Chinese, blacks, Filipinos, Latinos and Southeast Asians, about 655,000 in all - is growing rapidly.
Thursday Mar 6, 2008 Deadline extended for Bouchard-Taylor report
The Quebec cabinet has extended from March 31 to May 31 the deadline for the Bouchard-Taylor report on the reasonable accommodation of cultural differences. The commissioners asked for the delay, saying they have a lot of work to do and many documents to consult. "Our public consultations finished just before Christmas, leaving us barely two months to produce our report," they said in their letter to the cabinet.
Monday Feb 18, 2008 Sharia-law fight mirrors our debate on accommodation
The archbishop of Canterbury's call to incorporate certain principles of Sharia law within the British legal system has set off a firestorm. Rowan Williams's suggestion that Muslim tribunals should play a more active role in the justice system touched a nerve in British society that mirrors some concerns in Quebec's debate on reasonable accommodation.
Tuesday Feb 12, 2008 Poll finds Canadians don't buy into notion of one continent, one culture
When it comes to culture, we're different from those Yanks, eh!
02 February 2008 MONTREAL: COMMISSION HOLDS FINAL HEARING ON REASONABLE ACCOMMODATION
About 200 people gathered in Montreal on Sunday to address a government-appointed commission gathering information about people's attitudes towards immigrants and their cultures in the mainly French-speaking province of Quebec. The session marks the end of several months of public hearings. The commission wants to determine to what extent native-born Quebeckers think that they should accommodate foreign customs. But some Quebeckers have told the hearings that they expect immigrants to adapt to local rules and traditions. The so-called reasonable accommodation commission chaired by Charles Taylor and Gerard Bouchard is expected to deliver its report at the end of next month. The report could be used by provincial government officials in creating policies for Quebec's increasingly multi-cultural population.
Monday Feb 4, 2008 Definition of equality debated
Liberty, equality and fraternity - but especially equality.
Trouble is, there's no consensus on what equality really means in Quebec - or whether it exists, in fact.
....By day's end, equality in its many forms - equal opportunity on the job market, equality of visible minorities and old-stock Quebecers, equality of men and women - came out on top. But not without some argument.
2007
Saturday Dec 22, 2007 We're on the fence about hearings' value
Quebecers are divided about whether the Bouchard-Taylor commission's hearings were a useful exercise...
Thursday Dec 20, 2007 Only a tiny minority voiced slurs, report finds
Muslims were called dirty, violent and sexist. Jews were called money-grubbing, litigious and rude. ...
Wednesday Dec 19, 2007 "Joyeux Noël, merci beaucoup." With that decidedly Christian
wish and thanks, Gérard Bouchard... Saturday Dec 15, 2007 Help us overcome prejudice, commissioners urge Muslims
Back in March, they were castigated in the populist media for insisting on praying at a Quebec maple...
id=6d3efd1a-a483-4591-8035-3a2583038059&k=87811">Marois outlines 'audacious' visionCalling the Bouchard-Taylor commission "a perilous exercise,"
Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois yesterday laid out her vision
of Quebec as a place where immigrants should learn more French,
businesses shouldn't get government contracts if they don't have a
francization program, and Christianity should get priority in the
religious curriculum of schools. |
Friday Dec 14, 2007 One size will not fit all, anglo group says
Quebec's 608,000 anglophones have buried the hatchet with the province's francophone majority and think...
Thursday Dec 13, 2007 Anglos have their turn at hearing
Quebec's 608,000 anglophones have buried the hatchet with Quebec's francophone majority, are happy with the French-language charter, and think the primacy of French is "extremely important," the Bouchard-Taylor commission heard this morning.
But when it comes to treatment of immigrants and their cultural differences, anglophones don't agree that Quebec should adopt a blanket policy to treat them with a "one-size-fits-all" policy of integration, an anglo advocacy group said.
Church gave Quebec a lot, cardinal says
Distancing himself from Canadian Roman Catholic primate Marc Ouellet, who last month apologized for Among those mistakes, he cited attitudes and actions that encouraged "anti-Semitism, racism, indifference to First Nations and discrimination against women and homosexuals."
Halt school religion course: Dumont
Mario Dumont, leader of the Action démocratique du Québec opposition, wants a moratorium on the new ...
Wednesday 12 December 2007 MONTREAL: FEDERAL SEPARATIST REJECTS MULTICULTURALISM
The leader of a federal opposition party in Canada has spoken before a Quebec commission looking into the reasonable accommodation of minorities in the mainly French-speaking province. Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe told the panel that Quebec must be exempt from Canadian multiculturalism laws so the province can protect its own culture. Mr. Duceppe said Canadian-style multiculturalism doesn't work in the province and that is why Quebec needs to integrate immigrants to secure the future of the French language and francophone culture. The Bloc favours independence for the largely French-speaking province. The special commission led by academics Charles Taylor and Gérard Bouchard has been holding public hearings around the province. Some people have expressed the opinion that the hearings have encouraged a disproportionate number of angry people to express their opinions.
Tuesday 11 December 2007 MONTREAL: CORONER WEIGHS IN ON ACCOMMODATIONS
A Quebec coroner offered advice at the travelling hearings in the province regarding the concessions that can be consented to minorities. Dr. Jacques Ramsay presented reports on the recent deaths of four immigrants which he claims could have been prevented. One of the cases was that of an Albanian immigrant who entered a psychotic state and killed himself after mistakenly understanding that his wife had been diagnosed with HIV. In fact, hospital staff had told him that his wife's blood type was A positive. Dr. Ramsay says that health-care workers should start from the premise that no accommodation is unreasonable when it's a question of health.
Wednesday 05 December 2007
CANADA'S NEW LOOK
by Jordan Himelfarb
December 5, 2007
According to new
census data, the proportion of foreign-born Canadian citizens is higher
now than at any time since 1931, when Canada ceased to be a British colony.
Statistics Canada announced yesterday that, after the arrival of 1.1
million newcomers to the country between 2001 and 2006, immigrants now
constitute one-fifth of the Canadian population. As several sources point
out, these numbers will come as no surprise to those who travel on the
Toronto subway, which, MediaScout supposes, must be full of visible
minorities. Indeed, by far the largest part of the recent immigrant influx
has taken place in metropolitan centres such as Toronto, Montreal,
Vancouver and Calgary—and their suburbs—where employment
opportunities are thought to be more plentiful. The census figures also
show that an unprecedented 20 percent of Canadians possess a mother tongue
other than French or English, with Chinese dialects far outpacing French as
the second most commonly spoken language in some areas of the country.
The Big Seven do a massive job of unpacking the significance of the latest
data, submitting the numbers to thorough and varied
analyses. An editorial in the
Star worries that competition over jobs might breed resentment toward
newcomers, while the
Globe expresses concern about the potentially isolating trend of
immigrant migration to the traditionally less accommodating suburbs. John
Barber in the Globe (subscription required) suggests that, because of
the hugely disproportionate foreign-born population of big cities like
Toronto compared to the rest of the country, a clash may be in the offing,
“with the metropolitan bolus becoming ever less tolerable to the
Canadian craw.” Several
sources report on
the relative vitality
of French in Quebec, and its apparent moribundity
elsewhere in the country—a discrepancy Chantal Hébert
takes in the Star as a starting point for her salvo on the state of
bilingualism in Canada. Given the debate over reasonable accommodation in
Quebec and the recent squabbles over religious school funding in Ontario,
it will be interesting to see how the media interprets these demographic
trends in the ongoing struggle to define Canada.
Wednesday Dec 5, 2007 Anglo numbers rise for first time since 1976
Chinese jumps into third spot for newcomers to Montreal
...Quebec had the biggest proportional jump in number of foreign-born residents in Canada, with Chinese replacing Creole as the third top language among newcomers in Montreal, after Arabic and Spanish.
A minority on the island
Francophones are now a minority on Montreal Island.
City's newcomers more diverse
Immigration from Asia dominates in Toronto and Vancouver, but newcomers are more diverse in Montreal...
Thursday Nov 29, 2007 A newcomer to Quebec says he expects members of his family to be accepted for who they are... Wednesday Nov 28, 2007 Diverse portraits of modern Quebec
They stood in the first and second row to speak: an 11-year-old boy in a bright red poncho, a French...
Outside, on the convention centre's top floor, about 30 protesters bellowed into megaphones about "the racist commission," broadcast feedback, played music and banged the walls to compete with the amplified voices in the meeting hall.
Wednesday 28 November 2007 1:08 MONTREAL: QUEBEC IMMIGRANTS SAID NOT TO BE A THREAT
Two academics have told the travelling public forum on the subject of accommodating minorities that the practices of religious and cultural minority are not a threat. In a written submission to the Bouchard-Taylor Commission, Professor emeritus Louis Balthazar of Laval University writes that too many Quebecers think that cultural communities benefit from "favours, privileges and excessive accommodations," which he says is false. Prof. Balthasar believes that it's important not to make immigrants bear all the weight of social unease that may exist in the province's largely French-speaking society. Montreal is home to the vast majority of immigrants to Quebec. The Commission has heard complaints that Muslim, Jewish and Sikh minorities have failed to embrace francophone culture. Prof. Balthasar says that in fact more than 60 per cent of newcomers integrate into the francophone culture. The Commission also heard from Victor Armony, a sociology professor at l'Université du Québec à Montréal, who says talk about immigrants undermining society worry him. He mentioned in particular the leader of l'Action Démocratique party, Mario Dumont, who he claims deliberately distorts reality.
Tuesday Nov 27, 2007 We're afraid to say no: teachers
Quebec schools and health-care institutions are afraid of being sued or condemned in the media over
....Sikhs who want to wear ceremonial bracelets on their wrist in gym class, other kirpan-toting Sikhs who ask to go on a field trip to Parliament Hill or the National Assembly, and Muslim girls who want to be exempted from swim class because there are boys there - all are problematic for schools,
[not in Canada]
Monday Nov 26, 2007 Hijab and soccer: another red card
'Ref said it was for safety reasons' Calgary girl, 14, walked off field 'in tears'
[Canada rules apply!]
Friday Nov 23, 2007 Muslims worry about 'tarnished' image
Rein in 'preachers of hate,' commission told
The burgeoning Muslim population in Quebec is organizing itself to avoid "exaggerated" demands for special treatment and to rein in "preachers of hate," the Bouchard-Taylor commission was told yesterday.
"The Muslim community is large, but distinctions must be made," said Abdallah Annab, president of the Association des marocaines et des marocains de l'Estrie, which represents many of the 1,500 Muslims in the Eastern Townships.
Friday Nov 23, 2007 Comment: Quebec debates opening wounds
When Quebec Premier Jean Charest appointed two respected intellectuals last spring to study the "reasonable accommodation" of minority cultural practices...
Friday Nov 23, 2007 Comment: Quebec Muslims work to rein in 'preachers of hate'
The burgeoning Muslim population in Quebec is organizing itself to avoid "exaggerated" demands for special treatment and rein in "preachers of hate,"
Thursday Nov 22, 2007
'Forgive us' Quebec Catholic bishop issues unsolicited apology for 'harm'  In an effort to bring Quebecers back to
Catholicism, the Church's top bishop in the province has issued...
Wednesday Nov 21, 2007 The Bouchard-Taylor hearings aside, Canadians are more tolerant
"I have often regretted my speech, never my silence," Greek philosopher Xenocrates said. One wonders whether, when the Bouchard-Taylor commission on reasonable accommodation has aired the thoughts of every Quebecer who chooses to take the microphone, the province (and indeed the rest of Canada) will feel satisfaction or regret.
...Environics polling finds that there has been a recent spasm of concern about the integration of newcomers into Canadian society. Between 2005 and 2006, the proportion of Canadians believing that "Too many immigrants do not adopt Canadian values" jumped to 65 per cent from 58 per cent. This is not a trivial finding, but nor is it the whole story
Saturday Nov 17, 2007 What were they expecting?
In this cynical age, it's reassuring to know there are still people as naive as Gérard Bouchard and Charles Taylor.
TORONTO: COMPUTER GLITCH DISRUPTS THOUSANDS OF AIR TRAVELLERS
Thousands of air travellers were inconvenienced on Friday morning by computer troubles at Air Canada, as flights were delayed between 30 minutes to an hour. The problem was caused by broken links between the airline's main reservation computer at Pearson International Airport and those in the different airports across the country. The director general at Pearson, John Segaert, explained that the facility was temporarily unable to print boarding passes. Flights were running normally by afternoon.
Sunday Nov 11, 2007 Is debate damaging Quebec's reputation? Or, does anyone care?
There have been dire warnings of late that the fuss over reasonable accommodation is giving Quebec a bad name in the rest of the world.
VANCOUVER: PM SAYS QUEBEC MINORITIES DEBATE UNNEEDED
Prime Minister Stephen Harper says the public debates about "reasonable accomodation" for minorities is something that Quebecers could do without. The prime minister says Quebecers don't want to get "bogged down" in old debates but prefer to move forward. Mr. Harper says residents in the largely French-speaking province in particular are fatigued with the traditional debate between separatism on the one hand and centralization on the other. The prime minister's views contrast with those of Gov.-Gen. Michael Jean, Canada's first black representative of the Queen. Mrs. Jean said in September that the current series of public hearings in Quebec are a healthy exercise that should take place elsewhere in the country as well. The governor general immigrated from Haiti to Quebec where she grew up when she was a child.
Tuesday Nov 6, 2007 Don't look to Drummondville for final word on reasonable accommodation
This was the town where poutine was first sold in a fast-food joint 43 years ago, locals say.
There were calls for immigrants to assimilate, and calls for them to be left alone.
There were exhortations for good Catholics to embrace other religions and demands by other Catholics for public schools to keep teaching their religion.
There were invitations by moderate Muslims to "show the real image of Islam: peace" and even take to the streets to demonstrate against extremists.
Saturday Nov 3, 2007 Losing faith in Quebec
MONTREAL -Since the founding of Quebec, its schools have given a central place to Christian instruction...
Saturday Nov 3, 2007
How has reasonable accommodation affected your life in Quebec? Read the stories, share your...
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