Allison Hanes: Reaction to city hall poster worthy of CAQ, not Plante

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It’s just a poster.

Let’s keep things in perspective.

And it’s a pretty simple one at that. In dark ink on a stark white background, it features an elegant line drawing of three people, under the straightforward message: “Bienvenue à l’hôtel de ville de Montréal!” (“Welcome to Montreal City Hall!”)

But because one of the figures depicted is a woman in a hijab, the poster has come under fire, ostensibly for failing to respect the spirit of official secularism in Quebec. Pundits have been raging about it. Mayor Valérie Plante was asked about it during her appearance on Tout le monde en parle, which aired Sunday. And Plante reassured the public that plans are already in the works to remove the artwork as soon as possible.

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You’d think someone had scrawled profanity on one of city hall’s newly painted walls. But in Quebec, at this particular moment of secular dogmatism and rekindled identity politics, a mere image of a veiled woman is enough to cause offence.

Perhaps this exaggerated reaction would be expected at the National Assembly. After all, Premier François Legault is the father of Bill 21, Quebec’s secularism law, which prohibits civil servants in positions of authority from wearing religious symbols. As his government’s popularity plummets, a resurgent Parti Québécois — promoter of the law’s ill-fated predecessor, the Charter of Values — is trying to capitalize on the situation. As Quebec reels from revelations that a faction of teachers, some allied with a local mosque, caused havoc for years at Montreal’s Bedford public elementary school (while administrators did little to nothing), we’ve reached a new level of hysteria over the smallest hint of anything remotely religious.

PQ Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon raised a similar ruckus about another image, advertising story time at the Mercier Library. The photo on Facebook shows three smiling girls sitting cross-legged on the floor, looking up at a storyteller holding a book. One of the girls is wearing a headscarf.

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This ad is apparently so controversial that Plante was called upon to answer for it as well during her Tout le monde en parle appearance. She said she doesn’t approve every poster produced by every library in every borough — an apparent admission of her disapproval.

The mayor’s swiftness in distancing herself from these images strikes a dissonant chord.

Plante has made diversity and inclusion priorities during her two mandates at city hall. Her administration is working on fighting discrimination within city institutions. In fact, her acknowledgment that systemic racism even exists puts her a step ahead of Legault, who categorically denies it festers in Quebec.

On Tuesday, Côte-des-Neiges—Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough mayor Gracia Kasoki Katahwa, the anti-discrimination point woman on Plante’s executive committee, delivered a progress report on the city’s efforts — including tackling racial profiling by police — at the public security commission.

To be fair, Plante’s administration has done more to recognize and address systemic racism than many other governments — even if the pace of change can be frustratingly slow, symbolic actions are easier than significant policy reforms, contradictions arise and lip service sometimes takes precedence over concrete action.

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But it makes it that much odder that a city government committed to inclusion would overreact to public service announcements clearly designed to foster just that.

Again, these are just ads. But what message does this response send?

What were the posters trying to convey in the first place? Presumably, that everyone is welcome at story time or in the council chambers. Perhaps they were intended to reach out to a particular demographic that might not feel as at home in these municipal service points of this diverse city as they could or should, for various reasons. Well, women or girls with veils are surely going to get the opposite impression now that they’re being told their likenesses have no place in public institutions.

It’s also strange for the city’s first female mayor and a champion of women to seem to agree with the suggestion put before her that depictions of Muslim women are not acceptable in municipal publications.

The knee-jerk response is symptomatic of the flawed premise behind Quebec’s secularism law: that a religious symbol constitutes promoting a belief system or even proselytizing. It also reflects paternalistic presumptions that Muslim women are forced to wear the hijab, rather than exercising a choice, making it incompatible with equality. Yet telling a woman what not to wear and judging her on appearances is also at odds with feminism.

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The last time I looked, Bill 21 enshrines the secularism of the state, not of its people. And there is a world of difference. Individuals still have the right to freedom of thought, belief, association, conviction and expression. And those rights are protected.

The secularism law does not restrict ordinary citizens from wearing the hijab, kippah, crucifix or turban while visiting city hall or taking out a library book. It only prevents civil servants in positions of authority, including police officers, clerks, prosecutors and teachers, from exhibiting religious insignia on the job.

That, in and of itself, may be discriminatory. A Quebec Superior Court ruling found that Bill 21 violates fundamental rights, in particular those of Muslim women, but said the law is shielded by the pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause. The Quebec Court of Appeal declined to weigh in on the substance of the secularism law, viewing it as a moot point in light of the constitutional override.

But individuals are free to express their religious identity in public — even in a secular society (at least for the moment).

That a poster showing an image of a woman wearing the hijab has provoked such umbrage sure doesn’t send a very welcoming message. In fact, it sets an ominous tone for efforts to encourage inclusion and fight discrimination.

ahanes@postmedia.com

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