Proculation Proculation:
It is. That's why they used the Notwithstanding clause of the constitution and also exempted that law from the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms (much easier since it is just a bill, not a constitution).
It's quite ingenious in fact. The CAQ (Coalition Avenir Québec, majority party in Quebec and running the Government) says they have put the separation question aside, but uses that kind of "wedge politics" to try to demonstrate the "differences" between the Anglo-Saxon English Canada and the Canadiens Français du Québec. And that's exactly how the separatist pundits in our news are playing that card every times this subject is discussed in the English Canada news: look how they think they are superior/more morally right than us ! Spitting on everything WE choose collectively by ourselves !
Yeah, that's the wrong approach for commentators in the ROC to be taking.
Here's André Pratte with a look at how this could play into the separatists' hands:
$1:
While the PQ is in terrible political shape, the separatist movement is not dead in Québec. A Léger poll conducted a year ago showed that a full third of Québecers would vote “Yes” in a consultation on Québec’s “souveraineté.” As Polèse writes, “Soft, elastic sovereignism ‘à la québécoise’ will surely be part of the political landscape … unless Ottawa or English Canada does something really stupid which could revive a true separatist movement.” Polèse believes that English Canada “has learned” its lesson and knows how to avoid such crises. I am not so convinced.
A constitutional crisis is exactly what separatists are counting on. In a recent column, leading intellectual Mathieu Bock-Côté argued that it is essential for the Parti Québécois to remain in existence.
“One day, in a few years, inevitably, around Bill 21 (Note: the law prohibiting the wearing of religious symbols by certain government employees), a major constitutional crisis between Ottawa and Québec will occur, a crisis that will bring back the national issue at the heart of political life.”
Bock-Côté refers to the day when the Supreme Court of Canada will rule on the legality of Bill 21. Separatists expect that the high court will rule against the law. This is certain to raise the ire of a significant majority of Quebecers, probably to the point of boosting support for separation. Some veterans of Canada’s constitutional saga even predict that Premier François Legault, who has never disowned his past separatist beliefs, will himself seize the opportunity to hold a referendum.
There might be another angle to tackle this, one that doesn't undermine the efforts of Quebecers themselves who oppose the law. Here's an interesting comment by
Chris Selley:
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Indeed, this week’s developments in Chelsea may well move the needle somewhat on popular opinion in Quebec: Polls have consistently shown Quebecers support measures like these far more in theory than they do when they start affecting real, live human beings. Keeping schtum might well be the best policy right now for Bill 21’s opponents in the rest of Canada.
Or how about
Paul Wells?
$1:
I have also never felt that Bill 21 reveals some universal moral failing of “Quebec.” Every criticism I can level against this law has been levelled, many times, by Quebecers, including several of the Liberal MPs who ran out of patience yesterday; the Quebec Liberal and Québec Solidaire parties, which between them won more votes than Legault’s party did in 2018; an impressive selection of municipal politicians and commentators in, mostly, Montreal; and Judge Marc-André Blanchard of Quebec Superior Court, whose ruling struck down parts of Bill 21 and exclaimed his helplessness with regard to the rest: he plainly doesn’t like the thing, but Legault’s use of the constitution’s “notwithstanding” clause protects most of the law from legal challenge or judicial invalidation. Solid majorities in Quebec have supported the law in polls, but I’m not sure how long that will last, and since the law’s Charter-proofing provisions must be renewed every five years in the National Assembly, I’m not sure the law itself will last long either. I reject the notion that only Quebecers may have an opinion on the thing, because of course everyone can have an opinion on anything. But the conversation among Quebecers is plenty multifaceted already.
I personally dislike the law, especially since I think it's a solution in search of a problem. Public servants, whatever their religion, are already de facto expected to apply the secular law, curriculum or whatever rather than their own religious beliefs. That applies whether they wear a crucifix, a kirpah dagger, a hijab, or whatever. People have also found workarounds that allow them to comply with secular law while respecting their faith, like the Muslim women who don't want to remove their veils in citizenship photos but are cool with revealing their faces privately to female immigration officials beforehand.
Wouldn't it be simpler to just have a legislated clause stating that public servants are expected to do this, instead of spending all this time debating exactly what is and isn't appropriate? The secularism debate's already stumbled over problems in Quebec with some smaller town councils trying to start their meetings with a Christian prayer. The commission that discussed the idea of "reasonable accommodation" in Quebec also supported the idea of removing the crucifix in the National Assembly, which got a number of people hot under the collar.
And that might be the right angle to respond-pointing out that this arguably isn't even a problem, there have been major to-dos in Quebec itself already over secularism and Christianity, and the bill already violates something that Quebecers decided for themselves with the provincial human rights code. It's one thing to criticize their use of the federal Charter's notwithstanding clause (that's always been less of a nuclear option in Quebec than in other provinces) but why not play up the fact that they're crapping all over their own province's human rights code, which was debated and passed by the representatives of the people of Quebec without any input from other provinces or Ottawa?
This bill violates the rights Quebec itself has tried to establish for itself.
It becomes a lot harder for the bill's supporters to claim that you're an outsider telling them what to do when you point out how this violates the things they themselves have passed.
CKA Uber 
