“[Maintaining the crucifix] is simply a way of letting everyone know that the religion in which Quebecers no longer believe is the official religion not to be believed in.”
Quebec is the most obsessively “secular” of all the provinces. That is because of Quebecers’ continuing resentment of the Church’s heavy- handed authority in the past, when its strictures against divorce and birth control were held responsible for a great deal of poverty and human misery. Quebec threw off the shackles of the Roman Catholic Church during the Quiet Revolution in a big way. The Church is persona non grata in Quebec.
On the other hand, Quebec’s “patrimoine” is sacred because whatever makes Quebec different from the rest of Canada is to be protected and reverenced. So what seems like inconsistency in Quebec politicians’ attitudes and policies regarding religion actually has logic to it.
A case in point: Following an order from a human rights tribunal (HRT), the city of Saguenay will have to stop the practice of reciting a Christian prayer at the start of council meetings. The prayer, it seemed to the HRT, impinged on the freedom of conscience of one Alain Simoneau, a local resident who made a complaint against the city and its mayor. Mr. Simoneau is also to be paid $30,000 in moral and punitive damages.
The decision in Saguenay would seem to imply that the crucifix in the Quebec legislature, installed by then-premier Maurice Duplessis in 1936 to celebrate the fact that Duplessis led “the only Catholic government in North America,” should also come down (and in fact the recent Bouchard- Taylor Commission on “reasonable accommodation” recommended that it be removed in the interest of levelling the playing field for all cultures and religions). Mais non! The people wouldn’t have that. When push comes to shove, it seems that amongst ordinary Quebecers, there is, however vestigial, an emotional attachment to the religion of their fathers. The government took the measure of people’s feelings about the symbolic importance of the crucifix, and decided a political price would be paid for any party that took it down. It is part of Quebec’s “historic heritage.” Just like the huge cross on Mount Royal in Montreal, a sore point for many secularists, disaffected Catholics and immigrants of other religions.
The decision to keep the crucifix should in no way be interpreted as a genuflection to Catholicism. Not at all. Catholicism itself gets no special treatment in Quebec. The opposite: Catholic clerics who dare to make their moral views known in the public forum get slapped upside the face, metaphorically speaking, by no less than the leader of the Bloc Québécois and by a veritable slew of anti-Catholic pundits.
It is simply a way of letting everyone know that the religion in which Quebecers no longer believe is the official religion not to be believed in.
So there is no hypocrisy in the fact that Kathleen Weil, Quebec’s Immigration Minister, was the spokesperson who confirmed that the crucifix would stay mounted, even though she is also the driving force behind Bill 94, which would ban anyone dispensing or receiving government services from wearing face cover.
People married to a foolish consistency might find the disparity hypocritical or confusing, but they shouldn’t. Not only is Quebec the most secular of the provinces, it is also the most rabidly feminist.
That’s bad for all kinds of reasons, but it’s good on the face-cover file (not to mention the kirpan file; many people had a multiculturally-induced hissy fit when four kirpan-wearing Sikhs were denied entrance to the Quebec National Assembly. A ceremonial dagger may be only a symbol in theory, but it is still a weapon. What’s acceptable at airports should be acceptable in legislatures.) Quebec is the only province that won’t throw Muslim women under the bus in order to satisfy the strictures of multicultural correctness. Women who wear face cover are ipso facto second-class citizens in their culture, and Quebec is not allowing them to be second-class citizens in our tax-funded institutions.
The legislature, it should be noted, had no problem in ending the practice of opening sessions with a prayer. Praying is, after all, an active affirmation of attachment to a specific religion. So it makes perfect sense to keep the crucifix, which doesn’t affect anyone, other than mischief-making grievance-mongers, while paying homage to the institution that in large part made Quebec what it is today.