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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 
 
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Summary 
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¶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. 
 
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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. 
 
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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 
 
 
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Comment 
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¶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