II. A Narrative: Hérouxville (Québec), January and February 2007
Hérouxville : a small town of some 1 338 inhabitants , northeast of Shawinigan, part of the Mékinac rural district, half way between Grand-Mère and Saint-Tite. I, for one, had never heard the name before last January. It is not even listed on the website of Tourisme Québec. A peaceful agricultural place, founded in 1897 (by one Jean-Euchariste Héroux, the first vicar), it has a highly homogenous population of Franco-Catholic descent. A fine high-steepled Roman Catholic church sits on the highest ground of the town, as an undisputed symbol of its tradition.
A. An Unexpected Rise to Fame
On January the 27th, Le Devoir, Radio-Canada and some other media announced that on the 25th, at a special meeting, the Hérouxville municipal council had unanimously adopted a strict code of behaviour intended for improbable future immigrants. A municipal councillor, André Drouin, had written the five-page document known as “Normes de vie”. It made the headlines during the following two weeks. What is the content of this unusual bylaw? It is worth a close examination.
A one-page preamble states that multiculturalism in itself is positive: “(…) we believe in multiculturalism because it is an asset for a country, a province, a region.” The problem arises from Canadian multiculturalism which has reached a point where it threatens the cohesion of Québec public culture. This “dangerous” policy is presented as forcing upon Québec culture many obviously unreasonable accommodations, for instance: it quotes police departments recommending to their female members to find a male substitute when dealing with members of Hassidic communities . This collides directly with the non-negotiable principle of gender equality among citizens. Therefore, the document reasons, the two levels of government should consider abolishing the provision for these objectionable accommodations. Moreover, the Charters, both federal (1982) and provincial (1975) should be amended to ensure that the identity of the citizens belonging to the host culture be respected in the greatest interest of the province and that of the country at large:
If necessary, they [the federal and the provincial administrations] will have to modify the Charters of Rights and Liberties so as to set the rules in a way which will bring courts and governments to be more fair towards the host culture: the culture of all citizens of Québec and of all citizens of Canada who value their own identity.
It follows that this Hérouxville behaviour code is not about Québec nationalism, nor about any kind of ethnic nationalism. It deals with the collective relationship to cultural otherness. It holds that the Anglo-Canadian historical identity is also dangerously threatened and should equally be protected from the demands of intolerant immigrants identified with particular (but unnamed) cultures: «Should tolerance accommodate intolerance, [in this case] the refusal to live according to the requisites of a secular social space?”
The last paragraph of the preamble clearly declares that immigrants are most welcome in Hérouxville: “Being tolerant, we are prepared to contribute to immigrants’ integration, but not at all costs.” Let us insist: the document is not a rejection of foreign cultures (which would have made it devoid of interest for our purpose) but rather a tool to clarify the terms of their insertion in a given milieu. In a footnote, “Integration” is defined as “the sharing process between two cultures, i.e.: the immigrant adopts the host culture which he enriches with some elements from his own”. According to the logic of the document, the host culture has a duty to make itself known and to explain how, and on what grounds, it came to be what it is. The multiculturalist policy jeopardises this procedure of mutual recognition: the host culture is prevented from asserting its public values in the public sphere and of enforcing them according to the democratic rule of equality.
The second page asks “Who are we?” and answers that Hérouxvillois define themselves through the set of public values embodied in municipal, provincial and federal laws, and by the code of behaviour listed in the three following pages. Three paragraphs reaffirm here that immigrants are welcome and will be accepted regardless of race, colour, language, sexual orientation, religion or other belief. The document is expressly intended to clarify and facilitate the encounter, not to avoid it. That is why the case is interesting.
On the next three pages of the original document, the norms were organized according to the following headings: Women, Children, Public Celebrations, Health Care, Leisure Activities, Safety, Work Places, Commercial Areas, Family. It stated that:
We hold that men and women are equal and are worth the same, therefore a woman may, among other things, drive a car, vote freely, sign cheques, dance, decide [about her life] by herself, exercise free speech, dress as she wishes (in accordance with recognized decency standards and with norms of public safety), walk alone in public, study, exercise a trade or profession, own property and make free use of it. All of the above are part of our customs and acquired rights.
It follows, the document goes on, that stoning of women, genital mutilations and burning them alive is forbidden in Hérouxville. Christmas trees, carols and celebrations at the public school are to be maintained as marks of the town’s history (not religion). But, in schools, which are all public and secular in this town, a strict laïcité must be observed: no kirpan allowed in school, no prayer room provided, no niqâb tolerated in the public space, no food restriction (halal, kosher, etc.) in public institutions, etc. The citizens’ face must be visible in the public space, except on Hallowe’en day.
When interviewed for the Téléjournal of Radio-Canada, Hérouxville’s Mayor Martin Périgny recognized that these regulations were, for most, ultra vires, therefore carried no legal weight. But many citizens wanted to use the document to open a debate about multiculturalism and the legal obligation made to public and private organisations to provide reasonable accommodations for special needs. It appeared that, as in Québec and Canada, many citizens of Hérouxville mistook court-ordered cases of accommodation with out-of-court or court-mediated voluntary “arrangements”, such as the famous 2006 episode of the downtown Montréal YMCA gym windows, frosted at the request of the Hassidic school next door (who paid for the procedure), or the case of the father expelled, also in 2006, from a public swimming pool where he was watching over his three-year old boy when a Muslim woman protested against his presence during hours scheduled for children, or that of the Muslim couple who asked that a film on childbirth be withdrawn from the prenatal classes, etc. One of the most commented upon cases at the time of the Hérouxville events, was that of the ambulance driver forcibly expelled in 2005 from the cafeteria of the publicly funded secular Hôpital Général Juif/Jewish General Hospital (Montréal) where he was eating his non-kosher sandwich . With the media endlessly repeating and amplifying these and other numerous attested occurrences, the general situation was perceived from the distant standpoint of Hérouxville as a display of political confusion, laisser-faire, weakness and complacency, a major breach in the legitimacy of the host culture, calling for sharp criticism.
With the written support of seven other municipalities of the Mékinac rural district, Mayor Martin Périgny had sent the “Normes de vie” document, signed by all members of the Council, to the Federal and Québec Ministers of Immigration, respectively Diane Finley and Lise Thériault , urging the revision of the law on multiculturalism and calling for “correction” of the two Charters of Rights. The policy was certainly intended to be provocative. It got more attention than it could manage.
Interventions reported and solicited by the media were intensely committed in favour and against. All political parties listened carefully and were surprised to learn of the very large support the “Normes de vie” document was getting in the public opinion, especially the issue of the revision of the charters of rights. The debate made front page news: condescendence, irony, anger, incomprehension. Seen from Montréal, there was something inherently comical in the Great Reform Design of the powerless bylaw and its Hallowe’en provision. It was said that this defensive behaviour code was primarily aimed at the Islamic fundamentalists, but there were no Muslim residents at all in Hérouxville and none had taken steps to move there. It looked more like a warning addressed to Québécois and to Canadians about the blurring of their cultural/political identity (the two were intermingled). Through the awkward wording of the behaviour code, the comical aspects of the warning to non-existent immigrants, the document had a moving quality to it: the defence of some common liberties inherited as citizens, not as individual human beings. The document refuses to back up on the first democratic principle: equality of treatment/identity of duties in the relations between State and citizens, without exception. This corresponds to the Greek concept of isonomia which has evolved into our modern notion of justice as impartiality.
The spectrum of the quasi-unanimous negative comments ranged from exposing another sign of the Québécois inbred nationalist racism, to accusations of ill-informed obscurantist xenophobia. As a result, on Friday, February the 9th, the behaviour code was amended by the Council and stripped of the most offensive acts of mutilation (actually pertaining to the Canadian criminal code) . The new version was more polite but just as stubborn. But accusations, fits of anger and threats started to poison the intercultural channels of exchange. The usual hateful private radio stations entered the arena. An ugly scene, for sure.
B. Noteworthy Reactions
On February the 6th, without reference to these events, the Québec Ministers of Justice Yvon Marcoux and of Social Affairs Philippe Couillard publicly acknowledged that a revision of the laws and regulations which had led to (legal) reasonable accommodations might be necessary.
Three particular sets of reactions deserve mention for the purpose of this essay:
- First reaction: on Sunday, February the 11th, a group of eight well established Muslim immigrant women, university-educated, French-speaking, and for most, wearing headscarves, paid a visit to Hérouxville on a chartered bus. They sought to open a dialogue with the municipal officers and citizens of the eight towns supporting the behaviour code. They came with gifts, books, handicraft objects similar to the local Mékinac region weaving, etc. Najat Boughaba, Ph.D. in French literature and informal leader of the visitors, was asked by an unidentified and aggressive man how she dared wear a veil at this meeting; she answered that her headscarf was not the result of a reasonable accommodation. Councillor Drouin quickly intervened to put an end to the man’s verbal assault, on the ground that the veiled women’s faces were visible, in accordance with the bylaw.
Then Ms. Boughaba said that she expected much from this meeting and that many problems could be deflated by a direct conversation between women. An immediate success. Leila Farhat, another Muslim visitor, recognized publicly that many of the requests for accommodation were abusive. The women “sororised” easily, especially with City councillor André Drouin’s wife, Luce Rivard, member of the Reception Committee, and others who were happy to be listened to seriously and calmly . Then, at a general meeting intended to inform Hérouxvillois, the visitors began reading Coranic surats directly from the Arabic text and they were told not to exercise religious propaganda. They left their copies of the Kuran on the table, without further discussion. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, the behaviour code was maintained.
At this Sunday encounter, --aside from a few dozen people from Montréal and other regions who came to show their support to the by then famous “Normes de vie”, and the large number of domestic and foreign journalists-- also showed up Gabriel Mitchell, one of the very few immigrants to Hérouxville, having settled in the municipality thirty years ago and who has brought up his family there. A black person from La Dominique island , he had served as elected member on the Council for twelve years in the past and came to testify that he had never met with any racist or xenophobic reaction in all those decades. “The municipal councillors wanted to ring an alarm” he said to the press; “They acted awkwardly but they pointed out to a concern we all share. Canadian multiculturalism is an illusion. One cannot see success when what we observe is non-encounter, a patchwork of different cultures.” There was a sense of loss, the perception of some suicidal mistake in his speech.
The global picture grew more complex. Political sensitivities were alarmed by the contrasting pictures of Québec published in the international press. I began receiving puzzled e—mail messages from colleagues in France, Belgium, Norway, Poland, Italy, all of them inquiring about Hérouxville and its cultural policy.
- Second reaction: on behalf of the Canadian Islamic Congress jointly with the Canadian Muslim Forum, Mohamad Sawan announced that, unless the bylaw was cancelled and an apology presented to the Muslim community, they would file a formal complaint at the Commission des droits de la personne et de la jeunesse du Québec against the municipality of Hérouxville for circulating hateful and racist literature. They later decided to postpone the action until the results of the Muslim women’s “mission” would be known. To my knowledge, the legal accusation is still to be filed.
- Third reaction in two discourses that I wish to mention because they address the malaise and tragic undertone of the agents on both sides of the controversy. On the one hand, we have an isolated essay devoted to explaining what the Hérouxvillois actually meant but could not say: a delicate and conjectural approach which could have seemed to side with intolerance or primary xenophobia. It was expressed at the beginning of February in Le Devoir by Danic Parenteau , an assistant professor of political science at the University of Ottawa. An extensive analysis and a tentative explanation of the document “Normes de vie” and of the further defence of its content volunteered by all individual Hérouxville citizens interviewed by local, French and English media people, and by foreign journalists as well. Parenteau’s understanding of the situation is that Hérouxvillois are defending the Republican Rule.
The question is simple: why at Hérouxville and not elsewhere? Several explanations can be put forward. But it seems to me that an answer can be found in the fact that, unlike in Canada, liberalism never became dominant in Québec. It exists only as a mixed doctrine of liberalism and republicanism (referring here to a conception of society and not to a presidential regime).
He goes on to define classical liberalism as founded on the individualist view of society: an association of free individuals pursuing their own respective interests. The post-Modern liberal State has no other legitimate end than to protect the lives and property of its members so that they can each achieve their particular goals. These liberties are precisely those guaranteed by the charters of rights. Society appears as having no essential end other than to let individuals act as they choose while respecting each other’s liberties. Parenteau insists that a liberal society may not promote, conserve or favour any substantive goal or value. What happened to Hérouxville, however awkwardly formulated, is a repudiation of liberalism with a counter-assertion of the Republican Rule:
What the Hérouxvillois have done by writing this code is to register what constitutes for them the substantive values of the Québécois society: it is clearly society as a whole that they are referring to. (…) but the Hérouxvillois have thus said aloud what a large number of Québécois think secretly: Québec exists as a global society, with its specific identity. Québec is more than the addition of the particular interests of people who happen to reside there. It has a substantive content which must be asserted and, above all, protected from those who do not recognize this identity.
According to the classical liberal doctrines, such a protective stand is absurd because the liberal State accepts no societal identity. The Hérouxville events, argues Parenteau, were determined by the accumulation of true and false “reasonable accommodations” based on the liberal definition of tolerance. But to a republican ear, they boil down to acts of submission when faced with certain claims by newcomers who want to bypass some rules and core values of Québec culture. Not just incidentally, individually or temporarily, but collectively, by principle and permanently. Therefore, the fact that Québec society is less inclined than that of other provinces to approve exceptions and accommodations should not be linked to nationalism, nor to some obscurantist pre-Modern xenophobia, even less to a primary racism. It is the consequence of a non liberal doctrine of citizenship and of the State.
On the other hand, there was also a stream of liberal comments in the press. Their paradigm of it was offered by Françoise David and Amir Khadir, co-spokespersons for the new leftist political party Québec Solidaire :
Having arrived as immigrants from France or from England more than 300 years ago , later from Italy or from Greece, and recently from Rwanda or Bangladesh, we have learnt to live together. (…) we have chosen the values concerning our vivre ensemble: democracy, gender equality, openness, laïcité for our public institutions, and respect for our fundamental rights as protected by the charters. (…) We reject the shocking distinction between “We” and “They” because we have chosen to live as brothers and sisters. Modern and open-minded Québec must reject the false debate between cities and regions, recent immigrants and the host society.
In this framework of “more or less recent immigration”, there is no legitimacy in the historical continuity of a majority. In a synchronic equality between persons, no particular values are to be privileged.
It is clear that what we find is not a mix or republican and liberal ideas, as Danic Parenteau suggested but a tension between two separate currents with their respective variations and contradictions .
C. The State’s Answer: Appointing the Bouchard/Taylor Commission
Everyone knew that the liberal Premier of Québec, Jean Charest, was about to launch a general election last February of this year. He had declared earlier that the Hérouxville affair was just an isolated incident. But, Premier Charest changed his mind when he realized the large support l’Action démocratique du Québec was getting for its stands against multiculturalist policies, and specifically against accommodations on the ground of liberty of religion .
Feeling the wind turn, Premier Charest decided to clear the electoral campaign of the painful problem of the reasonable accommodations. On February the 8th, he announced the appointment of a Commission de consultation sur les pratiques d’accommodement reliées aux différences culturelles (Consultative Commission on the Practices of Accommodation concerning Cultural Differences). This difficult and delicate matter was put in the hands of University of Chicoutimi sociologist Gérard Bouchard and of the philosopher Charles Taylor, emeritus professor at McGill University. These outstanding scholars are also recognized as intellectuals meaning that, apart from their undisputed excellence in their disciplines, they are citizens respected for their non-partisan public commitment to the common good. As expected by the Québec government, the appointment of this team carried the personal authority and the independence required to calm down the public scene and inspire confidence in their judgment. The Commission is expected to deliver an in-depth assessment of the obligation of accommodation in the case of a special need related to an individual person’s culture, particularly to that part of culture pertaining to religion. In the meantime, the unrest has come to a halt. Notwithstanding the calibre of the two commissioners, the result has been to confiscate this major issue and remove it from the deliberative arena during an electoral campaign. It follows the logic of the charter which diverts fundamental political problems to the courts of judges . Here the major issue of identity and coexistence as a polity is handed to two experts instead of being debated and decided by the citizens. As if there existed experts on how to deal fairly with otherness…
The Bouchard/ Taylor Commission’s mandate is threefold:
- Paint a faithful picture of the current accommodations in cultural matters
- Proceed to a vast consultation throughout Québec regions on this practice
- Submit recommendations to the Government within one year to ensure that the values common to Québécois are respected.
The official documents instituting and justifying the task of the Commission are surprising at a different level: they are clearly illiberal in the theoretical sense. First, the Premier states three fundamental non-negotiable values recognized and protected by the State, with which no accommodation is possible: Gender equality, Primacy of the French language, and Separation between State and religion.
The text goes on to reject the individualist a-historical perspective:
Québec constitutes a host society [in relation to its 45 000 to 48 000 annual immigrants]. Newcomers, as others before them, come to Québec to share our success, live in freedom and make a new life for themselves. They will enrich Québec with their competence and their culture, they build Québec with us. Each of them has the responsibility to become integrated into our Nation . This means that they must commit themselves to adopting our fundamental values . In counterpart, as host society, we also have a responsibility: we must develop an open mind toward their [cultural] differences. Our diversity is one of our greatest assets.
In this perspective, the State as Puissance publique must then assume a responsibility other than to witness and record what is happening between the partners. If the immigrant does not show any interest in his/her own integration which of course may take an infinity of forms and degrees, the State may apply sanctions. We find here an outline of the principle of the civic obligation implicitly accepted by the immigrant in the act of voluntarily entering another society’s social contract. This view is not compatible with the liberty to opt out of the political status altogether as what is found in the strict liberal doctrines where the instrumental concept of the State is to facilitate the self-fulfillment of individuals and where voting is not a duty (as it is in some democracies like Belgium and Brasil). A true liberal State holds the private person with his/her private values as the terminal end of society, therefore of its legislation.
On the contrary, the interest of the Hérouxville case is to reveal the fact that adopting Québec fundamental values indisputably means adopting secularism. Accommodation becomes acceptable on this basis only. It appears that Premier Charest, a former federal conservative and certainly not a communitarian nationalist, nonetheless makes use of the “metabolic” theory of culture, according to which cultures have a specific span of life and each healthy culture has the finite capacity to digest and reformulate what is foreign to it, transforming itself in the process of dealing with otherness. Transforming the difference is not the same as flattening or abolishing it. This interesting dialectical movement is the motor of cultural creativity: “Ni tout à fait le même, ni tout à fait un autre…”.
In other words, within this State communiqué, we are in a context of identities and the relations between these agents are non-symmetrical: the Nation has a greater ontological weight. It does not disintegrate into individual centrifugal otherness: on the contrary, it should attract newcomers and allow for the integration they are working for, if they are, when they are.
Should we perceive this official declaration defining the mandate of the Commission, as a new communitarian orientation triggered by the Hérouxville crisis? It does not signal a change of direction but rather a change in the understanding of what Québec defines as legitimacy in matters of culture(s) and of identity. Until now, many Québécois themselves had not yet realised what goal their State and society pursued in contrast with Canadian liberal multiculturalism. But in revisiting the official immigration policy, Bâtir le Québec (adopted in 1991 under Robert Bourassa) we can see Québec already dealing with the same non-liberal conception of the relations between State and citizens. It is no insignificant paradox that a province owing its autonomy to the pluralist conception of multinational states and multiculturalism would choose to restrict the interpretation of the Charters of rights which led to the controversial duty of reasonable accommodation. In fact, after strict religious and cultural uniformity under the Nouvelle-France regime from 1534 to 1759 , the British colony, and later dominion, of Canada neither showed, nor pursued unity of religion.
Weimar ou l’hyperinflation du sens. Portraits et exils
