Quebec’s public sector employees — including at hospitals and schools — may be forced to abandon head scarves, turbans, crucifixes and other religious apparel and symbols, if a controversial proposal passes.
The province — under Quebec Premier Pauline Marois, who has been in office just over a year — has been working up changes for its “charter of values,” to be presented publicly this week.
Although the details have not officially been made public, the government says its proposal aims to reaffirm “the principle of religious neutrality in state institutions.”
And that is going to include a ban on religious symbols among public sector, and semi-public sector, workers, early press reports said.
“One of the responsibilities” of these workers “is to be neutral,” the minister in charge of the issue, Bernard Drainville, said.
“The best way to protect the right to equality is by neutrality. The best way to respect the right of all religions is for the state to not have any religion,” he added.
Yet these reforms would not apply to the crucifix that has adorned the main chamber of the Canadian National Assembly since 1936, Drainville said, which will stay up at all costs.
The proposal has sparked a raging debate between defenders of the “open” multiculturalism more common in North America and the strict secularism practiced in France, even when the reforms are not due to be voted on for months.
Much of the discussion has centered on the practice of Islam, and the fight has shown signs of turning ugly: A mosque was vandalized in a remote region several days ago.
The liberal opposition, led by Philippe Couillard, though at first radically opposed to the government’s initiative, seemed more conciliatory on Thursday.
“We don’t want to participate in create a climate of crisis and anxiety,” he said at a press conference.
Nevertheless, he said his party remains opposed, “strongly, to any limitation on individual freedoms of men and women working in public organizations.”
Polls show a majority of Quebec residents support the proposed charter, though they agreed it could cause divisions, local newspaper the Toronto Star reported.
However, the Montreal City Council voted unanimously not to endorse the proposal, the Star said.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been less forceful in his response, expressing concerns, but promising his government would protect fundamental rights.
Two medieval fortresses face each other across the Narva River separating Estonia from Russia on Europe’s eastern edge. Once a symbol of cooperation, the “Friendship Bridge” connecting the two snow-covered banks has been reinforced with rows of razor wire and “dragon’s teeth” anti-tank obstacles on the Estonian side. “The name is kind of ironic,” regional border chief Eerik Purgel said. Some fear the border town of more than 50,0000 people — a mixture of Estonians, Russians and people left stateless after the fall of the Soviet Union — could be Russian President Vladimir Putin’s next target. On the Estonian side of the bridge,
Jeremiah Kithinji had never touched a computer before he finished high school. A decade later, he is teaching robotics, and even took a team of rural Kenyans to the World Robotics Olympiad in Singapore. In a classroom in Laikipia County — a sparsely populated grasslands region of northern Kenya known for its rhinos and cheetahs — pupils are busy snapping together wheels, motors and sensors to assemble a robot. Guiding them is Kithinji, 27, who runs a string of robotics clubs in the area that have taken some of his pupils far beyond the rural landscapes outside. In November, he took a team
Civil society leaders and members of a left-wing coalition yesterday filed impeachment complaints against Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte, restarting a process sidelined by the Supreme Court last year. Both cases accuse Duterte of misusing public funds during her term as education secretary, while one revives allegations that she threatened to assassinate former ally Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The filings come on the same day that a committee in the House of Representatives was to begin hearings into impeachment complaints against Marcos, accused of corruption tied to a spiraling scandal over bogus flood control projects. Under the constitution, an impeachment by the
SHOW OF SUPPORT: The move showed that aggression toward Greenland is a question for Europe and Canada, and the consequences are global, not just Danish, experts said Canada and France, which adamantly oppose US President Donald Trump’s wish to control Greenland, were to open consulates in the Danish autonomous territory’s capital yesterday, in a strong show of support for the local government. Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has repeatedly insisted that Washington needs to control the strategic, mineral-rich Arctic island for security reasons. Trump last month backed off his threats to seize Greenland after saying he had struck a “framework” deal with NATO chief Mark Rutte to ensure greater US influence. A US-Denmark-Greenland working group has been established to discuss ways to meet Washington’s security concerns
RSS