Quebec at a crossroad

Editorial

It became fashionable a few years ago to say that terms like “left” and “right” no longer matter in politics. The argument was that overarching issues, primarily debt and deficits, had made anything but fiscal conservatism economically (and, therefore, politically) untenable. This assumption proved premature, and an alarming phenomenon has been emerging in Europe over the past decade – a dangerous melding of left and right. Now, thanks to the Parti Quebecois, which, under leader Pauline Marois, hopes to form Quebec’s provincial government after next Tuesday’s election, that phenomenon has reached our shores.

The phenomenon is a political amalgam of hyper-nationalistic rhetoric (nothing new for the sovereigntist PQ) combined with xenophobia (an associated tendency the PQ tried to keep under wraps until this year, when Marois began waving it like a proud banner) made palatable with a modest ensemble of progressive or seemingly left-wing justifications.

The cause of preserving the French language and culture in North America’s only francophone-majority jurisdiction is a legitimate objective, but it has been used for unjustified intrusions into individual rights in the past and Marois’ current raft of proposals go further than any Quebec politician has dared go yet.

Marois is proposing a language fluency test for anyone running for office in the province – or even seeking to make a political donation. She would extend to public colleges the measures of controversial Law 101, which prevent children of immigrants (including “immigrants” from other provinces) from attending English-language schools.

More alarming, perhaps, in order to preserve the cultural heritage of the province, she would ban public servants from obvious religious identifiers, including a kippa, a turban or a hijab. But, recognizing the Catholic heritage that is an integral part of her interpretation of Quebec culture, crucifixes would be excepted. The Christian symbol that stands prominently in the provincial legislature (the “National Assembly”) would remain unmolested. In other words, a PQ government would recognize Quebec not only as a French jurisdiction whose language must be protected, but as a Christian entity whose religious freedoms fully extend only to adherents of Jesus. These policies are justified by the PQ as necessary to protect the language and heritage of the province, but they do little to detract from the attack they represent on individual and collective rights, as well as on our country’s (that is, Canada’s) reputation as a tolerant place.

The PQ’s plan must be seen as antithetical to Canadian multiculturalism and as xenophobic as anything promoted by a legitimate political party in our living memory. (Recent reports of Sir John A. Macdonald’s hopes for an Aryan Canada prevent us from a more sweeping assertion.) It is notable that it is coming from a party that has been pegged as left-of-centre; these policies are the traditional fodder of the far-right, but this combination has precedent.

In Western Europe, similarly enigmatic policies have been adopted by those once deemed right-wing. The Dutch Party for Freedom, the Danish People’s Party, the British National Party and the Freedom Party of Switzerland all promote policies such as slashing immigration, based to a large extent on a pronounced anti-Muslim bent, but clothed in protecting the existing cultural majority. The expressed justifications for the policies lean to traditionally progressive arguments about women’s equality, free expression (including the right to criticize religion) and gay rights. This once-weird association of perceived left-wing values of human rights with perceived far-right positions on immigration, multiculturalism and crime is becoming, if not mainstream, certainly not as outside the pale as it once was.

Some of these European extremists, contra the traditional European far-right position, are philo-semites, seeing Israel and Jews as the enemy of their enemy (Islamists) and ergo their friend. This generalization may be unfair in some cases and too generous in others, but it is nonetheless the case that Israel and Jews have some dubious self-proclaimed friends in Europe these days.

To a lesser extent, this mob includes the father-daughter tag team of French extremists Jean-Marie and Marine Le Pen. However, while these categories are increasingly amorphous, the Le Pens are more conventional extreme-right figures, ignoring the expedient marriage with seemingly progressive causes like women’s and gay rights. And the Le Pens are no friends of the Jews. In this, the French far-right resembles the far-right of eastern Europe, which tends toward unreconstructed neo-fascism, as the world was reminded recently when Csanad Szegedi, a rising star in Hungary’s Jobbik party was just discovered to be halachically Jewish – a revelation that has apparently ended his political career.

The marriage of extreme-right and left-wing approaches has been a baffling phenomenon for European observers. Now, Canadians can have a close look at it in our own backyard. On Tuesday, we will know if the people of Quebec endorse it or reject it.

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