People rally against Quebec’s Bill 21, in Chelsea, Que., on Dec. 14, 2021.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press
To the extent that the debate over Bill 21 plays out as Quebec vs. Canada, English vs. French, “Quebec’s secular values” vs. “overbearing Canadian multiculturalism,” it benefits the legislation’s supporters, notably the Coalition Avénir government of Premier François Legault. It benefits them enormously.
They, and Bill 21, will be political winners if Quebeckers come to believe that supporting the Act Respecting the Laicity of the State means standing with Quebec, while opposing the law means you’re some kind of a fellow traveller for an outside agenda, one aimed at diminishing North America’s only majority francophone society. In a debate framed as us-versus-them, us wins. Always.
Which is why, though this misguided law deserves to be challenged, and hopefully will be rescinded one day, at least some critics need to take a back seat and put a sock in it. Because they aren’t helping. At all.
Consider Brampton, Ont., whose city council pledged $100,000 to fund the court case against Bill 21. The mayor called on other municipalities to follow suit; councils in Toronto and Calgary quickly signed on.
Within Quebec, this is playing about as well as that time in 1990 when some folks in Brockville, Ont., decided to express their constitutional opinions by going into the street and stomping on a Quebec flag.
This page has repeatedly called Bill 21 a mistake. It is a solution in search of a problem – was Quebec not a secular society before 2019? The law harms a minority of Quebeckers, solely for the purpose of allowing politicians like Mr. Legault to wrap themselves in the flag.
The law also clearly violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. The Legault government effectively acknowledges as much, which is why it took the extreme step of invoking both charters’s notwithstanding clauses. Bill 21 is largely, perhaps entirely, immune from being overturned by the courts.
That means this is now a fundamentally political debate. Barring a surprise reinterpretation of the notwithstanding clause when the case eventually reaches the Supreme Court, if the law is to be changed, it is the National Assembly that will have the power to do it.
And it’s not like that can’t happen. The law has always had many critics within Quebec. The centrist Quebec Liberal Party didn’t vote for it; neither did the leftist, sovereigntist Québec solidaire. Prior to Bill 21′s passage, Montreal City Council unanimously condemned it.
Nor is it difficult to find critics in the province’s media. In Le Devoir, columnist Michel David described the hiring and forced removal from the classroom of teacher Fatemeh Anvari, solely because she wears a hijab, as, “a way of illustrating all the inequity of this horrible law.” In La Presse, Michel C. Auger asked: “Was Bill 21 about solving a major and urgent problem or was it rather a rather transparent attempt to build up some political capital? Premier François Legault is certainly not helping himself by repeating each time he’s asked about it that Bill 21 is popular.”
And in Le Journal de Montréal, Josée Legault decried how turning this into a Canada-versus-Quebec thing means that critics within the province risk being accused of the “crime of lèse-québécitude.” That’s also why Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante says she’s “uncomfortable” with city councils from Ontario and beyond wading waist-deep into the fray.
The rights that Bill 21 undermines are not Canadian rights imposed on Quebec. The Quebec Charter, a quasi-constitutional document, became law a half decade before the Canadian Charter. Among the rights being trampled are those the Quebec National Assembly bound itself to uphold.
Bill 21 is being challenged before the courts, and it should be. But the notwithstanding clause – a kind of constitutional vaccine, which must be renewed every five years – appears to largely inoculate it against the rights enumerated in the Canadian and Quebec charters.
So this battle is largely one that will have to be decided in Quebec, through politics.
And to win a political fight, a contest of persuasion, the best course is to be politic. Politics may be more challenging than the easy social media pleasure of calling out and cancelling, but it is necessary. It always has been. It’s how Canada has survived this long.
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WINNIPEG – The federal New Democrats have kept a longtime stronghold in the Elmwood-Transcona riding in Winnipeg.
The NDP’s Leila Dance won a close battle over Conservative candidate Colin Reynolds, and says the community has spoken in favour of priorities such as health care and the cost of living.
Elmwood-Transcona has elected a New Democrat in every election except one since the riding was formed in 1988.
The seat became open after three-term member of Parliament Daniel Blaikie resigned in March to take a job with the Manitoba government.
A political analyst the NDP is likely relieved to have kept the seat in what has been one of their strongest urban areas.
Christopher Adams, an adjunct professor of political studies at the University of Manitoba, says NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh worked hard to keep the seat in a tight race.
“He made a number of visits to Winnipeg, so if they had lost this riding it would have been disastrous for the NDP,” Adams said.
The strong Conservative showing should put wind in that party’s sails, Adams added, as their percentage of the popular vote in Elmwood-Transcona jumped sharply from the 2021 election.
“Even though the Conservatives lost this (byelection), they should walk away from it feeling pretty good.”
Dance told reporters Monday night she wants to focus on issues such as the cost of living while working in Ottawa.
“We used to be able to buy a cart of groceries for a hundred dollars and now it’s two small bags. That is something that will affect everyone in this riding,” Dance said.
Liberal candidate Ian MacIntyre placed a distant third,
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau say the Liberals have “all sorts of reflections” to make after losing a second stronghold in a byelection in Montreal Monday night.
His comments come as the Liberal cabinet gathers for its first regularly scheduled meeting of the fall sitting of Parliament, which began Monday.
Trudeau’s Liberals were hopeful they could retain the Montreal riding of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, but those hopes were dashed after the Bloc Québécois won it in an extremely tight three-way race with the NDP.
Louis-Philippe Sauvé, an administrator at the Institute for Research in Contemporary Economics, beat Liberal candidate Laura Palestini by less than 250 votes. The NDP finished about 600 votes back of the winner.
It is the second time in three months that Trudeau’s party lost a stronghold in a byelection. In June, the Conservatives defeated the Liberals narrowly in Toronto-St. Paul’s.
The Liberals won every seat in Toronto and almost every seat on the Island of Montreal in the last election, and losing a seat in both places has laid bare just how low the party has fallen in the polls.
“Obviously, it would have been nicer to be able to win and hold (the Montreal riding), but there’s more work to do and we’re going to stay focused on doing it,” Trudeau told reporters ahead of this morning’s cabinet meeting.
When asked what went wrong for his party, Trudeau responded “I think there’s all sorts of reflections to take on that.”
In French, he would not say if this result puts his leadership in question, instead saying his team has lots of work to do.
Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet will hold a press conference this morning, but has already said the results are significant for his party.
“The victory is historic and all of Quebec will speak with a stronger voice in Ottawa,” Blanchet wrote on X, shortly after the winner was declared.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and his party had hoped to ride to a win in Montreal on the popularity of their candidate, city councillor Craig Sauvé, and use it to further their goal of replacing the Liberals as the chief alternative to the Conservatives.
The NDP did hold on to a seat in Winnipeg in a tight race with the Conservatives, but the results in Elmwood-Transcona Monday were far tighter than in the last several elections. NDP candidate Leila Dance defeated Conservative Colin Reynolds by about 1,200 votes.
Singh called it a “big victory.”
“Our movement is growing — and we’re going to keep working for Canadians and building that movement to stop Conservative cuts before they start,” he said on social media.
“Big corporations have had their governments. It’s the people’s time.”
New Democrats recently pulled out of their political pact with the government in a bid to distance themselves from the Liberals, making the prospects of a snap election far more likely.
Trudeau attempted to calm his caucus at their fall retreat in Nanaimo, B.C, last week, and brought former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney on as an economic adviser in a bid to shore up some credibility with voters.
The latest byelection loss will put more pressure on him as leader, with many polls suggesting voter anger is more directed at Trudeau himself than at Liberal policies.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2024.
The New Democrats have declared a federal byelection victory in their Winnipeg stronghold riding of Elmwood—Transcona.
The NDP candidate Leila Dance told supporters in a tearful speech that even though the final results weren’t in, she expected she would see them in Ottawa.
With several polls still to be counted, Conservative candidate Colin Reynolds conceded defeat and told his volunteers that they should be proud of what the Conservatives accomplished in the campaign.
Political watchers had a keen eye on the results to see if the Tories could sway traditionally NDP voters on issues related to labour and affordability.
Meanwhile in the byelection race in the Montreal riding of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun the NDP, Liberals and Bloc Québécois remained locked in an extremely tight three-way race as the results trickled in slowly.
The Liberal stronghold riding had a record 91 names on the ballot, and the results aren’t expected until the early hours of the morning.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
