Seeing that the UN Human Rights Committee has criticized Ontario's Separate school system:
United Nations Human Rights Website - Treaty Bodies Database - Document - Jurisprudence - Canada
And certain aspects of Quebec's Bill 101 (specifically its sign laws):
Ballantyne, Davidson, McIntyre v. Canada - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
and
University of Minnesota Human Rights Library
I'm sure there are likely documents concerning our disrespect of First Nations treaties, but since I can't find any, I'll let that one go for now.
However, do you believe that by ignoring explicit condemnations of UNHRC criticisms of specific international human rights laws in Canada undermine's Canada's credibility when promoting human rights abroad by making Canada come across as hypocritical?
Just to take the above examples, would it not be extremely easy to solve the separate school system in Ontario by either:
1. Adopting a single school system as some propose,
2. Turning to a school voucher system, as others have proposed, or
3. finding some other means of ensuring all religious communities are treated equally either by restricting funding to all religious education or making it equally available to all religious communities.
Any of the solutions above could fulfill the requirement it would seem. Sweden's school voucher system has proven highly effective too by the way, though it does prohibit any participating school, private or or state-owned, secular or religious, from discriminating against students on the basis of religion, having to accept them on a first-come, first-served basis, and accommodating them as required. Religious schools are not prohibited from participating, though I wouldn't be surprised if many of them, other than the more progressive ones, have chosen not to participate in such a programme.
The point though is that there would be so many varying ways of fulfilling this requirement by simply treating all religious communities equally.
As for Quebec's Bill 101, why could Quebec not repeal the restrictions on non-French-language commercial signs and instead simply adopt a Hungarian-style second-language programme in its schools, essentially allowing each school to teach the second-language of its choice as long as it can maintain the course's pedagogical integrity, and allowing students to take fulfill their second-language requirement in school likewise in a second-language of their choice among all the second-languages taught in the province. This way, with perhaps a few French-medium schools in the province choosing to offer alternatives to English as a second language, and maybe a few students choosing an alternative second-language to fulfill high school requirements, English would naturally become less of a threat to the French language without having to violate the basic rights of English-speakers in the province.
I'm sure plenty of other solutions could be presented too.
But in the end, how do you think Canada's human rights record affects its credibility in promoting human rights abroad?
United Nations Human Rights Website - Treaty Bodies Database - Document - Jurisprudence - Canada
And certain aspects of Quebec's Bill 101 (specifically its sign laws):
Ballantyne, Davidson, McIntyre v. Canada - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
and
University of Minnesota Human Rights Library
I'm sure there are likely documents concerning our disrespect of First Nations treaties, but since I can't find any, I'll let that one go for now.
However, do you believe that by ignoring explicit condemnations of UNHRC criticisms of specific international human rights laws in Canada undermine's Canada's credibility when promoting human rights abroad by making Canada come across as hypocritical?
Just to take the above examples, would it not be extremely easy to solve the separate school system in Ontario by either:
1. Adopting a single school system as some propose,
2. Turning to a school voucher system, as others have proposed, or
3. finding some other means of ensuring all religious communities are treated equally either by restricting funding to all religious education or making it equally available to all religious communities.
Any of the solutions above could fulfill the requirement it would seem. Sweden's school voucher system has proven highly effective too by the way, though it does prohibit any participating school, private or or state-owned, secular or religious, from discriminating against students on the basis of religion, having to accept them on a first-come, first-served basis, and accommodating them as required. Religious schools are not prohibited from participating, though I wouldn't be surprised if many of them, other than the more progressive ones, have chosen not to participate in such a programme.
The point though is that there would be so many varying ways of fulfilling this requirement by simply treating all religious communities equally.
As for Quebec's Bill 101, why could Quebec not repeal the restrictions on non-French-language commercial signs and instead simply adopt a Hungarian-style second-language programme in its schools, essentially allowing each school to teach the second-language of its choice as long as it can maintain the course's pedagogical integrity, and allowing students to take fulfill their second-language requirement in school likewise in a second-language of their choice among all the second-languages taught in the province. This way, with perhaps a few French-medium schools in the province choosing to offer alternatives to English as a second language, and maybe a few students choosing an alternative second-language to fulfill high school requirements, English would naturally become less of a threat to the French language without having to violate the basic rights of English-speakers in the province.
I'm sure plenty of other solutions could be presented too.
But in the end, how do you think Canada's human rights record affects its credibility in promoting human rights abroad?
