Politics: Quebec Is Not So Secular

Originally published in the Hazlitt. Read the full text here.

The Parti Québécois’s Charter of Values is being sold as a score for secularism. A recent study, however, shows that Quebec is far more religious than widely assumed—and that the charter’s values might be at odds with those of the province

The introduction of Parti Québécois’s Charter of Values triggered a flurry of debate and a fair bit of noise. For critics like the National Post’s Allan Levine, the Charter is final proof that Quebec culture is rotten and xenophobic and always has been; for the Charter’s most vocal proponents—like PQ Minister Bernard Drainville—the proposed legislation is motivated not by hate, but by the need to defend Quebec’s uniquely secular inheritance, a legacy that Anglophones fail to understand.

Both are right and wrong. To Levine’s credit, the charter surely has traction among xenophobes; at the same time, the province does have a unique—and uniquely fraught—relationship with religion, and Quebecers have every right to feel proud and a bit protective of such a strong anti-clerical tradition. Where the Charter’s defenders get it wrong is in their assumption that enforced secularism is somehow in line with Québécois values.

This is an excerpt. Read the full text here.