{"id":39946,"date":"2017-08-27T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-08-27T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=39946"},"modified":"2017-08-26T11:15:06","modified_gmt":"2017-08-26T15:15:06","slug":"ndp-leader-says-no-government-can-tell-a-woman-what-to-wear-except-in-quebec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2017\/08\/27\/ndp-leader-says-no-government-can-tell-a-woman-what-to-wear-except-in-quebec\/","title":{"rendered":"NDP leadership hopeful says no government can tell a woman what to wear … except in Quebec"},"content":{"rendered":"

The federal NDP have gotten themselves knotted up over Quebec-specific conflicts between their rhetoric and political reality in La Belle Province<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n

One wonders what Jack Layton would make of his party nowadays \u2014 of the trajectory it has taken since his untimely passing and of the battle to replace his successor, who seemed like such a good idea at the time. The party\u2019s new support in Quebec had been by design: the 2005 Sherbrooke Declaration essentially argued Quebecers should be free to secede from Canada with a simple 50 per cent-plus-one-vote, and in the meantime offered them a seat at the table in a social-democratic government in Ottawa.<\/p>\n

Alas, hitching your wagon to Quebec nationalists only works so long as the horse doesn\u2019t spook. In recent years, Quebec\u2019s politics has become more and more seized with \u201creligious accommodations\u201d in general, with Islam specifically, and with niqabs very specifically indeed. Such is the state of play that the Liberal government\u2019s Bill 62 is considered moderate: it would ban providing and receiving public services with one\u2019s face covered. Justice Minister St\u00e9phanie Vall\u00e9e won\u2019t even say whether women in niqabs would be allowed to ride the bus.<\/p>\n

This is something you might expect the left-most candidate to lead the left-most party in the House of Commons to oppose unambiguously. Niki Ashton\u2019s campaign promises to end \u201cthe oppression of racialized communities,\u201d tackle \u201cIslamophobia, anti-black racism, and violence towards Indigenous peoples\u201d and address \u201cintersecting oppressions\u201d as well.<\/p>\n

But no. In a statement to Huffington Post<\/em> this week, Ashton said \u201cthere is no justification where (sic) a government should tell a woman, or anyone, what they should wear and what they shouldn\u2019t wear.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat being said\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Those three words lit a match, and the tire fire is still burning. (Ashton was not available for an interview on Friday, according to her campaign.)<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a consensus in (sic) Quebec\u2019s political leaders emerging on secularism,\u201d the statement continued, \u201cand the Canadian government should respect the will of Quebecers on this matter.\u201d It must also \u201crespect\u201d the \u201cwidely different \u2026 place\u201d religion has \u201cheld in Quebec since the Quiet Revolution.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The federal NDP have gotten themselves knotted up over Quebec-specific conflicts between their rhetoric and political reality in La Belle Province: One wonders what Jack Layton would make of his party nowadays \u2014 of the trajectory it has taken since his untimely passing and of the battle to replace his successor, who seemed like such […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"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":[47,798,113,43],"class_list":["post-39946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-politics","category-religion","tag-islam","tag-ndp","tag-quebec","tag-women"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-aoi","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39946","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=39946"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39948,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39946\/revisions\/39948"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}