With the election of a separatist government in Quebec, much of the reaction in the West has been, well, overreaction.
As Iain Hunter observed in his excellent column on Sept. 9, many British Columbians don't really understand Quebec.
The West's distrust of Quebec's insistence on its unique provincial status, combined with our general fear of exploitation by the East, has encouraged us to view Quebec as a distant enemy, despite the fact that our two provinces have much in common when it comes to things such as education, labour and employment and social values.
However, as the recent furor over Licia Corbella's column "Are one-third of Quebec voters bigots?" in the Calgary Herald shows, the Parti Québécois platform is undeniably problematic - just not in the ways British Columbians expected.
It's not surprising that the PQ is committed to tougher language laws, but it's a serious problem when these laws are aimed overwhelmingly at the children of recent immigrants to prevent them from attending English-language CEGEPs and public schools.
Even more disturbing, however, is the plan to ban religious symbols and clothing from public spaces. Publicsector workers will not be allowed to wear hijabs, yarmulkes or turbans.
It seemed reminiscent of France's faux-progressive burqa ban, until Marois clarified that Christian items such as crucifixes were still permitted, on the understanding that such things are "cultural" rather than "religious."
This is a problem. Marois sees non-Christian religious symbols as threats to secular government, whereas Christian symbols (such as the large cross behind the speaker's chair in the national assembly) are harmless celebrations of Quebec's Catholic heritage.
This is a fantastic example of how social privilege works: The symbols of minority religions are loaded with potentially threatening significance, while the symbols of the majority religion are seen as somehow religiously neutral.
When a government declares that Christian symbols are OK and non-Christian symbols are not, even under the guise of cultural preservation, it sends an inescapably clear message. It draws a line between who is accepted and who is not, between "real" Canadians and those who are merely "others."
This wouldn't fly anywhere in Canada except Quebec. This is not to say that Quebec has a monopoly on racism - it's just that its identity politics give it a ready-made exclusionary tactic that other provinces lack.
The thing is, Quebec should have the right to promote its language against the cultural dominance of the English majority - but the measures the PQ is taking to protect its identity are compromising the rights of religious minorities and immigrants.
Marois's distinction between Christian and non-Christian symbols was, of course, a politically motivated bid to gain votes from the anti-immigrant right.
Those who voted for the PQ were unaware of the PQ's discriminatory policies (as Corbella suggests), extremists who approved of those policies, or people who recognized the policies as essentially racist, but thought that Quebec sovereignty trumped minority rights.
But no province should require the sacrifice of the rights of the minority to "protect" itself (as if a yarmulke is dangerous). The fact that Marois is doing so reveals the tenuousness of her minority government. Such a government will not achieve secession.
So while we don't need to worry about Quebec leaving any time soon, we should take this moment to reexamine what's at stake for Quebec voters when their government - in a province that, like B.C., has a strong history of supporting social values and multiculturalism - chooses to violate the rights of minority Canadians in the name of cultural integrity.
I remember a conversation I had with a friend in Montreal, a nativeborn Québécois man, who argued with reluctant conviction that at the end of the day, protecting Quebec identity was more important to him than protecting minority rights, because if Quebec didn't protect its own rights, no one would.
"If that's racist, then I'm racist, and I don't care," he sighed, throwing his hands up.
I didn't agree with his bottom line, but it made me aware of just how carefully we have to navigate these Matroyshka dolls of minority rights, because it's impossible to have useful dialogue about Quebec's very unCanadian decision to stomp on the rights of religious minorities in the name of Quebec identity when the majority of people who are criticizing the PQ are people for whom the issue of Quebec identity is unimportant.
