Quebec Bill 62 is not about secularism and must be opposed by the left

Especially now in the era of Trump the reality of where anti-Islamic rhetoric and actions can lead has come into clear focus. Islamophobic laws that would accept the violation of fundamental and basic freedoms under the guise of promoting women's rights, secularism or social order are particularly dangerous at this junction in history.

Yet at the recent NDP Leadership debate in Montreal this past weekend three of the four contenders failed to stand up fully against the Quebec government's shameful proposed Bill 62 which claims to be about "religious neutrality" while in its very wording it clearly targets women of the Islamic faith who wear the niqab.

This wording of Bill 62 is such that it has led to concerns -- from no less than the Mayor of Montreal -- that it might even be used to prevent women wearing the niqab from accessing public transit.

Jagmeet Singh was the only one of the candidates at the debate who was willing to state specifically that he opposed it regardless of the alleged rational behind it.

The rest of the candidates, while saying they opposed any legislation that would regulate what women (or people generally) should wear, did so while saying it was necessary to respect Quebec and its culture of "secularism" as if that is what Bill 62 is at all about.

(To watch a stream of the debate click here)

They have also not all been willing to say they would challenge the law in court if it is passed and they are in government.

These are MPs from a party that justly attacked the Harper Conservatives for their dog-whistle Islamophobia in the 2015 federal campaign.

This notion that Bill 62 is about "secularism" is an affront to the very principles of secularism which have been cynically hijacked by politicians again trying to pass this type of bill under a giant crucifix in their provincial National Assembly.

In the end it is not "secularism" you are trumpeting if you are threatening to pass actual laws to deny government jobs and public services to women -- and it is all about women...and only women wearing Niqabs...thereby seeking to "liberate" women by ghettoizing and ostracizing them from the very means to function in a society at all -- from a specific and racialized group for what they wear that is "too religious",  yet you are going to keep up with pretensions that a crucifix in your parliament itself is somehow not a violation of the principle of "religious neutrality".

Seriously. How much more obvious could the hypocrisy and real motives be?

Never mind the vital fact that this law would target the supposed 'victims' of the niqab themselves. Bill 62 in Quebec does this rather obviously as it has provisions that are directed specifically at people wearing religious facial coverings.

Such laws are almost always unconstitutional. And so they must be. If the government can regulate one form of religious dress or belief to allow access to jobs and public services, then why not others?

As for the absurd and racist notion that if those of the Islamic faith wanted to come here they should be like "us" or that they should adopt "our" values -- whatever that means in a nation of immigrants built on stolen indigenous lands -- that argument has been used in our history against Italians, Jews, Sikhs, Catholics, Asians and just about every identifiable group you can name. It was wrong in each of these cases and is now.

Whether it is Sikhs in the RCMP, Jews in the legion, various forms of religious daggers or dress, there are always calls from those afraid of the other for people to set aside deeply held beliefs and conform.

As for the rights of women, in the name of that crucifix in the National Assembly countless crimes have been committed against women and continue to be every single day.

Acknowledging Quebec's nationhood, society and history does not mean we no longer have a responsibility to speak up about proposed laws that could lead to such ugly and dangerous outcomes as Bill 62 could.

Guy Caron stated prior to the Montreal debate“I am making it clear that, above all, an NDP leader must respect Quebec’s national character.” If we take that position then, as Chantal Hebert put it:

...would the same reasoning apply if the National Assembly — in a bid to protect Quebec’s demographic weight in the federation — moved to restrict abortion rights to pursue a natalist policy?
And if Quebec’s collective take on the place of religion is a valid rationale to limit religious rights, are not countries whose governments identify closely with a given religion also within their rights to limit other freedoms in the name of the beliefs of the majority?
Finally, at what point, if any, does Caron think the right to exercise fundamental freedoms should constrain the National Assembly’s latitude to consolidate the province’s secular character?
Here is what is clear: the government of Quebec has put forward a bill that may seek to deny government services to women by law should they refuse to compromise on what is a part of their religious belief system.

Here is what is clear: the government of Quebec has put forward a bill that may seek to deny government services to women by law should they refuse to compromise on what is a part of their religious belief system.

A bill that could do this has no place in a constitutional democracy that claims to respect religious freedom and to support equality of access for all before the law and government, which is a key aspect of secular governance.

Bill 62 must be opposed publicly and explicitly when it is brought up and politicians on the left must make it clear they will use all options, including the courts, to stop it should it become law. This is essential to our broader fight against Islamophobia and bigotry.

This piece uses some wording and passages from a piece that appeared on "Michael Laxer's Blog" in December, 2011.

See also: Fake 'secularism' is not an excuse for Islamophobic bigotry

Racist Memes, Andrew Coyne, the NDP's Disaster & more! -- The Top Ten Posts and the year on The Left Chapter in review

The Left Chapter was launched as a blog at the beginning of February of this year. I wanted to start an eclectic space that presented views, analysis and opinions from a leftist perspective but that also featured recipes, art, fiction and poetry, little bits of whimsy and whatever else it seemed fun or appropriate to feature!

The first year has been a success far beyond expectations in no small part due to the contributions  of several different writers and the feedback of readers and friends.

We have had political blogs about ISIS, the mythology around Naheed Nenshi, the LCBO, the uprising in Baltimore, a call for non-violence, an open letter to Tom Mulcair and an analysis of the the strategy of the peace movement in Canada among many other topics.

There were 323 posts of various types in total!

Today we are going to look at the top ten political posts of the year in terms of hits. (Watch for the top food posts of the year before New Year's Day!)

I want to thank everyone who contributed to the blog and to our readership for such a great launch and I look forward to what 2016 brings.

1) Stop sharing the false -- and racist -- Ontario niqab driver's licence meme

Have you seen this meme circulating around Facebook and the internet the last few days?

It purports to show a woman on an Ontario driver's licence  wearing the niqab -- a religious headdress a very small number of Islamic women in Canada wear and that is being shamefully used by some politicians as a dog-whistle in the current federal election.

Read More! 

2) Reinforcing male privilege -- The Trudeau cabinet, Andrew Coyne and the mythology of "merit"

You really have to love it when the beneficiaries of the greatest social assistance program in the history of Western Civilization and Canada -- the one that did and has rewarded white men for having been born white men since the day the country was founded -- talk about "merit" to bemoan newly elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's decision to make his cabinet have an equal number of men and women, thereby reflecting the actual gender composition of the country.

Read More! 

3) Delusion continues to rule the day in Mulcair NDP

By Fraser Needham

In the 2015 Canadian federal election campaign that wrapped up earlier this week, the Justin Trudeau led Liberals won a smashing 184-seat majority government.

Perhaps what is most amazing about the Liberal victory is that the party started in third place in terms of both number of seats and in the polls when the campaign began in early August.

Read More!

4) Catastrophe: The NDP lost because it deserved to

It is, ultimately, astounding how facile and false political narratives come back to haunt those who insist on their veracity.

And so it has happened with the "government-in-waiting" liberal led NDP.

Read More!

5) BC NDP posts a meme about "foreign" workers -- Xenophobes show up in approval

There is a wing of the left -- and especially within the mainstream "social democratic" party, the NDP -- that thinks that the path to power is in part paved by pandering to what are traditionally right-wing populist narratives.

Read More!

6) NDP campaign enters panic mode

By Fraser Needham

If in politics a week can be a lifetime, a month can be an eternity – especially in an election campaign.

Just put yourself in the shoes of NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair’s top strategists to see how much things can change over the course of four weeks. On a late August afternoon when members of the Mulcair team looked out on a bright and sunny day from the confines of the NDP war room, they must have been feeling pretty confident about themselves.

Read More!

7) Doubling down on disaster

In the wake of the catastrophic election result for the NDP -- an election that saw the party squander its position as official opposition and "government-in-waiting" and what seemed its first real shot at power -- comes news that the leader who "led" the party there, Tom Mulcair, intends to stay at the helm.

Read More!

8) The NDP's phony “credit card” analogy: a neoliberal conception of the public household

By Matt Fodor

In an attempt to shore up the NDP’s fiscal credibility, Tom Mulcair recruited Andrew Thomson, the fiscally conservative finance minister that served in the NDP provincial government of Lorne Calvert in Saskatchewan.

Read More!

9) Mulcair's NDP ran a great campaign! We know this because they say they did.

By Fraser Needham

It has now been almost three weeks since the NDP suffered a devastating loss in the 2015 federal election and the party remains shell shocked as to what exactly went wrong.

The Liberals are forging ahead on their mandate after winning the party’s first majority government in 15 years. Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau named his first cabinet this week with gender parity and significant minority representation. If early signs are any indication, it appears clear the Liberals intend to run a much more open and accessible government than their predecessors.

Read More!

10) Unintended consequences: Attacking Leadnow and "strategic voting"

As I have noted before, partisan political narratives often die very hard -- even when these narratives have begun to do far more harm than good to those who continue to espouse them.

One of these, increasingly, is the fixation by many New Democrat partisans on insisting that they are the only "real" "progressives" (while all the other parliamentary parties are supposedly the "same") as well as on attacking their old nemesis among progressive voters -- the Liberal Party.

Read More!

Thanks again for a great first year. See you in 2016.

Do you have a left point-of-view or opinion, a recipe or a story you want to share?

Send them to The Left Chapter via theleftchapter@outlook.com!

Stopping the leprechauns and other follies from week ten of the 2015 election -- A Left Chapter round-up

This is the tenth and final installment of our weekly election round-up of the inane, bizarre, humorous and unusually facile in the great show that is mainstream bourgeois politics in the EPIC election of 2015.

1) This photo!

Could a picture more perfectly embody the ugliness of an entire campaign? Is this a cheap shot? Perhaps...but far less of a cheap shot than those Duceppe has taken by trying to reestablish his party in parliament via dog-whistle politics and on the backs of vilifying women from a racialized and marginalized community.

2) If re-elected I will also make sure leprechauns are not allowed to roam down the streets of Ottawa anymore either. 

I can be stopped...but not if you vote Liberal or NDP.

So...the election is not going as well as planned and our venerable Prime Minister needs something to get certain "old stock" Canadians all worked up about. What better than musing about banning all those nefarious niqab wearing women who have infiltrated our public sector and are destroying openness in Canada by providing services to Canadians and doing their jobs while wearing their chosen religious headdress.

This seems worthwhile right? Because we all know how liberating it would be for these women to be forced to either lose their employment or abandon a strongly held belief under government compulsion.

And how many women would the Great Crusader emancipate by taking away their livelihood? Apparently none as their seem to be no public sector workers who wear a niqab.

But, when you need a dead cat, facts mean nothing and considering a ban of a non-existent "problem" makes perfect sense. 

3) He is French. That seems treasonous in-and-of-itself.

Here Conservative mastermind Brad Butt explains that they are NOT talking about taking away anyone's citizenship because anyone whose citizenship they did take away would still be a citizen of another country. Right? Get it. Even though their Canadian citizenship would be taken away, the government would not be taking away people's citizenship.

Roll that one around your head a few more times.

Oh...and by the way...did you know Tom Mulcair is also French! As in a citizen of France? How does this matter? Watch the video and this moron will fill you in.

4) To dream the far less than impossible dream.

We are on the verge of the New Jerusalem!
And by "on the verge" I mean further away than ever.

NDP releases very modest election plan that aims to achieve not much of anything. Calls this plan "Building the country of our dreams". 

Not sure anything more needs to be said about this one. 

5) Rules...who cares about the rules? The point is to make it has hard as possible to vote! 

Elections Canada: Making it as hard as possible for you to do this. 

You would think that the folks working at the polling stations for Elections Canada would actually know the rules about what is required to vote. I mean, they have been trained, right? And, some things, such as the fact the you do NOT need photo ID to vote are pretty basic.

Well...apparently not, as one Saskatoon woman discovered when she went to cast her ballot. She was immediately asked if she had brought photo ID. And apparently she is far from the only person who has been incorrectly told that this was required.

Perhaps an inevitable result of a paranoid new election law that aims to stamp out completely non-existent and fictional election fraud. 

Thus ends our final installment looking at the Grand Farce. At this time next week it will all be over...at long last.

Thanks to everyone for all their tips. This feature has been enough fun and gotten enough positive feedback that a new broader continuing look at the inanity of politics both here and abroad may be making a return in the near future!

See also: F&%K YOU ALL! Now vote for me...and other follies from week nine of the 2015 election -- A Left Chapter round-up

See also: Could you fill me in on the 20th century and other follies from week eight of the 2015 election -- A Left Chapter round-up

Islamophobia, the niqab and dog-whistle racism in the Canadian election

The danger with dog-whistle politics is the very real, very violent angers and emotions it unleashes.

We are seeing this in the ugly and racist campaign the Conservatives and Bloc Quebecois are disgracefully waging against the very small number of women of the Islamic faith who chose to wear the niqab face veil.

For many months now the Conservatives have been seeking to shift the focus from real issues -- like the economy, the environment, senate scandals, etc...-- to this total non-issue. They appear to be succeeding.

As they do, we start to see violence directed at those who wear the niqab. There was an attack in Montreal (on a pregnant woman who was, in fact, wearing a hijab as opposed to a niqab -- though to racists such distinctions do not matter) and then another in Toronto.

And, of course, there is an endless proliferation of angry social media posts and absurd and ignorant internet memes.

With no apparent sense of irony these attacks were by men, presumably trying to rip the allegedly oppressive headdress off these women to aid in their "liberation" by assaulting them.

And this exposes the fundamental lie at the heart of the entire narrative the Conservatives and even many liberals and leftist fellow-travelers have constructed around the niqab and Islam. You do not liberate anyone by forcing them to wear what you want and to conform to your cultural norms.

Whatever one thinks of the niqab -- and any number of other similar practices notably not being talked about practiced by fundamentalist sects of Christianity and Judaism -- and what it represents the fact is that it is being singled out and those who wear it are being targeted not because those doing so care at all about the equality rights of these women specifically or even the equality rights of women generally, but rather to inflame racist sentiments against the Islamic "other" for both nationalist and political ends.

Sadly, there is a wing of the left that buys into the pseudo-intellectual argument that Islam is not a race and that, therefore, Islamophobia and simplistic bigoted narratives about the niqab are not, somehow, racism.

Generally these folks tend to be the "I am a white atheist and I took a first year course in being an entitled Richard Dawkins reader" types who are completely clueless about the reality that racism and bias against specific religions intersect in certain contexts.

But there is no doubt that in the here-and-now real world of Canada today these attacks and the actions of the politicians and the people they are provoking are racism. It is racism as this is a religion, in this case, that is clearly associated with people who are, overwhelmingly, not white and who are not  what our Prime Minister would call "old stock" Canadians. The right are using "religion" as a code word for what they really mean. Which is "not us".

Given that, in reality, race is a largely fictional socially constructed notion anyway, what else is this vitriolic, angry, blind and ignorant backlash against a tiny number of women on the outside of the Canadian "mainstream"  if it is not racism?

It is certainly not reasoned secularism. It is certainly not about inclusion.

It is certainly not at all about women's rights.

When the racist bigots and dog-whistle politicians who dwell upon and pontificate about Islam and the niqab equally turn their eyes to any number of misogynist and extremist practices by Jews, Christians and others, then perhaps we could debate as to whether it is secularist bigotry or misguided silliness.

Now it is what it clearly is. Racism. Plain and simple racism.

As progressives, liberals, social democrats and leftists we should never help it along by pretending it is some kind of intellectual exercise in terminology detached from the vile actuality of what it results in.

And what it results in is violence, discrimination and government action against a marginalized and racialized community.

Our government and our government officials are using the niqab to create a climate of fear and loathing that will help them back to power.

They are actually using all available legal means to try to keep stopping a woman from taking an oath at a symbolic ceremony a front and centre election issue.

This is disgusting. It goes against everything Canada is supposedly about.

And it is a shocking expression of official, governmental racism.

image via flickr Osama Saeed

See also: Stephen Harper's dog-whistle: Islamophobia and Canadian politics

See also: Stop sharing the false -- and racist -- Ontario niqab driver's licence meme

September: Racist memes, NDP credit cards, stuck in the 90's & more -- The month on The Left Chapter in review

Seen this meme? Well it is total bullshit! 

September saw 32 posts of various types on The Left Chapter.

One of those posts -- on the false and racist Ontario niqab driver's licence meme that has been circulating around the internet -- obliterated all our past hit records and unexpectedly got tens-of-thousands of hits and hundreds of "shares".


It was nice to see so many on social media try to expose what is an appallingly bigoted lie meant to help perpetuate a dog-whistle and ignorant xenophobic agenda.

All around, however, September saw many posts that struck a nerve, so without any further ado here are the top five posts in terms of hits for the month.

1) Stop sharing the false -- and racist -- Ontario niqab driver's licence meme

Have you seen this meme circulating around Facebook and the internet the last few days?

It purports to show a woman on an Ontario driver's licence  wearing the niqab -- a religious headdress a very small number of Islamic women in Canada wear and that is being shamefully used by some politicians as a dog-whistle in the current federal election.

Read more!

2) The NDP's phony “credit card” analogy: a neoliberal conception of the public household

By Matt Fodor

In an attempt to shore up the NDP’s fiscal credibility, Tom Mulcair recruited Andrew Thomson, the fiscally conservative finance minister that served in the NDP provincial government of Lorne Calvert in Saskatchewan.

Thomson is running in the affluent Toronto riding of Eglinton-Lawrence against Finance Minister Joe Oliver.  While the NDP has virtually no chance of winning this Liberal-Conservative battleground riding (it is one of the weakest ridings for the NDP in Ontario), Thomson has become Mulcair’s point man in articulating economic policy.

Read more!

3) It appears the NDP strategists are stuck in the 90’s – again

by Fraser Needham

As NDP strategists mull over the polls this weekend and try to figure out why their shift to the right of the Liberals on the issue of balanced budgets and deficit financing doesn’t seem to be playing out as they hoped in Ontario, they might be wise to take some time out and do a little research on the British Labour Party leadership election.

Read more! 

4) Playing the progressive card -- Trudeau's cynical, but clever, "left shift"

Stephen Harper has no plan to grow our economy and no plan to help the middle class, so he's spending your money trying to convince you that I'm not ready.

Here's what I'm not ready for.

Read More! 

5) The follies of the NDP running a right wing populist campaign

by Fraser Needham

Up until a few weeks ago, it looked like the NDP had a pretty good shot at winning the 2015 election and forming its first national government.

Read more!

The number one food post for the month was Ukrainian Cookery Recipes w. Borscht, Vareniki, Cabbage Rolls & more -- Vintage Cookbook

Do you have a left point-of-view or opinion, a recipe or a story you want to share?

Send them to The Left Chapter via theleftchapter@outlook.com!

Check out our review for the month of August!: August: Margaret Thatcher, Morgan Wheeldon, Tom Mulcair, Tommy Douglas & more -- The month on The Left Chapter in review

Stop sharing the false -- and racist -- Ontario niqab driver's licence meme

Have you seen this meme circulating around Facebook and the internet the last few days?

It purports to show a woman on an Ontario driver's licence  wearing the niqab -- a religious headdress a very small number of Islamic women in Canada wear and that is being shamefully used by some politicians as a dog-whistle in the current federal election.

Usually the meme will be accompanied by countless outraged comments and idiotic hand-wringing about "Canadian identity", "values", "this would never be allowed for us" etc.

Well, the meme is total photoshop bullshit. First the licence clearly has the sex as male. But, more importantly, you cannot get a driver's licence issued in Ontario with a photo that has you wearing a niqab covering your face.

From the Ontario government's webpage related to this:

 As of May 2013, you only need to renew the photo on your driver's licence every 10 years. If you need a new photo, you need to visit a ServiceOntario centre to have one taken.
The picture on your photo I.D. must be:
completely visible
free of any obstructions
a neutral expression
Headwear worn for religious or medical reasons can be worn, but must not cover any part of your face.
You may be asked to remove any head or face wear (e.g., eyeglasses) when taking a photo for government-issued identification.

Clear enough?

There are very real issues in this election. The niqab is not one of them. And sharing racist, dog-whistle, inaccurate rubbish like this is a disgrace.

Stephen Harper's dog-whistle: Islamophobia and Canadian politics

It is rare that a politician, elected or otherwise,  openly admits that he or she is capitulating to the bigoted and "irrational" fears of his or her constituents, but that is exactly what Shawinigan, Que. Mayor Michel Angers did on Friday.

At a press conference he held to explain his council's frankly inane decision not to allow the minor rezoning of an industrial park so that a small mosque could be built there, he bluntly acknowledged that, in opposition to his own beliefs, pressure from people "across the province" had motivated them.

While it is nice to see honesty from our political class, it makes the decision of him and his council no less gutless.

Angers went on to say "people in Shawinigan aren't afraid of Muslims", which is a rather absurd contention after calling these same people out for being irrationally afraid! It is obvious that growing numbers of Canadians, and by no means just in Quebec, encouraged by the media and the rhetoric of right-wing politicians, are very much afraid, irrationally so, of Islamics, Canadian or otherwise.

Fear of the "other", of the immigrant or perceived outsider and the use of racially charged or bigoted rhetoric has long been a staple in the right's political armoury and 2015, an election year, is certainly proving no different in Canada.

Stephen Harper, rebounding in the polls and looking for a wedge issue to use to campaign, as Ricochet's Derrick O'Keefe phrased it, on the politics of "fear instead of hope", has seized on the supposed threat of "jihadists" and "radical Islam" and is openly pulling out the dog-whistle around issues like Bill C-51 and now the terrible decision of his government to appeal the clearly unconstitutional law that forces women who chose to wear one to remove their niqab facial coverings during a Canadian citizenship swearing ceremony.

The government, in other words, will spend a considerable amount of money in what they almost certainly know will be an unsuccessful appeal to fight to keep in place a law that applies to only a tiny number of people and that accomplishes absolutely nothing given that there are many other ways to establish identity.

It does accomplish one thing, however. It allows Harper to stand up in the media and call a specific type of religious dress "offensive" both during a citizenship ceremony and more generally, and that is, in fact, the entire point of the legal appeal.

Sadly, he is likely not wrong that this will pander to many Canadian perceptions as other commentators, like Kelly McParland in the National Post, have noted.

And not just right wing Canadians. Unfortunately many on the left and many secularists have bought into simplistic narratives around the niqab, as I have written about before, and have helped to enable and embolden the right by allowing them to cloak themselves with the claim they are standing up for women's rights, when this is not what they care about in any way..

Regarding the denial of a zoning change, one Shawinigan resident said "I'm afraid so, I support the decision. I'm afraid of attacks...Muslims have the right to live just like us, as long as they stay very, very calm."

This is the type of ludicrous and Islamophobic thinking among Canadians, and voters, that Harper has in mind when he makes the comments he does.

Women's rights and human rights have nothing at all to do with it.

picture via wikimedia commons