Juno News - September 14, 2019


Federal leaders are afraid of Quebec


Episode Stats


Length

4 minutes

Words per minute

165.32025

Word count

764

Sentence count

26

Harmful content

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Quebec Bill 21 is an anti-religious freedom bill that would ban public workers in the province of Quebec from wearing religious symbols such as turbans and crosses. The federal government has so far refused to get involved, despite the fact that the bill is being challenged in court.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.560 The 2019 federal election is in full swing though at this point the mantra for all of the party
00:00:08.480 leaders might as well be don't poke the bear that is Quebec. One of the big issues that has come up
00:00:15.120 in Canadian politics to date this year has been Quebec's Bill 21. This is the bill put forward by
00:00:21.520 the new Quebec government that bars public servants including teachers for example from
00:00:27.200 wearing religious symbols. Now the bill is not exclusive to a particular religion but
00:00:33.520 most people understand it to be taking aim at hijabs and kneecaps but it also could just as
00:00:39.680 easily apply to large crosses, crucifixes, yarmulkes. It is an anti-religious bill and that makes it an
00:00:47.040 anti-religious freedom bill. It's the kind of bill that if Doug Ford were to put it forward in Ontario
00:00:52.720 would be condemned. If Jason Kenney were to put it forward Justin Trudeau would be staging a sit-in
00:00:57.680 at the Alberta legislature but in Quebec it's different because no federal leader wants to
00:01:03.200 anger Quebec and Quebec voters and we're seeing this in full swing now. There's a legal challenge
00:01:09.920 against Bill 21 which means some citizens of Quebec people impacted by the legislation are taking it to
00:01:16.400 court. What about the federal government though? Well Justin Trudeau has said that it's not now the time
00:01:22.400 for the federal government to get involved but he'll be monitoring it because maybe in the future
00:01:27.200 it might be the time. Andrew Scheer has said oh well the bill is terrible but no a conservative
00:01:32.320 government would not get involved and even Jagmeet Singh who wears a turban himself a Sikh man who would 0.99
00:01:38.720 be barred from working in the public service in Quebec has not said that if he were elected he would
00:01:44.880 take aim at the bill through federal action. Instead he just said in a Montreal blog interview that
00:01:51.360 him walking around and campaigning in Quebec wearing a turban that is his resistance to this.
00:01:58.320 Now the reason I'm taking aim at the federal response to this from federal politicians is because
00:02:03.520 they have all been essentially declaring war in public statements against this bill. They've all said
00:02:09.360 it's the worst thing to happen it's racist it's evil it's awful and by the way I agree that it is
00:02:14.560 terrible legislation I agree that it's discriminatory and I agree that it is coming from a place of abject 1.00
00:02:21.200 ignorance when it comes to respecting the right to free association and freedom of religion in
00:02:26.080 Canada. But for all of these politicians to say how opposed they are to it yet not doing anything
00:02:32.880 about it proves that they are terrified of Quebec. It also proves that Quebec has a monumentally
00:02:39.440 disproportionate power in federal elections compared to the rest of the province because we already see
00:02:45.840 in full swing politicians pandering to Quebec to Quebec politicians even at the expense of their own
00:02:52.960 conscience and their own values. Now let me say first hand I understand that it is important to respect
00:03:00.400 provincial rights. I understand that the federal government shouldn't trample on issues that fall
00:03:05.120 under provincial purview except most of the federal politicians don't believe that. Just take a look at the
00:03:11.520 Trudeau carbon tax for example a completely provincial issue that Justin Trudeau decided it was his
00:03:17.440 responsibility to legislate but now all of a sudden it's important to respect those boundaries of
00:03:22.400 provincial issues and more importantly the constitution is a federal matter. Constitutional freedoms are
00:03:28.800 national in scope which means that if a piece of legislation is violating your constitutional rights
00:03:35.520 it's pretty much a national concern because that is giving license to other provinces to do the same
00:03:42.480 thing if you don't say no when it's happening imminently. There is a knee-jerk and emotional reaction
00:03:50.080 from a lot of people that oh well I don't like knee cabs so therefore I support this legislation. But just
00:03:55.120 remember if you support it for one group you are supporting it for another and eventually it's going to be
00:04:00.880 pointed directly towards you. This is why it's so important for the True North voice to be in the
00:04:06.320 center of the discussion this election campaign. I'm going to be criss-crossing the country talking
00:04:10.960 about the stories the mainstream media isn't and from a perspective the mainstream media isn't. We can't
00:04:16.240 do this alone if you can chip in to our efforts head on over to tnc.news and make a contribution to our
00:04:22.880 coverage fund. For True North, I'm Andrew Lutton.