When it comes to the Bedford school revelations, it seems that allegations are the same as proof for a CAQ government on the ropes.
Anti-Muslim sentiment is once again being stoked by François Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec government, and it’s shameful.
I say “we were told” because none of the allegations in the report have been the object of a full and fair procedure from what we know. It looks like the most basic rules of natural justice, like hearing both sides, have not been respected. If that’s the case, that will be a huge problem for the CAQ when the issue inevitably is before the courts, but for now, it seems allegations are the same as proof for a government on the ropes.
The Education Ministry’s report had remained dormant for some time. When it became front-page news, scapegoats were quickly found and the basest reflexes of Legault and his ministers were once again on full display.
Islamism is not to be confused with Islam.
Islam is the religious faith with close to 2 billion people around the planet. In the United States and in Canada, Islam is protected by the charters or bill of rights as a religion like all others.
Islamism is a political movement that seeks to have the precepts of Islam at the core of government policies and that opposes secularism, or “laicity” as it is called in Bill 21.
Here in Quebec, we have discriminatory legislation that ostensibly seeks to ban certain government employees from showing religious affiliations. The problem with that theory is that a simple reading of Bill 21 shows that there’s an entire chapter that can apply only to Muslim women. It’s not “the division of Church and state” — it’s the discrimination of the state against the expression of one’s faith, and it targets one religion in particular, Islam.
Legault continued down that path when he stated, as fact, that “Islamism” had arrived in “our public schools,” threatening “our children.”
The neat academic distinction between “Islam” and “Islamism” was of course largely lost on the torches and pitchforks mob. A monster was on the loose; something had to be done!
Even the reference to “our children in our public schools” was phoney. To my knowledge, the only Quebec education minister who sent their kids only to public school was Pauline Marois. All the rest sent their kids to private schools for all or part of their education, including Legault.
On the Saturday night before Education Minister Bernard Drainville was set to appear on popular talk show Tout le monde en parle, it was announced that 11 teachers at Bedford had been suspended. Soon thereafter, we learned that their teaching licences had been revoked, by all indications unilaterally and without a hearing, which would seem to be as illegal as it is shocking.
Imagine if the Quebec College of Physicians, in an alleged case of professional
misconduct, were to decide to remove the licences of 11 doctors to escape public criticism. No fair hearing, just removal of their right to earn a living in their field. It wouldn’t last a second before the courts.
Teachers don’t yet have a professional order; they are governed by the state. It may well be that there was professional misconduct that requires intervention. But the government can’t unilaterally remove rights to escape a public outcry based on fears it has helped create.
Tom Mulcair, a former leader of the federal NDP, served as minister of the environment in the Quebec Liberal government of Jean Charest.