Identity crisis
management

>> Charles Taylor and Gérard Bouchard
discuss their eponymous commission
on reasonable accommodation

IN SEARCH OF ARTICULATION: Taylor (left) amd Bouchard

by PATRICK LEJTENYI

It’s a weighty title, to be sure. And the Consultation Commission on Accommodation Practices Related to Cultural Differences is going to be tackling a weighty problem. Translated into workaday English, the Taylor-Bouchard Commission on reasonable accommodation will look into the bugbear of nativist Québécois de souche and crotchety radio hosts and columnists to try to figure out why resistance to it is growing in the province.

The commission will begin formal public hearings in Gatineau next month, kicking off a two-month tour that will take it across the province, everywhere from Rouyn-Noranda to Sept-Îles to Montreal at the end of November. Co-chaired by philosopher Charles Taylor and historian and sociologist Gérard Bouchard, the commission will present its report and recommendations to the government and public next March.

“Above all, we want to clarify some perceptions that are groundless or distorted,” Bouchard tells the Mirror. Especially, he says, “the perception some French-Canadians have of immigrants and cultural communities, and the other way around. Many believe that immigrants don’t want to integrate, and that’s not true.”

But Taylor says it would be a mistake to label the mutual suspicion as racism. “It’s something else—it’s not racially defined,” he says. “Of course there’s racism in Quebec, but not more or less than elsewhere. But bandying words around like racism doesn’t help.

“There is a lot of anger and concern and worry out there,” says Taylor. “We want to articulate that.”

Worship and worry

Both Bouchard and Taylor know that when reasonable accommodation is mentioned, it usually involves accommodating Muslims. Although Taylor says the entire reasonable accommodation debate started with a dispute over a Montreal Sikh schoolboy’s ceremonial dagger in 2001, the threat of radical Islamic terrorism still figures prominently among Quebecers’ fears. Quebecers, who by and large discarded religion from daily life a generation and more ago, are even wary of generally mild but open displays of religiosity, such as women wearing headscarves or the full-length chador. Demographics don’t seem to matter, as French-Canadians make up 72 per cent of the province’s population, compared to 1.4 per cent of Muslims.

“One fear is that the immigrants’ culture threatens the culture of the French-Canadian majority,” says Bouchard. “And one cause of that is religion. Religion is a strong force among immigrants and cultural communities, and French-Canadians got rid of religion. But many Québécois feel a void or an emptiness, they feel their culture is impoverished. And that’s a source of worry. We see it not just in the regions, but in Montreal too.”

But a knee-jerk reaction against what some secular-minded Quebecers consider oppressive religiosity—the hijab is again a prime example—may prove dangerous in the long run, says Taylor. “Going hard on freedom of religion may have costs,” he says. “Costs in terms of the kind of liberal society you have. We have to be clear what the alternative will be. When you start suppressing freedom of religious exercise, you have to come down hard on all religions. Then you will rapidly get into an illiberal mode of operation. So there are all sorts of consequences involved in drawing these kinds of lines.”

When asked, neither would comment on how Quebec’s politicians are using the debate for their own purposes.

Divided and opinionated

The Taylor-Bouchard commission will also be casting a critical eye on the media. It’s no exaggeration to state that various outlets contributed to the surge in discussions around the topic, often at a base level. (Neither would specify any outlet in particular, but one need only think of the Journal de Montréal’s coverage during the last electoral campaign, specifically the incident of Muslims visiting a cabane à sucre and getting pork-free pea soup, to get an idea. Taylor calls that entire situation “absurd.” What could be a better way of integrating into a host society, he asks, than by participating in one of its most beloved institutions?) The media is also divided on the commission’s effectiveness. A Gazette editorial waxed enthusiastically about the commission, while La Presse’s Rima Elkouri called it a “$5-million collective group therapy session.”

At the root of the problem, both say, is a deep-seated feeling of insecurity about the precarious nature of the French-Canadian identity. “The statement that Quebec is a drop of water in an anglophone ocean is very built-in in Québécois culture,” says Bouchard. “If so many people feel insecure and worry about the future, it’s difficult to make people sensitive to minorities. There is a lack of collective consciousness.”

In the 1960s and ’70s, as Quebec underwent its Quiet Revolution and an optimistic and vibrant society emerged out from under the cloak of the Catholic church, Quebec society was “all over the map,” says Bouchard. “But now doubt—about the future, about themselves, about what their society has become—has become very pervasive. So, what happened in the meantime?”

For more information on the commission, visit www.accommodements.qc.ca.