The Bouchard-Taylor report, released in 2008, was supposed to put an end to Quebec’s reasonable accommodations debate. It haunts them still
When Quebec premier Jean Charest unveiled the Bouchard-Taylor Commission just over 12 years ago, there was a widespread sense of relief. The reasonable accommodations debate was spinning out of control. The world was gawping at Hérouxville, the all-white hamlet with its hysterically Islamophobic code of conduct and its mayor who wanted martial law declared to protect Quebec culture. It was at least embarrassing, potentially dangerous.
It didn’t really even do it for a while. Mario Dumont’s Action Démocratique rode nativist angst to official opposition. In response, the PQ embraced nativist angst as well. Meanwhile Charest’s and, later, Philippe Couillard’s governments got busy doing nothing about the Bouchard-Taylor recommendations — notably that judges, prosecutors, police officers and other wielders of state authority not wear religious symbols.
On Thursday former Liberal Senator Céline Hervieux-Payette opined that while women might say they choose to wear the hijab, it’s not really a choice but rather an endorsement of forced child marriage.The report continues to utterly befuddle the Liberals, who are in the middle of a leadership race and trying to figure out just what the hell they stand for, if anything.
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