We
Canadians like to think that we are nice people, and a lot of us are, but not
all of us.
We
like to think that we are welcoming to strangers from foreign lands, that we
are nice to immigrants, that we are respectful of others… But our actions speak
otherwise.
I’m
old enough to remember the debate over whether Canada should permit people from
the Caribbean countries to emigrate here.
Much of the talk that I remember revolved around how cold it gets here
and that dark skinned people wouldn’t be able to adapt to such a cold
environment. I couldn’t understand it
then either, but I was just a kid growing up in a town that was basically all
descendents of Europeans, primarily British.
I
can also recall the influx of new Canadians that came from South Asia, mainly
from India and Pakistan. I recall the
jokes, everyone told them and everyone laughed at them. I also remember the slurs, the barbs, and in
some cases the hate towards these new Canadians. Not everyone shared in these thank goodness.
But
there was an awful lot of “Why do they want to come here?” and “Why
can’t they just stay there?” being said.
The answer is quite simple. They
wanted to come here for the same reason your people wanted to come here, this
is a land of opportunity free from many of the problems that people faced back
there.
We
are almost all either immigrants to Canada or descended from immigrants. Unless your family was here over a thousand
years ago, you’re immigrant stock just like me.
I’m first generation Canadian.
Now
the proposed “Charter of Quebec Values”
that was tabled this week has reminded me about our prejudices and biases that
we Canadians try to paint over. The
paint is very thin, and it doesn’t take much scratching to expose our not so
nice side.
The
region I live in was part of the northern terminus of the Underground
Railway. There are a number of
communities here that can trace their roots to this time. There are other communities here that had
laws barring coloured people from being within the town limits from sundown
until sunrise.
Thankfully
those laws have gone from the books.
You’re
thinking “But BC that was a long time ago” and yes it was a long time ago, but
the feelings behind laws like that are still around, for some people at least.
Shortly after the turn of the 20th
century, Canada encouraged South Asian people to relocate to the British
Honduras, saying that the climate would be better for the “Hindus”. When this did not work out, Canada stopped
allowing South Asians from debarking from ships in British Columbia period. We were OK with them when we needed cheap
labour for the railways, but when it was done, we didn’t really need them
anymore.
Our
treatment of the Chinese was quite similar as well.
I
know, I know, still ancient history…
In
1939, the Canadian government refused a ship carrying Jewish refugees from
Germany permission to land.
In
1948, there was a landmark court case in Ontario over restrictive
covenants. When Bernard Wolf tried to
buy a cottage in the Grand Bend region of Ontario, there was a snag… it had a
1933 provision that the property could not be sold to, rented to or used "by
any person of the Jewish, Hebrew, Semitic, Negro or coloured race or
blood."
Mr.
Wolf was Jewish. Although the property
owner had no issue with Wolf buying the property, the local community fought
it. The case ended up before the Ontario
Supreme Court which ruled restrictive covenants such as this to be unconstitutional.
We’ve
come a long way. Most of the legal
impediments, but not all have been either amended or removed from the
books.
In
1960, Prime Minister John Diefenbaker and his PC government enacted the
Canadian Bill of Rights (pictured at the top of this page). Diefenbaker was
denied his dream of having this Bill of Rights included into the British North
America Act (BNA) but it did put our rights into a law. Much of Diefenbaker’s Bill eventually ended
up being included in our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 (pictured below).
You
would think by now there would be no issues left, but in 1993, just 20 years
ago, an invited guest was denied entry to a Royal Canadian Legion based on his
religion.
Lieutenant
Colonel (Ret) Pritam Singh Jauhal and four other Indo-Canadian veterans were
not allowed into the lounge because they are Sikhs and their religion does not
permit them to remove their turbans. The
case gained National notoriety and the issue was raised in the House of Commons
in Ottawa.
I
quote here from an article
written by Lt. Col. Jauhal:
|
Discussion
of case in Canadian Parliament:
Late
Ms Shoughnessy Cohen, M.P for Windsor-St Clair introduced the following
motion in the House of Commons:
“Mr
Speaker, this House, recognizing the fundamental Canadian Right of religious
freedom and the courageous contributions of our Veterans of all faiths, urge
the Royal Canadian Legion and its Constituent Branches to reconsider their
recent decision, so that all our members will have access to their
facilitities without having to remove religious head-coverings including Sikh
turban and the Jewish Kipa”
Eight
M. Ps from all the parties including the only turbaned Sikh M.P Gurbax Singh
Malhi spoke on the motion. All M .Ps except two […] supported the motion.
[Edit
mine, BC]
|
It
is worth noting that all 75 Quebec MPs voted in favour of
the motion, including all 54 from the Bloc Quebecois.
The
Legion did change their by-laws to allow for religious headwear thanks to Lt. Col.
Jauhal.
And
this finally brings us to the events of the past week and the “Charter of
Quebec Values” introduced by the PQ government in Quebec.
Pauline
Marois and her Minister of Democratic Institutions, Bernard Drainville are
proposing that Public Employees should be barred from wearing “overt” religious
items. These would include large
religious symbols on a necklace, such as a crucifix or a Star of David, and
would also include items of clothing like a kippah, or a turban, or a hijab.
The reasoning behind this is that the PQ
believes that Quebec is a secular state and that people who are employed by the
State cannot be allowed to show their religious beliefs at work. At least not by wearing “religious clothing”.
At
least that’s the party line.
Wouldn’t
you think that after so many years of trying to rid the system of prejudice and
bias we’d be past this by now?
Nope.
My
guess is that some people or groups with influence leaned on Marois and her
followers because they don’t like people showing that they belong to *ahem*
certain religions.
Look,
your biggest concern when dealing with a civil servant, or a medical
professional, or a teacher should be whether or not that person is qualified to
do their job… Not what they wear to work.
The
other option is that Marois is trying to create a wedge issue to launch a separatist
campaign, that the people affected by this “Values” Charter are just pawns
being tossed under the bus for political gain.
Not an appealing thought either.
The
saddest part is that polls are showing that this “Values” Charter has quite a
bit of support in Quebec, and across Canada for that matter.
It
has taken a long time for us as a nation to get as far as we have in trying to
stop racial and religious discrimination, but you can’t legislate personal
opinions or personal biases.
I
think we’re looking at the beginning of the slippery slope here, if the
government of Quebec can deny you employment because of your religious wear,
can they stop business in the private sector from doing the same?
People
complain about the treatment of minority religions in other countries. We even have an Office of Religious Freedom
to put pressure on countries whose treatment of minority religions is less than
what we expect them to be. But how can
we tell another country that it is wrong to force people to dress in a certain
manner or force them to hide symbols of their religion when we are doing the
same damn thing here?
Aren’t
we Canadians just wonderful?
BC
Links
that I used to read up on this:
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