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### Viewing cable 07MONTREAL132, Mosaic under pressure: Quebec's identity and religious

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Reference ID | Created | Released | Classification | Origin
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
07MONTREAL132 | 2007-03-19 18:06 | 2011-04-28 00:12 | UNCLASSIFIED | Consulate Montreal

`

    VZCZCXRO9534
    RR RUEHGA RUEHHA RUEHQU RUEHVC
    DE RUEHMT #0132/01 0781843
    ZNR UUUUU ZZH
    R 191843Z MAR 07
    FM AMCONSUL MONTREAL
    TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0506
    INFO RUCNCAN/ALCAN COLLECTIVE

` `

    UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 MONTREAL 000132

    SIPDIS

    SIPDIS

    Ref: 06 Montreal 676, 06 Montreal 1202

    SECSTATE FOR WHA/CAN, WHA/PD, DS/IP/WHA

    E.O. 12958: N/A
    TAGS: PGOV PTER PHUM PINS KDEM KWMN SOCI CA

    SUBJECT: Mosaic under pressure: Quebec's identity and religious
    tolerance debate (Part 1 of 2)

    This message is Sensitive but Unclassified

    -------
    Summary
    -------

    ¶1. (SBU) An undercurrent of social conflict has emerged between
    Quebec's identity as a "secular" province and the more overt
    expressions of faith, particularly by immigrants whom Quebec has
    received in recent years.  While "reasonable accommodation"
    originated in jurisprudence of labor relations between employers and
    employees, it has become the political catch-all term for this
    building tension, as Quebec's, particularly Montreal's, increasingly
    multicultural society questions to what extent its society should
    shape its rules and values to "accommodate" religious or cultural
    considerations. The reasonable accommodation debate has built even
    more momentum recently. Several high profile incidents have stoked
    intense public discourse and political opportunism, especially as
    QuebecQs provincial election hits full momentum, with politicians,
    academics, media, religious leaders, minority advocates and everyday
    Quebeckers all weighing in on what is "reasonable" accommodation of
    racial, ethnic and religious minorities in an increasingly diverse
    society. Even if the issue recedes slightly after the elections,
    Canada's most recent census and ongoing academic, think-thank, and
    policy planning assessments indicate that the reasonable
    accommodation debate will continue, given immigration trends and
    Quebec's reliance on immigrants for economic, cultural and political
    influence vis-a-vis the rest of Canada and pro-Quebec federal
    policies.

    ----------------------------------
    Behind The Reasonable Accommodation Debate
    -----------------------------------

    ¶2. (SBU) Quebec's identity as a "secular" province, as well as the
    emphasis placed on gender equality in public and private life, can
    be traced to the "Quiet Revolution," the revolt against the Catholic
    Church, which occurred during the 1960s.  While traditional Quebec
    culture tended to be patriarchal and a majority of Francophone
    Quebeckers adhered strongly to Church teachings, the Quiet
    Revolution of the 1960s produced a society that cast off Catholic
    teachings (and religion in general) and elevated the status of
    women. Although, according to Statistics Canada, 83% of Quebeckers
    identify themselves as Catholic, only an estimated 20% of those are
    practicing (compared to 88% of Quebeckers who attended Church on a
    weekly basis in the 1950s).  A prominent CBC radio personality and
    political analyst commented privately to PAO: to be politically
    correct demands that he "intellectually" understand the Quebec
    Muslim woman's argument when she says she "chooses" (and is not
    intimidated into) wearing the hijab, but he admitted that he and his
    Quiet Revolution generation still have an emotional knee-jerk
    reaction to anything perceived as challenging gender equality or
    Quebec's cultural identity as a fervently secular society.

    ¶3. (SBU) Quebec also registers a strikingly low birth rate, among
    the lowest in North America, (although it made modest gains last
    year, which some attribute to new daycare subsidies).  A
    recently-released census snapshot of Canada's population shows that
    Quebec's population grew by 4.3% between 2001 and 2006, a growth
    predominantly fueled by immigration.  Quebec has not kept up with
    the 5.3% average growth rate in the rest of the country, producing a
    slight decline in the province's overall share of the Canadian
    population. In fact, this low birth rate is one of the main factors
    behind the provincial government's proactive policy of attracting
    immigrants, especially those from Francophone countries, to bolster
    its workforce (reftel A). (Ironically, however, in Quebec, the
    historical under-employment of members of ethnic minorities is most
    acute in public institutions.)  Quebec's reliance on immigration as
    a source of population growth concerns some Quebeckers. One ADQ
    candidate was dismissed from his party for stating that native
    Quebeckers need to "boost their birth rate; otherwise the ethnics
    will swamp us."  This sentiment is far from universal, but reveals
    the increasing tension related with incorporating immigrants into
    Montreal's social fabric while it strives to maintain its identity
    as a French-speaking minority within Canada.

    ------------------------------------------
    Soccer, Spandex, Spoons and Shari'a: How far is too far?
    ------------------------------------------

    ¶4. (SBU) On February 26, 2007, a Muslim referee in the Montreal-area
    town of Laval ordered an 11-year old Muslim girl from Ottawa to
    remove her hijab or be prohibited from playing in a soccer
    tournament.  When the girl's team forfeited the match, in protest of
    the referee's decision, the issue quickly gained national prominence
    as the latest reasonable accommodation case. The Quebec Soccer
    Federation sided with the referee, stating that all religious

    MONTREAL 00000132  002 OF 003

    headgear was prohibited for safety reasons.  The International
    Football Association Board (IFAB) ruled on March 3rd that Law 4 on
    players' equipment covers the issue, in essence letting the Quebec
    Soccer Federation's ban prohibiting the hijab because of safety
    reasons - including the possibility of accidental strangulation --
    stand. Many questioned the ban's rationale, charging it was less
    about safety and more about politics regarding reasonable
    accommodation. Ironically, Montreal and other cities across Canada
    are to host FIFA's Under-20 World Cup Tournament this summer, and
    Canada is vying for the Women's Soccer World Cup in 2011.

    ¶5. (SBU) This incident was only one in a series of situations that
    have brought the long-simmering issue of reasonable accommodation to
    a boil.  Several Montreal schools and social institutions have
    grappled for some time with the need to provide prayer space for
    Muslims and allow for other tangible expressions of faith, such as
    the wearing of Sikh ceremonial daggers or the hijab.  Other events
    have included: complaints from a Hasidic Jewish synagogue about
    young men catching glimpses of latex-clad women working out prompted
    a downtown YMCA to frost its windows (at the expense of the
    synagogue) in November 2006; an incident at a Montreal-area school
    in which a Filipino-Canadian boy was chastised by his teacher for
    his eating habits (the boy's family claimed that his Filipino
    tradition of spoon and fork eating caused the teacher to accuse him
    of eating "like a pig") became front-page news in the Philippines
    and even provoked a small gathering of spoon-and-fork-wielding
    demonstrators at the Canadian Embassy in Manila in April 2006; and
    in 2005, the Quebec Human Rights Commission ruled that private
    schools did not have the authority to expel a young woman for
    wearing her hijab and also rejected the use of Islamic tribunals for
    the settlement of family disputes.

    ¶6. (SBU) The Montreal police has prided itself on (and often been
    praised for) its positive engagement with various cultural
    communities.  However, the city's police force fell into the debate
    at the end of 2006 when an internal Montreal police magazine
    suggested female officers step aside to let male colleagues deal
    with male Hasidic Jews. The publication's advice drew criticism by
    those who viewed the suggestions as setting an institutional policy
    in direct conflict with the traditionally-held Quebec value of
    gender equality.  At the same time, some members of the Hasidic
    community dismissed the advice as unnecessary, noting that there had
    not been any complaints from their community with regard to
    interactions with female officers. A Montreal police contact said
    that the suggestions formed part of a series of brochures to help
    police officers deal with members of various cultural communities,
    and noted that there had been no complaints by female officers.

    -----------------------------------------
    Herouxville: Propagating Negative Stereotypes, Xenophobia?
    -----------------------------------------

    ¶7. (SBU) The remote town of Herouxville (population 1,275 according
    to the most recent census; its citizens include one black family
    among a population that is otherwise exclusively white and Roman
    Catholic.), 100 miles north of Montreal, became the center of the
    controversy when its city council adopted a controversial code of
    conduct for immigrants, apparently aimed at Muslim immigrants, in
    January 2007.  A hodgepodge of social norms and values, the code of
    conduct prohibits head coverings (but not applicable to Catholic
    nuns attire), the stoning of women, and female circumcision.  As
    international, Canadian and Quebec media descended upon the small
    town, Herouxville presented a political and societal challenge to
    Quebec's multicultural model of diversity and tolerance, which
    Herouxville's council claimed has reached its limits.  On February
    11, a delegation of Muslim women, wearing head scarves, visited
    Herouxville to educate town council members and residents about the
    Islamic faith and to appeal for changes to the town's "code of life"
    which the women argued unfairly targeted religious minorities.  The
    town toned down portions of the code, removing references to burning
    women with acid and stoning women to death, but claimed the code of
    conduct was misinterpreted by media.

    ¶8. (SBU) The Herouxville controversy is still causing ripples of
    reactions. For example, a young Lebanese Montrealer's poem for an
    Arabic-language newspaper that praised Muslim women for wearing the
    veil and criticized Quebecoise women for drinking and promiscuity
    provoked another round of reflection.  Likewise, bloggers' comments
    show how raw and emotionally-charged the issue is, especially to
    those who view it as part of a larger trend of religious concessions
    to Muslim immigrants in what should be a secular state:  "I think
    that anyone who comes from another country, for whatever reason, and
    wants to benefit from all our freedoms and social benefits, should
    act like one of us" reads one.  "This is ANOTHER attempt by some
    religious fringe trying to impose their religious habits on the
    general population.  Either fit in or get out!!!"

    MONTREAL 00000132  003 OF 003

    -------
    Comment
    -------

    ¶9. (SBU)  Some analysts and commentators have described the recent
    firestorm about reasonable accommodation as a purely media-created
    phenomenon resulting more from news competition than real citizen
    concern, or as a fickle, easily manipulated election issue that has
    no real impact on the lives of Quebec 7.6 million residents. Others
    have stated that Quebec is simply catching up to other parts of the
    Western world on the issue, citing similar multicultural societies
    growing pains and debates in France and the Netherlands.
    Regardless, drawing on historical identity and religious
    sensitivities, Herouxville and youth soccer were the incendiary
    events that have guaranteed reasonable accommodation's place in
    Quebec's provincial election rhetoric (see septel).

    ¶10. (SBU) The debate about reasonable accommodation reveals deeper
    concerns in Quebec about the integration of immigrants into society,
    and also illustrates the vast differences in how immigration and
    multiculturalism are perceived by Quebec's urban and rural
    inhabitants.  Even in Montreal, Quebeckers have begun to question
    whether the "mosaic" model of multiculturalism, so prized as a
    component of Quebec and Canadian society, might have unforeseen
    consequences for social cohesion and whether the accommodation of
    diversity in Quebec society should, at some point, be subject to
    limits. One Montreal human rights law expert summed up the current
    situation, in which small, relatively innocuous symbols have taken
    on provocative meanings, as stemming from Quebeckers' tendency
    towards "not caring what color you are, or what religion you
    practice, so long as you act exactly as we do." The insatiable
    popular appetite, as reflected in hyperactive media coverage,
    academic discussion and popular culture, coupled with QuebecQs
    religious history, immigration trends and public policy assessments
    indicate reasonable accommodation will continue to touch nerves and
    be a major component of Quebec's social, political and cultural
    discourse on its identity.

    MARSHALL

`