Québec solidaire - the thread

It's not a made-up claim that Chinese investors have tried to buy up land in Temiskamingue. I think Lessard-Therrien has shown she's very much caught up in Canada's longstanding anti-Asian bias, as kropotkin says, but she did not make anything up and there is a concern of several years in her region that she is responding to. 

https://www.journaldemontreal.com/2016/01/27/des-chinois-lorgnent-des-te...

The company named, Mapleville, owns some 500 ha in the region. 

https://www.scribd.com/document/400279589/Portrait-de-l-accaparement-des...

In 2016, there was talk of this company buying up to 10,000 ha. 

http://ici.radio-canada.ca/emissions/bien_dans_son_assiette/2012-2013/ch...

The problem is not really Chinese investors, though: it is Quebec land-grabbers, led by Pangea. 

https://www.farmlandgrab.org/post/view/28521-les-terres-agricoles-font-s...

The real threat is increased concentration of agricultural land ownership by large companies - mostly Quebec-based, but including some foreign-owned, as in Temiscamangue. 

The UPA wants the government to limit to 100 hectares the amount of agricultural land that any one person or entity can purchase per year, at least for a three-year period. During this moratorium, the government could come up with a long-term solution to ensure Quebec’s farmlands remain productive, they suggest. The farmers also want a public register of agricultural land transactions, and tax disincentives to discourage farm owners from leaving farmlands fallow and just waiting for prices to go up in order to sell.

“The real estate and high finance sectors are not interested in agriculture,” UPA president Marcel Groleau said during last year’s election campaign. “These stakeholders seek profits in the rapid increase in the price of agricultural land, to which they contribute through speculation. For future generations and for our food security, it is urgent to act.”

The UPA wants the government to ban investment funds and real-estate companies from buying farmland.

To be fair, QS agriculture critic Lessard-Therrien raised the issue of local investment companies like Pangea being the main concern in her ill-fated interview before she went off on a tangent about China.

https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/quebec-farmlands-need-protec...

We need info sources and policies that pay attention to people living in the regions, and protect agricltural land so that it can remain in the hands of producers. This is the central point made by the UPA (ag producers association) and by the QS deputy who is trying to put this issue on the agenda. 

This is not an attempt to defend the epicly bad word choice by Mme Lessard-Therrien or the even shittier response by QS communications people. But it is factually incorrect to say that she's made up the fact that there are Chinese investors who have bought up land in the region and are interested in buying up more. She probably knows better than people in Montreal what is happening in her community, even if it's not in the pages of that noted rural mouthpiece, the Montreal Gazette. 

There are real threats to small farms and to the sustainability of the agricultural land base and food sovereignty. Quebec and Canada are not immune to the global phenomenon of land grabbing.

QS needs to watch itself on racist language and do better by the Chinese community and other racialized communities.

Emilie Lessard-Therrien is 100% right to raise the threats to agricultural lands. As she's said several times, that's the issues she wants to talk about. It would be great if that happened.  But apparently the English-language Montreal media would rather talk about her piss-poor choice of words. 

Non seulement la communauté chinoise a décrié la formule pour le moins maladroite, mais il s’avère que ce ne sont pas nécessairement les Chinois qui font de la spéculation avec les terres québécoises, mais bien… des compagnies d’investissement québécoises. 

La députée a souligné un vrai problème dont on devrait parler davantage. Juste pas besoin d’insulter le pays le plus populeux de la Terre.

https://urbania.ca/article/est-ce-que-quebec-solidaire-est-raciste/

There is nothing like that in Québec, though we will remember thoughtlessness in pushing major roads through the small Chinese community in Québec city - in the 1960s, I believe, and also both Federal and Québec government ministries expropriating Chinese businesses and residences (there may have been some other Asians in the area by then, such as Vietnamese refugees) to build government buildings just north of Old Mtl). Yes, there is a long history of sidelining Asian people even in regions (and nations) where it was not the prevailing racism.

Unionist wrote:

And my hypothesis is that QS was so offended at being painted as racist by media which are often genuinely racist, that they couldn't even think their way through the issue, respect the feelings that they may have inadvertently hurt, and made a genuine explanation and retraction.

If being subjected to hypocritical attacks renders QS so emotionally distraught that they are unable to think coherently about the issue in question, they should find another line of work besides politics. Seriously.

There's still a very high chance of Quebec becoming independent, says Manon Massé. The strong QS vote of youth, she implies, shows that young people support the QS stand for sovereignty. And in fact, she says, only an independent Quebec can stop climate change (« L'indépendance du Québec est nécessaire pour être capable de réaliser la réelle lutte aux changements climatiques », a indiqué Mme Massé.) 

Honestly, what the actual is going on with this team of leaders (yes they are supposed to be spoksepeople, but they seem to act more and more like leaders - I highly doubt that the majority of QS supporters agree that the struggle against climate change is only possible with an independent Quebec).  

https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/politique/politique-quebecoise/201903...

Yes, that doesn't even make sense, as it is a global problem.

Unionist wrote:

Well, I got an answer back. Starts with this para from the QS Declaration of Principles:

Quote:

Le Québec doit disposer de tous les pouvoirs nécessaires à son plein développement aux plans social, économique, culturel et politique, ce qui lui est refusé dans le cadre fédéral. Notre parti opte donc pour la souveraineté. Sans être une garantie, la souveraineté est un moyen de fournir au Québec les outils nécessaires pour réaliser son projet de société et s’épanouir pleinement comme peuple.

Then examples: A non-sovereign Québec couldn't block a project like Enbridge, or refuse to pay subsidies to gas companies (i.e. the ones that come from our federal taxes), etc. 

Good answers. All true. But I'm not convinced, for the reason lagatta gave above. Nor do I understand why QS would push this now. Are we trying to encourage more defections from the PQ, by showing how much more independentist we are? Where is this coming from?

Please, please, don't go down the wrong road. The PQ has shown historically how slippery that slope can be.

Agreed.  Were I to speculate, it might be that-and by "they", I mean whoever does most of their strategic and tactical thinking-                                                                                                                                                           

-They may think they can wipe out the PQ, but ONLY if they don't back off on an immediate push for sovereigntism, that any deviation from a "sovereigntism first"position lets the PQ stay in the game;                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

-They may believe they can't expand their support among those who identify as federalist or as neutralist on the constitutional question; 

-At some intellectual/ideological level, it may be that they can't separate their socialist/anti-oppression/anti-imperialist orientation from sovereigntism, that they feel that letting sovereigntism go, or at least putting it on the back burner, is in some way a form of surrender or of abandonment of their core values.

It would be interesting to see how this plays out with QS if-assuming the CAQ doesn't pass an electoral reform bill-they were to win a majority government with the same 41% the PQ took winning a majority in '76(assuming, in that scenario, that the PQ vote totally collapsed, as it would need to for QS to pull that kind of a vote).  They would have to look at those numbers and assume that a "Oui" vote would have great difficulty in prevailing at best, and they would have to decide which mattered more:  putting a referendum on the ballot that would likely go down to a landslide defeat, OR passing their economic and social justice agenda through the National Assembly.

Well concretely, the main action of QS right now is supporting and attending the climate strike actions. Anyone in Montréal who is free to go today - its at 12 h 45  Au sud du Monument George-Étienne Cartier du Parc du Mont-Royal That is the monument with the angel (and the tam-tams). Fortunately, I'm usually free Friday afternoons as no client will want a rush job... Think Gabriel and Manon will attend here; don't know about other QS MNAs - or former MNAs. 

I'll be at the Sherbrooke event. 

It shows that this party has a spirit and reflects a movement which is utterly different from the others.

..totally agree.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

Thank you to the people in QS for standing on the right side of history. The outdated argument that the people of Quebec were traumatized by Catholic priests and nuns could never justify discriminating against minority religious faiths. 

You are absolutely right that it cannot justify but it can be taken into account in understanding why Quebecers feel the way that they do. Singh is able to do so. He acknowledged Quebec's particular history in making the people extra sensitive to religious symbols in public life. 

Actually, people here could be very nasty about that. "Mange-curé"...

lagatta4 wrote:

Actually, people here could be very nasty about that. "Mange-curé"...

That phrase doesn't translate on the on-line dictionaries. What is it that people were nasty about? Civil servants wearing Catholic items?

Unionist:

How am I anti-Quebec? I'm criticizng one law, introduced by one governent, and as far as I can tell, it is the same law that you and other Quebec posters are criticizing.

Anyway, if there were no civil-servants wearing Catholic adornmnets all these years, how come the erstwhile domination of the RCC is being used to justify the law? With people even on an individual level eschewing Catholic symbols, I can't see how a return to Catholic hegemony is in any way possible.

(Cards on the table: I believe the law is motivated by racism against religious minorities, not concerns about the RCC making a political comeback. Are we agreed on this?)

voice of the damned wrote:

So, over five decades after the death of Duplessis and the start of the Quiet Revolution, and Quebckers are now only NOW suddenly sensitive to the issue of individual civil-servants making the personal choice to wear religious items? There must have been a fair number of government workers wearing crosses, crucifixes etc all those years, and no one seemed to worry that it would lead to the return of La Grande Noirceur.

No. False premise. I'm not sure what you're talking about, honestly. 

So many congratulations to lagatta and Unionist and all of the QS membership. The change of policy is a wonderful thing and a fine testimony to the party's democratic structures and capacity to debate tough issues and come up with good answers. 

Here is an interesting article from CBC Montreal. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/with-new-position-on-secularism-...

Pondering: So, based on what you've written above, in conjunction with what you wrote in #178, I surmise that...

You support the secularism law currently under discussion.

BUT...

You don't think that Quebeckers' particular experience with authoritarian clergy is a good reason for it. 

BUT...

You also think that Quebeckers' experience with authoritarian clergy might help us to understand why they support the law. Even though it's not actually a good reason.

That's basically it?

VotD: I think the necessary history that Signh said neeed to be understood is in lagatta's really interesting link: "For much of the 20th century, pushing for the separation of Church and state was a key battleground for progressives, especially in Quebec, where the Catholic Church was a valuable ally of Maurice Duplessis's quasi-reactionary government." 

Precisely, and thank you swallow and lagatta for that.

swallow wrote:

VotD: I think the necessary history that Signh said neeed to be understood is in lagatta's really interesting link: "For much of the 20th century, pushing for the separation of Church and state was a key battleground for progressives, especially in Quebec, where the Catholic Church was a valuable ally of Maurice Duplessis's quasi-reactionary government." 

Quote:

VotD: I think the necessary history that Signh said neeed to be understood is in lagatta's really interesting link: "For much of the 20th century, pushing for the separation of Church and state was a key battleground for progressives, especially in Quebec, where the Catholic Church was a valuable ally of Maurice Duplessis's quasi-reactionary government."

I think this only makes VotD's question more interesting.  Why NOW?  If the fight has been ongoing for decades, what finally tipped the balance to where in 2019 it's not OK to wear a cross to your public service job?

Are more people wearing crosses these days?  Is it getting out of hand?  Are there MORE people sporting a yarmulke now than ten or twenty or thirty years ago, and something must be done about it?

Or is there a social trend I'm missing that finally forced the state to act?

Will the Quebec government get away with brazenly defying basic human rights?

Karl Nerenberg

March 29, 2019

RABBLE NEWS

ANTI-RACISM

POLITICS IN CANADA

The Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government of Quebec wants Quebecers and other Canadians to believe it seeks consensus and compromise in its effort to assure that the Quebec state is fully and completely secular.

On Thursday, March 28, it tabled a law that forbids certain categories of public servants, including teachers and police officers, from wearing religious symbols. Among the banned symbols are Christian crosses, Jewish kippahs, Sikh turbans and Muslim hijabs. But the proposed new law does not apply to those currently working in the system; they are grandfathered, as it were.

Quebec Premier François Legault says his government is so respectful and accommodating that it does not want to fire anyone.

Of course, even for those already inside the fence this notional compromise is something of a poisoned chalice. If they change jobs within the public service, they will be treated like new hires and will have to remove all offending religiously-connected garb or symbols.

This proposed new law clearly and unabashedly defies basic human rights as defined and protected by both Quebec's Charter of Rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Legault's government has a simple plan to get around Quebec's charter. It will change it. The government says it will add language to the Quebec charter stating, in effect, that the fundamental rights the charter upholds are limited by the need to respect the secular character (the "laïcité") of the Quebec state.

It will be easy for the Legault government to modify the province's own charter; it is a mere piece of legislation, not part of the constitution. The government can do whatever it wants with its Charter, via a simple majority vote in the national assembly.

Such is not the case for the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which has been a key and central part of Canada's basic law, its constitution, since 1982.

All laws, of all governments in Canada, must respect each and every provision of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. If they do not, the courts can and will declare them invalid. They have done so on numerous occasions.

However, the Canadian Charter does include an escape clause, the now infamous notwithstanding clause. Quebec's CAQ government has already invoked that clause to head off any possible court challenges to its new law.

Never imagined the notwithstanding clause would be used like this

In 1981, when the Pierre Trudeau government agreed to a notwithstanding clause in order to get the majority of provinces onside with the idea of a charter, officials assured journalists covering the constitution-making process that this ominous-sounding clause was a reasonable compromise. It would have no negative consequences for Canadians' basic rights, they said. Except in rare cases, those officials explained, governments -- be they municipal, provincial or federal -- would never dare to openly pass laws that flagrantly contravene basic human rights.

It has not quite worked out that way.

This past fall, the Doug Ford Conservative government of Ontario invoked the notwithstanding clause to try to force legislation through cutting the size of Toronto's city council.

An earlier Quebec government invoked the notwithstanding clause after a court ruled there was a free speech issue involved in a Quebec law making French the only permitted language of outdoor commercial signs.

The premier at the time, Liberal Robert Bourassa, argued that he was forced to take this extraordinary measure as a matter of cultural security. The Quebec government had no choice but to protect the French language, he said, which had been under threat for centuries. Many who support human rights could find that explanation to be at least plausible. And the main tangible consequence of Bourassa's law was to force some businesses to buy new signs -- not a huge hardship.

The CAQ government's current use of the notwithstanding clause does not look nearly so benign. Many believe the CAQ government has decided to bypass fundamental human rights to, in effect, demonize and persecute one identifiable minority group, Muslim women.

While the Legault government legislation notionally targets all religious symbols, virtually all public discussion and debate on the "laïcité" issue has focused on Islamic dress and symbols. Indeed, there is another provision in the new legislation that bans face coverings -- meaning, in effect, the niqabs worn by a small minority of Muslim women -- not only for public servants, but for anyone seeking to access public services in Quebec.

Opposition from all sides

The opposition Quebec Liberals had a similar ban on face coverings, but they now oppose several aspects of the CAQ's proposed legislation, notably those that would control the dress of school teachers and other public service workers.

On the other side of the debate, the Parti Québécois' main critique is that the CAQ's effort does not go far enough. The Legault government's proposed law would exempt teachers in private schools, for instance. The PQ says they should be subject to the same rules as public-school teachers.

Left-of-centre Québec Solidaire tries to come down in the middle. It opposes the proposed restrictions on such public employees as teachers, but supports them for prison guards, judges and police officers.

That position could still evolve. Québec Solidaire has a convention this coming weekend where the issue of "laïcité" will be high on the agenda.

All federal political leaders oppose the CAQ initiative, although both Conservative Andrew Scheer and the NDP's Jagmeet Singh say they recognize the Quebec government's right to legislate in this area.

Singh addressed the issue in a personal manner. After all, a person who dresses as he does will be a target of the CAQ's proposed new law. The NDP leader said, poignantly, that the Quebec initiative makes him sad. It reminds him, he told reporters, of his own sense of exclusion growing up.

The CAQ government wants to push this new legislation through fairly quickly, and have it passed by early June, before the national assembly rises for the summer.

That schedule will mean there will be little time for any serious public input or consultation, which perfectly suits the CAQ. Its aim is to get this matter over with, and focus on other, less contentious, aspects of its legislative agenda.

Karl Nerenberg has been a journalist and filmmaker for more than 25 years. He is rabble's politics reporter.

Photo: ibourgeault_tasse/Flickr

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http://rabble.ca/news/2019/03/will-quebec-government-get-away-brazenly-defying-basic-human-rights