Parti Quebecois Leader Pauline Marois says she's having trouble learning English so I have an idea.
Three years from now, let's give her a language test to see if she's achieved an "appropriate" knowledge of English. We'll decide what's "appropriate." If, by then, her proficiency in English doesn't satisfy us, let's deny her some rights.
Let's prevent her from holding any public office. Or raising money for a political party. Or petitioning Parliament to redress a grievance.
Let's call the law permitting this the "Canadian Identity Act." Far-fetched? Nope. Marois has proposed similar legislation for Quebec, called the "Quebec Identity Act." It would require all new immigrants to Quebec -- 40% now arrive unable to speak French -- to have an "appropriate" knowledge of the language within three years or forfeit the above rights.
While Quebec would pay for the instruction and the law wouldn't apply to citizens or immigrants already in Quebec before the act's passage, it raises alarming questions.
Who decides when someone's French is "appropriate"? How?
Would it be government bureaucrats, beholden to a PQ majority government?
Apparently so, because that's the only way this law will pass.
The PQ is the third party in Quebec's National Assembly, behind Premier Jean Charest's Liberals, who head a minority government. The official opposition is led by Mario Dumont and his Action democratique du Quebec party.
Both reject Marois' proposal. Charest says it would create two classes of citizens in Quebec. Dumont calls it a trial balloon unlikely to survive a constitutional challenge.
But for Marois, passing the law isn't necessary. Simply by introducing it, the PQ are positioning themselves as the defenders of French language and culture in Quebec, traditional separatist turf usurped by Dumont and the ADQ in the last election.
Marois' proposal is part of the ongoing debate about the "reasonable accommodation" of minorities in Quebec. It's now frequently veering into immigrant-bashing, particularly of Muslims, as indicated by the testimony at public hearings now being held by the Quebec government into the "reasonable accommodation" issue.
While the Liberals and ADQ have criticized Marois' proposal, they've also been playing to fears about immigrants. Recent polls in Quebec show growing concerns about immigrants failing to integrate. There are also complaints the government has been too accommodating to minorities, a central plank of Dumont's campaign in the last election, which boosted the ADQ into second place over the PQ.
None of this speaks well of Quebec's politicians, who should be working to calm the hysterical tone of some of the anti-immigrant rhetoric, not pander to it.
That's what great leaders do -- they bring people together. They don't drive them apart.
Then again, in Ontario, another province where politicians like to think of themselves as "progressive" and "enlightened," Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty just won re-election largely by pandering to Islamophobia and other forms of bigotry during the debate over whether to publicly fund faith-based schools if they teach the Ontario-approved educational curriculum, proposed by Conservative Leader John Tory.
Apparently some of our poll-happy politicians have decided the way to win power these days is not to calm public fears about "the other" but to stoke them. Shame on them, and what a terrible irony, since many are the same people who used to lecture us about the joys of multiculturalism.
