January 25, 2007 - Quebec "Standards" - a podcast by Stephen Hammond

Quebec town adopts popular “standards” that challenge religious differences. Although in 2007 all residents of Hérouxville, Quebec had been born in Canada, the town council decided the community would welcome immigrants – as long as any immigrants followed the town’s clearly established and democratically elected rules. On January 25, 2007, the mayor and six councillors of this rural community of 1,300 adopted a set of “standards” that included the following: “We would like to invite, without discrimination, in the future, all people from outside…to move to this territory. ‘Without discrimination’ means to us, without regard to race or to the color of skin, mother tongue spoken, sexual orientation, religion or any other form of beliefs.” Prospective newcomers were told, “the lifestyle that they left behind in their birth country cannot be brought here with them and they would have to adapt to their new social identity.” The standards went on to state, “We consider that killing women in public beatings, or burning them alive are not part of our standards of life.” Newcomers were told to prepare for Christmas celebrations in schools and public places. On more than one occasion it was spelled out that men and women were equal and they could interact, work and even swim together. And despite a ruling from the Supreme Court of Canada a year earlier allowing Sikh boys to wear the kirpan to school, the standards stated, “Children cannot carry any weapons real or fake, symbolic or not.” While these standards were condemned by human rights groups, they were met with widespread popularity throughout Quebec. This issue of accommodating persons with religious and cultural differences became an election issue and was significant in reducing the governing Quebec Liberal party to minority status in the March 2007 election.

---

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Further episodes of Human Rights a Day

Further podcasts by Stephen Hammond

Website of Stephen Hammond