{"id":23946,"date":"2014-01-24T10:22:19","date_gmt":"2014-01-24T15:22:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=23946"},"modified":"2014-01-24T10:22:19","modified_gmt":"2014-01-24T15:22:19","slug":"the-charter-of-quebec-values-is-starting-to-look-like-an-election-winner-for-marois","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2014\/01\/24\/the-charter-of-quebec-values-is-starting-to-look-like-an-election-winner-for-marois\/","title":{"rendered":"The “charter of Quebec values” is starting to look like an election winner for Marois"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Wells<\/a> initially dismissed the proposed charter of Quebec values as unlikely to appeal to the majority of Quebec voters. He now admits that he may have been wrong, as the minority PQ government has been gaining support since introducing the charter proposal and if the trend continues, we might expect to see Premier Pauline Marois a snap election. He attributes this to a few key elements in Quebec politics and culture:<\/p>\n

A secular imperative<\/em>. I have friends who disagree with the PQ on just about everything \u2014 but who applaud the notion that it should be impossible to tell a person\u2019s religion by looking at him or her. These people tend to be atheists who view religion as inevitably backward and retrograde. They tend to keep books by Christopher Hitchens<\/a> and Richard Dawkins<\/a> on the nightstand. They\u2019d sooner everyone got over religion altogether. In the meantime they don\u2019t want to have to look at evidence of religion.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The suggestive power of government<\/em>. Canadians, including Quebecers, tend to trust and listen to their governments. Governments can lead opinion, and often do. I know all this sounds crazy. And the people least likely to notice the willingness of the public to be led are those who consider themselves full-time opponents of any given party in power. But it\u2019s one reason why highly ideological politicians seek power: not for its own sake, but because it gives leaders the hope of being followed.<\/p>\n

Islamic fundamentalism<\/em>. Does anybody believe the PQ would be on this \u2014 what\u2019s the word? \u2014 this crusade today, if 9\/11 had never happened? Is anyone surprised that so many witnesses at public consultations on the PQ charter focus exclusively on Islam that government officials are left pleading with witnesses to mention other religions at least once in a while?<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The moral collapse of the Quebec Liberal Party<\/em>. These days you can\u2019t find the Liberals\u2019 new leader, Philippe Couillard, with a dog and a flashlight. I wish this were more of a surprise. The notion that diversity is a strength and that there are different ways of being Qu\u00e9b\u00e9cois is on trial. That notion has animated the Quebec Liberal Party, on its better days, for more than a century. But the Liberals decided 40 years ago that there\u2019s room for only one party with any convictions in Quebec, and that\u2019s the PQ. Couillard represents the third consecutive case \u2014 after Daniel Johnson and Jean Charest \u2014 where the party chose the most viscerally federalist leadership candidate on offer, then surrounded him with advisers who systematically advise him not to say what he believes. The results are predictable. The PQ sets the debate\u2019s terms, the Liberals hide under the coffee table.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul Wells initially dismissed the proposed charter of Quebec values as unlikely to appeal to the majority of Quebec voters. He now admits that he may have been wrong, as the minority PQ government has been gaining support since introducing the charter proposal and if the trend continues, we might expect to see Premier Pauline […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,53,11],"tags":[188,47,842,113],"class_list":["post-23946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-politics","category-religion","tag-electionwatch","tag-islam","tag-partiquebecois","tag-quebec"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-6ee","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23946"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23947,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23946\/revisions\/23947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}