Vaughn Palmer: B.C. NDP condemns Quebec's Bill 21, but Horgan carefully silent
Credit to Author: Massey Padgham| Date: Fri, 06 Dec 2019 00:09:58 +0000
VICTORIA — While Premier John Horgan has avoided criticizing Quebec’s controversial Bill 21, the recent B.C. NDP convention criticized the law in the strongest terms.
Delegates passed a resolution that said Quebec’s “unjust” legislation was encouraging “the extreme right to threaten and intimidate religious minorities.”
Bill 21, enacted earlier this year, bans newly hired teachers, police officers, prosecutors and others in positions of public authority in Quebec from wearing religious symbols while on the job.
“The Quebec government has passed a law that denies the rights of public sector workers to display religious symbols in the workplace,” the B.C. NDP convention resolution read in part.
“That same government used the notwithstanding clause in the constitution because the law is unjust and would not stand up to a charter challenge. … This law emboldens the extremist right to threaten and intimidate religious minorities at a time when intolerance is growing at an alarming rate.”
With that denunciation of the Quebec legislation out of the way, the resolution switched focus to this province: “There is no place for religious and cultural intolerance in B.C. The B.C. NDP will urge the provincial government to continue to take the steps needed to ensure the rights of public servants to wear religious symbols are protected and respected.”
The resolution, titled “Preserving Religious Freedom for Public Servants,” originated from Delta North, represented in the legislature by NDP MLA Ravi Kahlon. It was co-sponsored by the Canadian Union of Public Employees local that represents unionized staff at party headquarters in B.C. (“Our members make just one product: NDP election wins in B.C.”)
It passed handily on the final day of the Nov. 23-25 party convention, with only a few delegates speaking, all of them in favour.
Premier Horgan was not among those who spoke. Also silent was national leader Jagmeet Singh, though he attended the convention.
Singh, who represents a Burnaby constituency in the House of Commons, addressed delegates in a rousing speech on Saturday, Nov 24.
He spoke again Sunday morning in support of a resolution endorsing B.C.’s move to harmonize provincial laws with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Minutes after the passage of that resolution, the one condemning Quebec’s Bill 21 was called for debate.
Singh was not in the convention hall during the brief discussion and subsequent vote.
“He had to leave right after the vote on the UNDRIP resolution,” was the explanation from NDP staffers.
Not surprising that the national leader would prefer to be out of the room when the convention took up such a provocative resolution.
Singh has spoken critically of the Quebec legislation, though not in so many words as the B.C. resolution. The NDP was reduced to one seat in Quebec in the recent election, losing 11 others to the Bloc Quebecois, which supports Bill 21.
Horgan has tried to avoid provoking Quebec as well. Instead of criticizing legislation from another province, he prefers to highlight the things B.C. has done to promote diversity and tolerance, according to a statement from his office.
When, last summer, the National Observer asked the B.C. premier to weigh in on Bill 21, MA Kahlon responded in his stead.
“In B.C. we know that the diversity of our citizens makes us a more vibrant and stronger society,” wrote Kahlon, parliamentary secretary for multiculturalism at the time. “We will never use the tools of government to shut out some people from certain jobs due to expressions of their faith.”
Opposition leader Andrew Wilkinson did speak out against Quebec’s legislative intentions before Bill 21 was enacted, saying it was at odds with Canadian values of inclusiveness and respect for minorities.
“It is with some distress that many of us have noticed that the Quebec legislature has now heard a bill that threatens these important principles by banning people in positions of authority from wearing religious symbols,” said Wilkinson, in an April 1 statement in the B.C. house.
“Quebec’s bill includes provisions to invoke the notwithstanding clause to protect it from the inevitable challenges in the courts,” said Wilkinson, a point the NDP convention resolution made as well.
“I stand today to say that it is an attempt to put religious discrimination into the code of law,” continued the B.C. Liberal leader. “My Canada doesn’t stand for legislated assaults on charter rights.”
He called “on the members of this house and all British Columbians to openly state our opposition to this kind of thing and to promote the inclusiveness, acceptance and respect that all of us have benefited from here in B.C.”
More than six months would pass before the B.C. legislature took up debate on a motion from Liberal MLA Jas Johal “that this house unanimously affirm the rights of an individual to wear religious and cultural symbols in the workplace.”
Speaking in favour during the hour-long debate were five New Democrats, including Kahlon, and five B.C. Liberals besides Johal. Following the usual practice with motions from private members, the debate ended without a formal vote of those present.
The motion was called for debate on the morning of Monday, Oct. 21, while the rest of the country was distracted by the federal election.
Not surprisingly, the B.C. Liberal motion, like the NDP convention resolution, drew little notice inside B.C. and none in the rest of the country.
vpalmer@postmedia.com