By Naomi Lakritz, Calgary Herald June 23, 2010
At long last, something sensible has come out of la belle province. That is, on the heels of something insensible.
First, the insensible. Last weekend, the poor separatists whose awful fate appears to be that of living for the foreseeable future under the grim totalitarian umbrella of Canadian federalism gathered to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Meech Lake accord. They marched in sad solidarity like aging hippies sporting grey ponytails and reminiscing about the bygone days of Haight-Ashbury. If you're going to Montreal, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair — and wave your fleur-delis with all the tired enthusiasm you can muster for a dying cause.
Naturally, no such protest would be complete without Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe, and sure enough, there he was, repeating his tired refrain : "Canada is a great country. I think the Canadian nation is a great nation. But it's not my nation."
Then, get out, Gilles. Out of Parliament and out of Canada. You personally. And take Parti Quebecois leader Pauline Marois with you. Marois was complaining last weekend that day cares in Montreal are "only speaking Spanish or Greek or something like that, or English." To borrow from Dr. Seuss, if she ran the zoo, she'd legislate French in day cares, too. God, these people are tiresome, aren't they ? It's so tempting to tell them "go and good riddance" except the rest of us love Canada too much to stand by and watch them destroy it.
Never-say-die Duceppe likened the fight for sovereignty to the fall of communism : "It's just like when the Berlin Wall was destroyed. It wasn't an hour, but many people worked very hard for decades." Yes, Gilles, except that unlike the East Germans, Quebecers enjoy a standard of living and freedom comparable to everyone on the other side of the "wall" which, in this case, I'm assuming is the border with Ontario. Anyway, I did say that there was good news out of Quebec this week, which leaves the ROC with some shred of hope for the future of society in that province.
A Quebec Superior Court judge has ruled that Montreal's Loyola High School, a private boys' school run by Jesuits, isn't required to water down its Catholic curriculum to impose a provincially mandated ethics and religion course on its students. Justice Gerard Dugre's ruling was rife with delightfully pithy language, such as when he called the province's heavy-handedness "totalitarian" and likened its behaviour to "the order given to Galileo by the Inquisition to renounce Copernican cosmology." Dugre said that "in these times of respect of fundamental rights, of tolerance, of reasonable accommodations and of multiculturalism, the attitude adopted" by the province's education ministry was surprising.
He's absolutely correct. Tolerance and respect are a two-way street, which means that secular society has an obligation to respect others' freedom of religion and not just petulantly demand that its own world view be accorded superior status. A Catholic school has an inviolable right to teach Catholic tenets and perspectives to its students — whose parents sent them there so they could have that kind of education — and everyone in secular society is required to respect that right. The Jesuits make no bones about who they are, what they stand for, and what they will teach in their schools. Incidentally, they also do a fine job of educating boys and of maintaining standards of discipline and respect for authority that public school officials would do well to emulate.
Loyola's argument in court was that the religion and ethics course diluted the religious perspective that the school promulgates in its classes, leading to the peculiar situation that the school's lawyer, Jacques Darche, described as forcing Loyola's staff and students "not . . . to talk about God, . . . not allowed to pray."
Only in Quebec would politicians ensconced in a legislature building that has a large crucifix in it, argue that a Catholic school really shouldn't be, well, Catholic, in teaching religion. And Quebec Premier Jean Charest, who made a motion to keep the crucifix in the National Assembly, said the court's decision about a Catholic school's Catholicity is "excessive" and needs to be appealed.
OK, Jean, put your money where your mouth is, and take down the crucifix. You can't pick and choose. And if you're going to side with the government against a Catholic school's freedom of religion, then why did you lobby to keep a large symbol of Catholicism prominently displayed in your legislative building ?
Of course, there has been some grumbling from the secular side that tax money helps to fund the private high school, but this argument neglects to take into account the fact that the parents of the boys at Loyola are taxpayers, too. Not only are they paying for their own school, through their tax money and tuition fees, but they're also helping fund secular schools.
Take hope, ROC. Maybe Quebec won't have to separate. Maybe the whole narcissistic place will just disappear up its own derriere one of these days, and peace and quiet will descend upon the rest of Canada.
nlakritz@theherald.canwest.com