There is a saying in politics that when you\u2019re explaining, you\u2019re losing. So it should be an extraordinarily bad omen for Quebec Premier Pauline Marois, in the early days of her election campaign, to be forced to declare: \u201cThe Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois is not an antisemitic party.\u201d<\/p>\n
The defence was necessary after the clearly written views of one of Marois\u2019 candidates became widely known last week. Louise Mailloux, a college philosophy instructor and Montreal-area Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois candidate in the April 7 Quebec election, is a staunch supporter of the PQ\u2019s secularism policy. The party is proposing a Charter of Values that would prevent displays of religious affiliation \u2013 kippahs, turbans, hijabs, for example \u2013 by civil servants. The crucifix that stands at the front of the Quebec National Assembly would remain, interpreted by the PQ not as a religious statement but as a symbol of the province\u2019s cultural heritage. Likewise, presumably, the enormous illuminated cross that bears down over Montreal from atop Mount Royal.<\/p>\n
Mailloux, however, goes somewhat further than most secularists. One might call her a secular fundamentalist. She has written that circumcision is equivalent to rape. (In fairness, she said the same thing about baptism.) A particular interest of hers is kashrut, which she has called \u201crobbery,\u201d a \u201crip-off\u201d and a \u201ctax\u201d paid \u201cdirectly \u2026 to the synagogue.\u201d (She says the same about halal certification.) She has demanded that kosher and halal products be banned because, she believes, they artificially inflate prices and the revenue from certification goes to fund \u201creligious wars.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s useful to be reminded of the kind of ideas that emerge from those with animus toward identifiable groups. A moment on the darker reaches of the internet reminds us that the nature of bigotry quickly twists into convoluted, bizarre and arcane conspiracies. There is an increasingly small market for ideas that express outright hate. That may have worked in past eras, but people and society have changed. To gain traction, such expressions now require some imagination. The \u201ckosher tax\u201d conspiracy theory is an ideal example. Take an issue about which the general public has only the vaguest awareness and build a dramatic and devious story around it. But this story is not new. It\u2019s been most prominently pedaled by the Ku Klux Klan. Yet it is not as fringe an idea in Quebec as we might like to believe. When a provincial commission looking into \u201creasonable accommodation\u201d of minority rights in Quebec, the Bouchard-Taylor commission, delivered its report in 2008, it explicitly mentioned the \u201cmost fanciful information \u2026 circulating among Quebecers\u201d about kosher food. (In fairness, the Bouchard-Taylor hearings showcased an encyclopedic array of bad ideas held by Quebecers about a whole range of minority groups.)<\/p>\n
When Jewish organizations heard of Mailloux\u2019s views, they reacted with predictable outrage. In a party press release, Mailloux apologized \u2013 just not for her ideas.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never wanted to offend or hurt anyone,\u201d Mailloux said. \u201cIf that has happened, I very sincerely apologize.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hours earlier, the PQ rescinded the nomination of one of its other candidates for online comments against Islam and supportive of the French far-right leader Marine Le Pen. But when Mailloux\u2019s views became a top story, Marois stood firmly with her.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe supports our secular charter and I appreciate her support,\u201d Marois said, not hesitating to add that Mailloux \u201cis an eloquent writer\u201d and \u201cI respect her point of view.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is always better to shine light on rancid ideas than to allow them to fester in hiding. Never more is this true than in the midst of a democratic election campaign. Given that this election campaign is shaping up to be largely about two issues \u2013 the future of Quebec in Canada and the future of minority rights in Quebec \u2013 Mailloux\u2019s ideas could hardly have come to light at a better time. The voters of Quebec will make their opinions known on April 7.<\/p>\n
Of course, even the democratic voice of a free people does not always reflect the best of human nature. Given the tenor of Quebec attitudes toward minorities and the fact that we are discussing the preparation of meat, a dictum comes to mind not from the Talmud, but from the sage of Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin, who said that democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There is a saying in politics that when you\u2019re explaining, you\u2019re losing. So it should be an extraordinarily bad omen for Quebec Premier Pauline Marois, in the early days of her election campaign, to be forced to declare: \u201cThe Parti Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois is not an antisemitic party.\u201d The defence was necessary after the clearly written views […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[92,91,90,89,88,93],"class_list":["post-328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-ji","tag-bouchard-taylor","tag-kosher-tax","tag-louise-mailloux","tag-parti-quebecois","tag-pauline-marois","tag-pq"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}