On the Kirpan & Canadian Multiculturalism

I have been thinking about the best way to respond to the news of Quebec's provincial legislature passing a resolution banning the kirpan from the building. I've shared links on the subject with friends through my Twitter and Facebook accounts, but I also have been dedicating some deeper thinking to the larger issue.

The Globe and Mail published an article today that says we in Canada may be heading for a debate on multiculturalism no one really wants to have. But let's review some of the issues that arise from this kirpan ban and think about broader implications.

A kirpan worn at the Supreme Court
(courtesy of globeandmail.com)

First, the offensive Louise Beaudoin, secularism critic for the Parti Quebecois who provocatively stated "Multiculturalism may be a Canadian value but it's not a Quebec one." This is typical hair-splitting predicated on a separatist agenda, designed to offend and therefore provoke a reaction that hopefully reinvigorates a flagging cause. For surely she must know that people who live in Quebec carry Canadian passports and are Canadian citizens. As such, our laws apply, and our values are their values. There will always be those in any society who rail against the predominant view -- I do so all the time as a poet. But this is still a place built (at least ostensibly) on the rule of law.

Values are shaped by the laws, customs, practices and desires of the population, not the wishful thinking of a small group of politicians and nationalist rabblerousers.

Beaudoin claims multiculturalism, which was enshrined in our Constitution when it came home from England in the early 1980s, does not apply to Quebec. True, the province did not sign the Constitution Act of 1982. But keep in mind an analogous situation -- in the world of labour, a group of employees continue to work for an employer, and continue to be paid, even in a situation where the collective bargaining agreement has expired. There are only two ways to end that situation. Either the parties agree to a new contract or a strike/lockout ensues.

Applying this to Quebec, they are still part of Canada, and are still subject to all its laws even though they haven't signed the new "collective agreement" under our repatriated Constitution. So until we kick them out of Confederation (lockout) or they declare independence (strike), they're still part of Canada and responsible to uphold all the laws of the land.

For once in my life I find myself agreeing with John Snobelen, the former Ontario education minister under Mike Harris, who wrote "throwing people out of the National Assembly because of their religious garb has everything to do with a growing xenophobia in Quebec." He goes on to say that "the banning of kirpans from the Quebec National Assembly is nothing more or less than the latest example of systemic prejudice in a province that has grown famous for official intolerance." The trend dans la belle province of doing everything possible to protect the French language, even if it means running roughshod over minority rights, flies in the face of liberal democratic principles.

If there ever was a place where de Tocqueville's warning about the tyranny of the majority has not been heeded, it's the Quebec National Assembly.

The other aspect of Snobelen's argument that rings true for me is the way security has come to trump all other considerations in our society. When it was suggested to Beaudoin that a kirpan was no more or less deadly than the steak knives readily available in the National Assembly's restaurant, she laughed: "Knives and kirpan are not exactly the same thing." No, they are not. You eat with a knife, and therefore it's not a security threat (even though people openly brandish them on a daily basis and they are used to cut meat). A kirpan is to remain under clothing and in its sheath at all times, and is a necessary article of a religious faith. No, they are not the same thing at all, Madame Beaudoin.

The response from the government was almost comical. Quoting from the CTV.ca article: "Essentially it's focusing on security, and we support the decision made by the security agents of L'Assemblée Nationale," said Liberal Cultural Communities Minister Kathleen Weil. "Security agents have to make those kinds of decisions on a daily basis, whether it's in courthouses or in airports or here." This is a failure of leadership on an unforgivable scale. Last time I checked, it wasn't the security agents who voted with the other parties to officially ban the kirpan, it was government MNAs. Not a single member of the governing Liberals present that day had the intestinal fortitude to stand against the bigotry emanating from opposition benches and vote against this offensive PQ-sponsored motion. If I still lived in Montreal I'd be working tirelessly to defeat my local MNA, regardless of political stripe, for voting for this. And if my MNA wasn't present for the vote because they were dodging it, I'd still work for their ouster for not having the courage to have their convictions recorded for posterity.

Let's face the facts -- trumped-up security concerns are the roots of many current evils.  This is just the latest manifestation of our acquiescence to diminished rights and protections in the name of protecting elites from the street.  Because ultimately, concerns about security by powerful people are less about protecting you and me and more about upholding various forms of hegemony.

In this case, the power structure being protected is one predicated on race and religion. It cannot, and should not, go unchallenged. As Balpreet Singh, legal counsel for the World Sikh Organization of Canada said, "when you get this message from the National Assembly that the kirpan - and by extension Sikhs - are not welcomed here, it does leave you scratching your head. I find it objectionable."

I find it objectionable that people entrusted with upholding the public good can so regularly trample minority rights. I find it objectionable that the bigots are coming out, writing obtuse, inflammatory, xenophobic and racist statements at the ends of these articles and finding a repugnant wellspring of support for their hate. I find it objectionable that not enough people are angered by this creeping clawback of our rights protected in our Constitution. I find it objectionable that Quebec continues to spit on that document without a throaty retort from Ottawa.

Multiculturalism is indeed a Canadian value, and Canada stretches from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island, from Peelee Point to the North Pole, and everything in between. It encompasses the cliff over the St. Lawrence River where French explorers established a settlement centuries ago, and the building in the modern city at that location that now boasts the ignominious distinction of "Canada's most xenophobic legislature."

Vive le Québec? Je pense que non.