A reason to clean up our house
If the Charter Values is passed in Quebec, the Canadian multicultural experiment will suffer its worst setback.
The writer is a Toronto-based journalist with over 20 years of experience covering social and geopolitical issues. She is a former magazine editor of Dawn
A legislative bill asking for a total ban on all religious symbols and prohibiting public sector employees from wearing religious clothing on the job is currently being debated in the Canadian province of Quebec. If the bill goes through, Canada’s multiculturalism and its anti-discriminatory laws that award ‘reasonable accommodation’ to all citizens will be deeply compromised. Said to ‘legitimise intolerance’, the bill will jeopardise Canada’s secular fabric, which is what attracts immigrants from across the globe to this cold and faraway land.
Called the ‘Charter of Values’, this bill — referred to as Bill 60 — was proposed last September in Quebec. With the arguments currently being made in the National Assembly of Quebec, the clash between backers and critics of Bill 60 is heating up the hearings, and the arguments are, in turn, spilling over into the media. While the proponents of Bill 60 are clutching at the argument of ‘absolute secularism’, if it comes into effect, the bill will actually be legitimising intolerance among the people of Quebec. It will also endanger almost everyone`s religious freedom, be they Muslim, Sikh, Jew, Catholic or Buddhist.
Canada’s immigrant communities make up nearly 21 per cent of its population, a number not to be taken lightly, at least as far as the voting power is concerned. And all these immigrants choose Canada as their choice of a new home particularly because of the ‘reasonable accommodation’ it offers to its newcomers. Reasonable accommodation means to fairly adjust the system — in the workplace, school or in another public context — for an individual, based on a need which may be religious, academic or employment related. This is part of the Canadian Charter of Rights. The Quebecois bill, however, gives this lawful provision a total roundabout by twisting its scope to curtail all or any values/beliefs that have even remote religious connotations.
But creating a homogenous society is an absurd notion and to my mind, no different from Hitler’s idea of cleansing and creating the Aryan master race. The well-settled immigrants in Canada have a stable enough base to live comfortably in the existence they have carved for themselves after years of hard work and investment of energy and resources. But the Western horizons are not going to be welcoming to newer settlers. Already, Canadian immigration policies are becoming non-inclusive and the settling process for new immigrants is going from bad to worse.
A vote on Bill 60 is probably imminent as close as March 2014. And Prime Minister Stephen Harper is eager to woo the white Canadians of the Prairies in the hope of reducing the might of the visible minorities. In such a backdrop, it is possible that the Charter of so-called Values will win the day in Quebec. If that happens, the Canadian multicultural experiment will suffer its worst setback.
With foreign lands becoming hostile, the only solution for those contemplating immigration is to create a better home where one is born. Pakistan is not fighting foreign occupation or a civil war in the proper sense of the word. Our fight involves internal dissension, corruption and poor or lack of education. There is no charm anymore in migrating to the West. If a few basics were set to order in our own house, no one would want to undertake the tedious journey.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 12th, 2014.
Called the ‘Charter of Values’, this bill — referred to as Bill 60 — was proposed last September in Quebec. With the arguments currently being made in the National Assembly of Quebec, the clash between backers and critics of Bill 60 is heating up the hearings, and the arguments are, in turn, spilling over into the media. While the proponents of Bill 60 are clutching at the argument of ‘absolute secularism’, if it comes into effect, the bill will actually be legitimising intolerance among the people of Quebec. It will also endanger almost everyone`s religious freedom, be they Muslim, Sikh, Jew, Catholic or Buddhist.
Canada’s immigrant communities make up nearly 21 per cent of its population, a number not to be taken lightly, at least as far as the voting power is concerned. And all these immigrants choose Canada as their choice of a new home particularly because of the ‘reasonable accommodation’ it offers to its newcomers. Reasonable accommodation means to fairly adjust the system — in the workplace, school or in another public context — for an individual, based on a need which may be religious, academic or employment related. This is part of the Canadian Charter of Rights. The Quebecois bill, however, gives this lawful provision a total roundabout by twisting its scope to curtail all or any values/beliefs that have even remote religious connotations.
But creating a homogenous society is an absurd notion and to my mind, no different from Hitler’s idea of cleansing and creating the Aryan master race. The well-settled immigrants in Canada have a stable enough base to live comfortably in the existence they have carved for themselves after years of hard work and investment of energy and resources. But the Western horizons are not going to be welcoming to newer settlers. Already, Canadian immigration policies are becoming non-inclusive and the settling process for new immigrants is going from bad to worse.
A vote on Bill 60 is probably imminent as close as March 2014. And Prime Minister Stephen Harper is eager to woo the white Canadians of the Prairies in the hope of reducing the might of the visible minorities. In such a backdrop, it is possible that the Charter of so-called Values will win the day in Quebec. If that happens, the Canadian multicultural experiment will suffer its worst setback.
With foreign lands becoming hostile, the only solution for those contemplating immigration is to create a better home where one is born. Pakistan is not fighting foreign occupation or a civil war in the proper sense of the word. Our fight involves internal dissension, corruption and poor or lack of education. There is no charm anymore in migrating to the West. If a few basics were set to order in our own house, no one would want to undertake the tedious journey.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 12th, 2014.