Liberal MP Mario Silva argues against Catholic public schools

At least that's the way I interpret this:

...institutionalized religious discrimination cannot be condoned or tolerated in this day and age.

Discriminatory practices, whether they are directed at Roman Catholics or anyone else, are simply incompatible with any nation that ascribes to itself the fundamental values of equality that we hold in such high regard.

Where's Spartacus?

It pains me to see the student council at my alma mater play these little games:

In response to a series of controversies over abortion debates on Canadian campuses, the student government of York University in Toronto has tabled an outright ban on student clubs that are opposed to abortion.

If York students value free speech and recognize the importance of open debate on the issues of the day, they would consider persuading other clubs to pass resolutions opposing abortions, whether they believe it or not. Let them boot out all the clubs.

In the meantime, if you are a former York student and are solicited for a donation, take Dave Gordon's advice: just say no.

As Jan Wong was saying...

From the Montreal Gazette:

Separatists oppose anglo superhospital

The Gazette

Published: Friday, October 13, 2006

A coalition of separatists wants the province to abandon plans for an English-language superhospital in Montreal.

The group says the government is wasting at least $3.6 billion by building two large hospitals. One of the sites is to be affiliated with the McGill University Health Centre and the other with the French-language Universite de Montreal.

The coalition says it's wrong to provide equal funding to the hospitals when a majority of McGill medical graduates leave Quebec to practise in Ontario or the U.S. It says the McGill version should receive only 12 per cent of the total budget, reflecting the percentage of anglophones in Montreal.

And La Presse:

Réflexe de l'homogénéité

Pour Mme Ollivier, les promesses de diversité dans la représentation du Parti québécois sont restées lettre morte. «Malheureusement, force est de constater que dans toutes les circonscriptions prenables, le vieux réflexe de l'homogénéité joue encore.»

Pour elle, «les candidatures annoncées dans les bonnes circonscriptions appartiennent toutes à la majorité démographique et des personnes de talent sont reléguées à des circonscriptions difficiles et peu favorables.»

Voting with their feet

Nothing makes me more sceptical than a consensus, particularly in regards to Quebec. So after the drubbing Jan Wong received for her infamous article on the Dawson shootings, I decided to investigate a little further. The fact that both Premier Charest and PM Harper have also piled on makes me doubly suspicious.

This is the passage that seems to offend almost everyone:

What many outsiders don't realize is how alienating the decades-long linguistic struggle has been in the once-cosmopolitan city. It hasn't just taken a toll on long-time anglophones, it's affected immigrants, too. To be sure, the shootings in all three cases were carried out by mentally disturbed individuals. But what is also true is that in all three cases, the perpetrator was not pure laine, the argot for a “pure” francophone. Elsewhere, to talk of racial “purity” is repugnant. Not in Quebec.

Now it is true that Montreal is more "cosmopolitan" in terms of its ethnic diversity than it once was. Still, relative to Toronto, Montreal has a long way to go. In 2001, visible minorities – the group that Dawson killer Kimveer Gill's family would be considered part of – comprised 13.6% of the population in the Montreal CMA, compared to 36.8% in Toronto. But linguistically it is another story as English is being progressively erased from the face and working life of the city.

What Wong really seems to be probing, however clumsily, is the place that those who are not part of the francophone majority have in Quebec society today. It is certainly foolish to presume that this "otherness" is a driving factor behind the horrendous acts of Kimveer Gill, Marc Lépine or Valery Fabrikant. But is it really so farfetched to suggest that this might be a contributing element to their alienation?

What I find particularly troublesome about Wong's critics is the fact that her hypothesis is dismissed out of hand. They directly attack her, not her arguments. Even Denise Bombardier, a so-called moderate, said something to the effect that Wong had the right to say something stupid. Some defense.

The tendency to circle the wagons on the part of the Quebec intelligentsia whenever someone dares question Quebec is well known. Yet what credibility do a bunch of white francophone journalists, politicians and community leaders, with the odd token, fluently-bilingual anglo or ethnic thrown in for good measure, have when discussing how the province's minorities might feel about their place in Quebec?

To listen to them, Globe and Mail journalists such as Jan Wong or Margaret Wente hate Quebec. They are even accused of fomenting separatist sentiment in the province. But as they ask how could they say such spiteful things, they are oblivious to the fact that they are effectively proving Wong's point. If they are so easily offended by what a Toronto journalist might write, imagine how anglophones and non-francophone immigrants in Quebec might feel when they see their francophone neighbours sporting pins with the slogan "le Québec aux Québécois" or chanting such at the St-Jean Baptiste festivities on June 24th.

Eventually the message gets through. For his part, Jacques Parizeau's outrageous outburst on referendum night about "ethnics and money" was totally redundant. It was already painfully clear that his little country did not include them.

Behind all this psychobabble, though, is one real fact. If English-speakers in Quebec have little or no cause to feel marginalized, then why do they continue to leave the province in large numbers? While Quebec elites feign indignation, English-speaking Quebecers are voting with their feet and leaving the province.
The number of people claiming English as their mother tongue in Quebec dropped more than 25% from 1971 to 2001. Over the same period, the total population of Quebec increased by 20.5%. In light of this apparent demographic mystery, perhaps a little more introspection about the society Quebecers want to build is in order.