Where can we get a copy of the document passed by the Council in that town?
A small town defends its local customs
Brigitte Pellerin, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Tuesday, January 30, 2007
How does the old saying go? Ah, yes. Some people are so open-minded their brains have fallen out. For instance the sophisticated "experts" who denounced the small Quebec town of Herouxville for publishing a set of communal norms that include refraining from stoning women in public places.
Perhaps you missed the news: The Canadian Press report published in a few English-speaking newspapers on Sunday (the French-speaking media were, unsurprisingly, more comprehensive in their coverage). It said "Herouxville, about 165 km northeast of Montreal, passed a document at a town council meeting this month that outlines what it considers to be its official behavioural norms. The document, sent to both the provincial and federal governments, states that 'a woman can ... drive a car, sign cheques, dance, decide on her own.'" And that "covering one's face other than on Halloween, burning women alive or burning them with acid is not considered acceptable."
There are also rules stating that men and women can be treated by health professionals of either gender, that children can eat meat without having to know how the beast was killed and by whom, that toward the end of the year folks enjoy Christmas festivities, and that adults are allowed to drink alcohol in public.
In fact, these are not "rules" so much as a list of the locals' accepted customs, drawn up by city councillors on behalf of the town's residents to reflect the results of a public opinion survey. (You can find the document, including a clumsy English translation, at municipalite.herouxville.qc.ca under "avis public.") These people may be hicks -- Herouxville's coat of arms proudly features a bright red tractor -- but they're not stupid.
They know their norms have no legal standing. They're doing it to make a point, to stress that as far as they're concerned, there is a huge difference between welcoming immigrants from all over and welcoming the bad habits most immigrants are trying to leave behind. As Councillor Andre Drouin explained, "We have to ensure that people who come here want to live like us." Live like us, mark you, not look like us.
True, Herouxville has very few immigrants. It's rather out of the way, somewhere north of Grand-Mere -- itself not exactly located at the centre of the universe. But just because there aren't problems now doesn't mean there can't ever be any. Who would have thought England would be home to imams who openly say, in plain English, that "Allah has created the woman deficient," that if a woman "doesn't wear hijab we hit her" and that homosexuals ought to be thrown off mountains? Yet as Channel 4's program Dispatches showed, that's exactly what's happening, in mosques Tony Blair praised as moderate. (Look for "Dispatches: Undercover Mosque" on Google Video and prepare to be horrified.)
Are the good citizens of Herouxville overreacting? A bit. Are these norms enforceable? Some aren't, of course. Others are, but not at a municipal level. I'm pretty sure it's illegal under the federal criminal code to throw acid in someone's face or to perform what is euphemistically known as "female circumcision." What the people of Herouxville are doing is proudly declaring where they stand.
Are they guilty of racism, bigotry and intolerance, as many commentators huffily assert? No. Real bigotry is saying those of another religion, culture, or race necessarily support stoning women in public places.
According to the hundreds of e-mails the municipality has received, many of which are posted on its website, folks from all across the province are congratulating Herouxville officials for daring to say out loud what many are secretly thinking. It's about time, many write, that Quebec culture be protected, too. Not so the experts. La Presse quoted a Universite de Montreal official shocked to find preconceived ideas still present despite all the debates on "reasonable accommodation," a woman from something called the "Comite ecoles et communaute" (no idea what it does) saying the government ought not to take this incident lightly, and the president of the "Comite consultatif sur l'integration et l'accommodement raisonnable en milieu scolaire" (ditto) who did the obligatory criticizing of the media for the benefit of the media.
The paper also quoted prominent lawyer Jean-Claude Hebert saying that "The norms go against the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and are therefore unconstitutional."
Whoa. I hope you were holding onto your bonnet. Do we really have in this country a constitutional right to stone women? Why weren't we told?
It will be interesting to see how politicians react. Let's hope they at least keep their brains safely inside their heads.
Brigitte Pellerin's column appears Tuesday and Thursday.
