Benz

Well, I do not understand the leftists in English Canada. The left here in Québec is divided. The real progressive left is with the PQ, the other extreme left is with QS. QS called themselve progressives but, I agree with you, there are not progressive a single bit. The majority of leftist people in Québec are with the PQ and taking a position comparable to mine. The minority, around 20%, is supporting that pro religion at all cost approach. Outside Québec, it looks like the opposite. A clear majority of leftists support the pro religion approach and ready to defend the rights of the religion to indoctrinate so much their people that we must allow them to force their subjects to wear whatever religius garmants at any circumstances. Is this right? Am I exagerating or wrongly influenced by the medias? I think that if we want to fight that obscurantism, we need to avoid references to left or right. It's a problem that is far beyond that. It plays to much in the favor of the obscuranists.

1. Even if the law targeted only the burqa/niqab, it would not be racism. But since it would be unfair to have such law only for them, then while at it, we made it for everyone. That's fair game. 2. I did not say it is specifically, I said the obscurantism of their burqa/niqab helps to add more legitimity. You draw your own conclusions by twisting the meaning of my words. What is obsvious, is how you stand on the side of the obscurantists to defend their rights to apply their indoctrination of anti-women symbols. You are defending the symbols, you are defending those bastards and their messages. Yet you call us racists. So graceful!

The whole Québec nation is a dog fucker masking its racism because we want uncovered faces in some conditions... hmm wow! Look, you are totally welcome to explain why you think we are better off to let people having their faces covered at any circumstances. You are legitimated to think your points outweight our points and debate about it. But this is not what you do. You are expressing your xenophobia toward the Québec people with your own made-up false accusations. It's plain and simple Québec bashing. Uncovering faces is not about security, it's about identification. The principle does not have anything todo with the beleifs of the religion in question. That shy bill does not even consider the bad side of that religious rule made by the obscurantists. It's a generic rule that apply to anyone having a face covered in specific contexts. Besides that, the burqa/niqab has been created to destroy the women's confidence. The indoctrination purpose is to force the women to feel bad about themselve and totally insecure. Those who created that rule, also say that if a woman not wearing such clothes is raped, it's because she deserves it. Men have no responsabilities and are legitimated to abuse women not wearing those restrective clothes. That's the mentality along the burqa/niqab. It has been created for that purpose and it is claimed as is. There are absolutely nothing cultural or legitimated in that symbol. Few muslim countries like Morroco are banning them for a reason. So, pay attention on how much I do not give a **** about how mister Eyeball thinks my whole nation is a dog fucker by forcing those poor indoctrinated women by a shitty version of that religion, to reveal their faces in a bus. Mixing such bill with racism, is a clear demonstration on how narrowed is your mind about that topic. Do not attempt to justify yourself. You do not stand a chance. Do your mea culpa and change your attitude regarding your silly accusations.

You can try to team up with the Bloc Québécois and convaince them to apply their logic at large for all canadians. Québec always considered itself as a state, not a province. Back in 1867, Québec wanted a confederation, not a federation. With strong states and a small central government. The others wanted a strong central government with smaller provinces. Your ideal federation that you are looking for is much closer to the one Québec wants. However, it's for total different reasons. Despite the difference in the ultimate goal, the principle of the existence of a state level instead of province or territory is the same. It could be a starter for brainstorming your vision of how the federal should be.

If you do not want to be subject to any federal law, only independence is your solution. But to play the game and brainstorm about the possibility, let's try this. What you need, is to create a new level. There is the Territory level, mostly governed by the federal with a very small local administration. There is the Province level, having alot of autonomy but, still having alot of power duplications and few domains that are managed by the federal. What you want is to create a new level, the State level. More autonomy than a province, but it has to depend on its own with minimal help from the federal. You would still have to respect the canadian constitution, but you would have a say on it. Which is not necessarly the case of all provinces. There is only one catch. Canada has to agree with you to create such level. I cannot see how you could manage to convince the federal of such thing. Not realistic. That can be discussed only on a theoriy basis.

If it was like you said, we would be trying to assimilate all muslims and change them into catholics. Not only the muslims are totally free to practice their religions, they can even use tax break to promote their religions like any other religions in this country. If we are trying to homogenized them, we definitely suffer from lack of efficiency. lollll

Allow me to help you get more comfortable with this. If a woman is hired as policewoman, do we tell her what to wear? Do we force her to wear a uniform or she can wear whatever she wants? If a woman is a teacher, can she wear whatever she wants? Can she do her job in bikini? Nope, we have a certain minimum requirements and therefore, we tell her what to wear and what not to. Depending on what you do or where you are, there are up to a certain point, rules where we tell women what to wear... just as well as to the men. The rules are the same and applied on both gender. We always said what to where and we will always do. Even if the rules are very flexible, there are still rules. So, banning a garmant that covers your face, does it remove the women the right to wear what they want? Not more than getting topless into a bus. It's a justified rule for identification. IT IS NOT, under any circumstances, an excessive restriction over the right for the women to wear what they want.

You clearly failed to demonstrate that we are xenophobic and I explained you why. You are trying to victimize the muslims like if those rules would be against them. Which is far from the truth because many muslims do agree with those rules. The muslims are warning us themself about the danger of those obscurantists. The real muslims have no problem to respect our rules and that does not jeopardise their faith into their religion. On the contrary. It helps save it from the obscurantists. Your last sentence says alot about you. You considere my concern about the harmful religious indoctrination to women as a government's new religion. We are definitely not on the same page. It is not that much off topic since we are talking about a subject that touches directly the bill 68 in Québec and that Singh said he will fight against it as much as he can.

Yet, he cares that all other religious organizations can freely indoctrinates their followers to values that are against the canadian ones. All protected under the sacred so called individual freedoms. This is a very sophisticated hypocrisy.

Ahhh! you were talking about the crucifix in the Assemblée Nationale!!! That is not the same thing. I was talking about what people wear. That is another subject. You are vicious. So regarding the crucifix at the A.N., it's a tricky one. In my opinion, we should remove it. But the point of those who would like to keep it, is that thing is a patrimonial object. Although I am no longer catholic and do not beleive in god, I admit they have a point. catholicism is part of our history and even if we have a seperation of Church and state, we do not need to erase our past. Having that thing in the A.N. does not jeopardize the mindset of the people Inside it. It is rather a matter of image than a matter of trust. We will not lose the confidence in the politicians to take the right decision, should there be a conflict between the rules of the state and the values of christianism, just because of that crucifix in the room. That is why I am tolerating it so far. But as I said, I would prefer have it moved to somewhere else. Regarding the "poor woman" in the bus that can't no longer wear a burqa or niqab... I do not care about your feelings. I care about how she must feel to think she needs to wear such thing. I care about her lack of self confidence and the power her religion has over her throu indoctrination. While the only thing you care about, is the right of that religion to control her mindset.

The key word is ostentatious. If one has a discreet symbol, it is accepted. The goal is not to make the person feels we want to take the religion out of soul. It is to make sure the religion has its limits and the person understands if there are a conflict between its religious beleifs and the rules of the society, those last ones prevails. If a policeman wear a little crucifix or a little crescent moon or anything like that Under its clothes, it is the last of our concerns. You think that all religious should be granted by default. I rather think that symbols and religious practices are forbidden by default for functions of autority. But one can ask for a accommodation and then we evaluate if it is reasonnable. I can't see a good reason for the functions of autority. But for other public jobs, there are plently of possibilities. No double standards. A christian should not be allowed to wear an ostentatious symbol more than anyone else. I never said that an ostentatious crucifix should be allowed.

Homogenization can be for common good and can be for the worst as well. Homogenization itself has Nothing to do with good or bad, it is how we use it that can be morally judged. Hybrid uniforms are not neutral. Therefore, they are attemps to make the religions win their point. Accommodations are not a bad things, when they do not have effects on people other than those concerned. If Jewish stores opened on sundays have only customers from Jewish community and they do not compete with non Jewish stores, there are no conséquences. All accommodation requests have to be evaluated seperately. Some may be rejected, others accepted. I have no problem that religious people are asking accommodation. I just don't accept that they get it for granted only based on the fact that they are religious. Religion is not a free pass reason. I see that you think it's not ok. Be sure that you are not near to convince me anytime soon. At least not with those weaks cases.

I also notice that we seem to agree on every thing at the end, maybe even a little bit about Parizeau. I would like you to see his positon on another angle. Not that I am agreeing with him. As I told you, I blame his attiude and his strategy. There are nothing in what you say that justify accusations of racism and anti-semetism. I was not aware of what you are bringing me here. I did not know he targeted those specific groups, but I beleive you because it's logical to his sad phrase on that memorable night. The reason why Parizeau hated Jews, Greeks and Italians, is not because they were Jews, Greeks or Italians. It's not about the race or something like that. He hated those groups because they choose English over French and they masively vote liberals at all cost. Those 3 groups are very against the PQ and the sovereignist project and Parizeau does not accept that those groups take the side of the federal at the expense of Québec. I must admit that when I was young, I was also thinking like that. Later, I came to realise that hate does not help anything, not a single point. Those 3 groups are just assimilated and linked to the anglo community and that's it. They don't do that because they hate us like Parizeau thinks. Their loyalty goes to Canada before Québec just like any other anglo. Also, another reason why we should not be so angry about that, is that we have our own responsabilities in that outcome. Long time ago, when there was massibe immigration of Italians, the catholic churches rejected them from the french school systems. They said they had no money. So the Italians were forced to go into English schools. Very bad decision at that time and that caused the situation we have now. Back then, the churches had too much powers. They were in charge of the education system among other things. So, back to Parizeau. He hated those groups for the same reason a pro-cons hates the liberals, or a pro-liberal hates conservatives. It was not personal or racist. It was hatred based on partisanship. It is still bad and I still think he was wrong, but it's not the same as racism. If he was racist, he would have been with every one. Which was clearly not the case.

If some fields are clearly stable and accepted, others are still battlefields of the tension. It is accepted that one can choose its religion and wear what its religion orders to. It is also accepted that if you work in a position of autority like a policeman, you must wear specific garments to show what you represent and the role you play. Now the conflict is, some people think they can use the freedom of practicing religion of that first field and apply it into the second field where there are rules of homogenization. They think their right to practice their religion is stronger and overpass the common good. This is where we are divided. Because it's now the religion that set rules into a field where rules have been defined by everyone, for everyone, for the common good. It is a total intrusion way above one's individual rights. Like if the power of religion is absolute.

We are indeed very different on that. No, the court's decision is not ok. It is based on the constitution, which is not ok. It's not ok to allow religious organizations having such an ascending on the politics and rules. It is for you? Well good for you! We do not agree that the religions can have such priviledge over the people. Religious garments while occupying a functio of autority, are a sign that the person is not capable to seperate its religious beleifs from its role. It is an issue. Because we know too well that some people are not capable of placing the rules of the country above their religious beleifs. If their god are in contradiction to the rules of the country, their loyality lies with their god. Most of the time, those people wear religious garments. I do not mind if some people wearing religious garments are capable to make the difference. Because if they do, they won't see a problem with leaving their religious garments while in duty for such role. Singh can beleive and practice the religion he wants. He can wear whatever that religion tells him to wear. But not when he is in position of autority. Because those religious practices are not his own. They belong to the religious organization and the religion should not have such priviledge in our society. They are suppose to serve spirituality. Nothing else.

He does not respect his own promises. Alot of people here voted for him because it was the best way to beat Harper. They did not really knew what they were doing. The hang over is difficult to recover. I do not have the time to exlain you everything that he does that the Québécois do not like. There are too many things. He is just not credible at all, very insignificant. Most of the people here call him mister selfy. He is way too close to the religions. A prime minister should not show himself so much with religious organizations like that. Showing up with visible minorities and ethnical groups is very good, no problem at all. Showing with religious organizations, including those known for radicalism, it's another story. KPMG and their clients... do I need to explain how much Trudeau is considered as a traitor? In the campaign, he was blaming Harper regarding Raif Badawi, the spending in the military, the attitude toward the natives and many other things. But now he is doing worst than him, or just the same. The debt... omg... I am not against investments that can bring long term benefits. But the spending he is actually doing is terrible. He is litterally wasting the money. He is trying really hard to be worst than his father on that. Netflix... no tax. While canadian providers have to pay the tax. This is so wrong. He sets an unfair competition. Despite I do not like Mulcair, he would have been better than him.

That is what the Libs should have done.

Don't be childish regarding Parizeau. My answer remains, so is my question. What does Parizeau said or did regarding the Jews? As I said, he blamed the ethnics for voting No. He was wrong, because he should have blamed himself for not doing the necessary to be convincing. He did not Attack anyone with racist comments or discriminations. If he did, inform me. I must have miss something. I admired Lévesque. He was transparent, open and trust worthy. Parizeau always left me with doubts. Like if he has something in mind that he is hiding from us. He was also a little bit stubborn, although he was capable to give up when it became obvious that it was in his best interest. After he dismiss, he was that typical step mom always saying something that light ups fire. Each time he opened his month, alot of sovereignists were praying that he does not say that would force the PQ to do damage control. Neverthenless, Parizeau is very intelligent and he was also admired by alot of sovereignists for what he accomplished. It is ridiculous that you say I behave like I am his nephew. I blame him for that phrase he said on that night. It has caused alot of damages for the sovereignist movement for many years. But if you think that the fact that he blamed the ethnics for voting no, is enough to insert him into the anti semetic bag, then you are very wrong about that. You are no better than Singh accusing anyone who challenge his loyalty of being racist or such. Do you agree with what Mitch Garber said? I am very aware of the opinion of Taxme regarding you. He is abig boy. He can defend himself. For me, judaism is just another religion like any others. Israel is a nation. One can be a jew and not as much to go with Israel. I have work for 3 years in a Israeli company having a branch based in Montréal. So I saw all kind of jews. The pro israeli ones as much as those who criticize Israel policies. The very stereotyped traditional jews as much as the liberal ones that are clearly canadians (or even Québécois). So, unlike Taxme, I beleive you are very capable to stay loyal to your canadian nation. You should not be taxed of being loyal to Israel rather than Canada, if you agree more with the position of Israel than the one of Canada regarding a topic. I am not really a fan of the "either you are with us or with them" mindset. Regarding Singh, I totally agree with you. He will be challenged, at least in Québec, for showing off his religion like that. However, he will be contested for the ostentatiory of his religion, not his faith in his religion, not his origins. If he thinks he can blame us and build a guilt trip on a discrimination toward his minority image, he won't have the expected results here. We do not buy such crap. I do not know him much. I do not know if he will hypocritely attempt to play that vcitimization card or if will stay put with the topic. We will see. But from the little I know so far, it does not look good for him. That said, there are probably few of his policies that I could agree with him. But I will never vote for someone that is not capable to seperate its religious practices from its political functions. Mulroney was brilliant. I am not conservative and there are alot of his policies that I did not agree with him, but he knew what he was doing and he was good at it. He had a good understanding of the big picture.

I sincerly did not witness hostility, or at least not systematic hostility toward non french tourists outside Montréal. However, I am french, so it is very possible that what you say happen more often than I am aware of. So I will not deny what you say, I am just telling you that most of the time, tourists do not resent any hostility outside Montréal. Québec has a good reputation for tourism, even among unilingual English speaking people. Jacques Parizeau said "à cause de l'argent et le vote ethnique". Parizeau blamed the no side to cheat with the rules of the campain regarding the money. He also blamed the non pure laine for massively vote no. The majority of the sovereignists like me did blame him for that. Although the facts are right, the blame is wrong. Well at least for the ethnic. Parizeau did not do the required efforts to win the support of the non pure laines. He should blame himself instead for not doing the necessary to be convincing. Instead of just blame them plain and simple. That said, there is no mention of the jews or anything anti-semite at all. That is why I am asking you where you could have seen or heard of anything like that. I do not even remember hear him say the word jew. Perhaps you are mixing up with Yves Michaud? Regarding the lack of french cultural products consumed by the anglos... (I do not know why you think it is relevant to mention a french african, because I have put the focus on English canadians, not the australians or else... anyway)... I prefer to invite you to listen at the interview of Mitch Garber (a jewish anglo) at the tv show Tout le monde en parle. I totally agree with him, including his critics on the needs for french Québécois to learn English language. Listen to the 6 first minutes of this interview: "I think Quebecois have been able to couch certain anti semitic or anti Muslim or anti black sentiments in the name of cultural protection but certainly not all Quebecois." Do you think there is one place in this world that does not have their anti-minorities? Québec is no different. The majority of people are not like that, but it's always the angry minority that are the most noisy. It's the same in English Canada. Here, we hear about the anti-Québécois and the anti-french. We do not hear from the silent majority that appreciates Québec and the french. Blame the medias for that. Québec is an inclusive society that welcome alot of immigrants and even if Québec some days seperates from Canada, it will continue to be like this. Language laws are NOT discriminating English language. Get over it. You can have signs in English. The law only forces you to have the french translation and predominent. If the English language would be forbiden, then and only then you could complain about discrimination. Same for the schools. All English Quebecers are allowed to go to English schools. No discrimination there. The victimization has to stop. You fool no one outside English Canada. PS: Sorry Charles Anthony. We will try to not abuse of the off topic.

I appology for not being very well informed about the said legislation proposal. Is it about setting restrictions to the right of abortion? Or is rather about removing the priviledge or having free public support for abortion in some specific cases? If it's about the first one, I understand the objections seem arrogant to you. Until a specific number of days, the right of the woman prevails over the fetus. Discussion about it can only open a can of worms. However, if it is about removing the priviledge of using free public health care in some conditions, I am open for discussion. Not necessarly in favor of setting conditions, but I think it is legitimated to raise the question. I think free abortion has sometimes the undesired effect of disempowerment. I do not know what is the best solution to that but I think all possibilities must be debated.

@taxme August1991 was on the edge of arrogance, but I think he does that because he wants you to bite the dust. 1. You are very wrong. The English and the French people do live along way better than the medias would like you to know. Sometimes you can see an anglo artist adopting the french culture and performs in french language. The french will love them like one of their own. Whenever the french have the occasions to demonstrate how well they speak English, they just do it. Even if the anglo is begging to speak french so he can learn and practice. The majority of the English people are totally ok with the language rules. Only few angryphones are complaining out loud. 2. Toronto speaks English, but so many immigrants speak with so different accents, boring is the appriciation of august1991 and I don't feel like it's relevant to comment. 3. That was true few decades ago. The tensions are not as high now. English are getting use to it and the French do not feel endangered as much as 30 years ago. It still contemporary but, not explosive. 4. The only thing that was bothering the french, is when that some English people and companies were not respecting the french fact. And also, the tendancy from the immigration to choose English over french. With the language policies, it's now impossible to have signs with English only and immigrants must use french public schools. Giving that you can learn pretty good English in french schools, every body are happy and most immigrants are trilingual. @Rue I agree with alot of things you said. So I will focus on those I don't. 2. Québec is NOT unilingual. Québec has french as official language, but English has a minority status. The English have the rights and their language is protected as well. So English people can have English publics schools and use their language every where. They can communicate with the government in English and the cities having at least 50% of English people, are considered bilingual. Which allows them to function in English as well as in French. 3. "Tourists who do not speak French outside Montreal find themselves faced with hostility when they don't speak French" says who? We never heard of anything like this from anyone. On the contrary. Even if a trourist talks to someone who speaks french only, the local often tries his best to make itself understood. People in the régions usually have a good attitude with the non french speaking tourists. Just as well as most of touristic regions in Canada with non enlish speaking tourists. That said, it might be true that the Québécois will not be as sympthic if they know they deal with an anglo that does not give a **** about the french language. 4. " Parizeau was an anti semite racist pig" are you aware of Something I don't? Can you tell me what he did or said to deserve such accusation? " Daniel Johnson Jr was a good Premier." he was liberal. His brother Pierre-Marc was péquiste. "That said French Quebecers fought in WW2 although many were known for resisting the draft like Pierre Trudeau. " yep, he was riding a bicycle with a nazi uniform while Lévesque was correspondant de guerre in Europe during the WW2. "I have no problems with Quebecois asking me to speak French. No one forced it on me. I wanted to speak French. Its just common courtesy. Most Quebecois I know spoke English. All we minorities left in the late 70's because the economy collapsed and there were no jobs for us and discriminating against non Francophone names was acceptable in those days. ". Come on! Back then, most of the best jobs were owned by English speaking people. When they left, the french took the empty spaces and English and French are getting along pretty well so far. I have anglo workmates and neighbors. I never felt any tension regarding the language with them. Most of the time, we speak french, but I sometimes switch to english as courtesy (or because I do not want to lose it) and they sometimes use english when they are not quiet sure about the translation of their thoughts. I know the medias like to build a bid story about the linguistic conflicts or lorsqu'un agent de la police de la langue se met à errer et outre passer son mandat, but aside that, the relation is pretty good. Unfortunately, English people do not put enough attention to the cultural products from the french culture. It contributes to the 2 solitudes.

Delegates from Québec are very uncomfortable with him. They had to correct him several times in the campain. Sometimes they litteraly told him to avoid some subjects. I think at this point, they are on damage control mode for the next few years. They will try to save their jobs. Plain and simple. So you can bet they will now prétend that Singh is a great leader that Canada needs. Even if they prayed days and nights that they would end up with anyone but him in the last race. Alot of Québec people are very desapointed by Trudeau. It would have been easy for NPD to take back the advantage but, now with this, I think few will block their nose to avoid the stinks of the liberals and vote for them again. Or maybe we will assist to the return of the Bloc Québécois. Or maybe Scheer will manage to leave the shadow of Harper behind and make significant wins in Québec. Too early to say right now.

Again, you do not get the point. The "dagger" itself is not an issue in a day-to-day personal basis. It is an issue if you wear it during your functions as a PM. You have a serious difficulty to understand the difference because in your mindset, the spirituality of an indidividual and the constrainsts ordered by the religious organization are the same for you. That is why you think you can simply say you do not mind about his religion. I do not mind about his religion as well. I mind about his unability to draw the difference and prove he is capable to not folliow a religious order. I beleive my explanations were quiet clear about it.

You are totally off my point. I do not know if it is because you do not understand what I explained or if because the concept is out of your reach. Does Kennedy had an ostentious catholic symbol its religion ordered him to wear? The choice of religion of Singh is not an issue. Not at all. His inability to take his distance from it and be secular while in function, that's the issue. I also explained you the position and the reasoning along with it. It's sad that you limited yourself to the comparison of simplistic protestants afraid of a catholic president.

I see that many of you guys think he will divide the liberal votes for the favor of the conservatices. He is that good in English Canada? I would not be surprised if he can't even score one seat in Québec. I am rather wondering if he will push more traditional NDP supporters into the arms of the Liberal party. Which can't be good for the cons. The cons needs a substential division between NDP and the Libs.