[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[Zoupa]

That's probably true in some cases yeah. Religion is a straightjacket for the brain in most religious people worldwide. I yearn for a global scientocracy.

Appeal to pathos poorly disguised as an appeal to logos.

You suck at this.

Your opinion is of absolutely no consequence to me. 

[Barrister]

Your analogy is poor. The destitute don't have much choice about where to sleep, while a turban is a piece of cloth that can be removed.

But the turban is far more than "a piece of cloth" to a sikh.  It is a requirement of their faith.  It is a symbol of their identity as sikhs.  It's also a way to show personality - there are many different colours and styles that can be worn.  And none of it impacts how someone can do a job - as mentioned I have a colleague who wears a turban, and I've seen a cop who also wears one.

[Malthus]

Interesting article in the National Post

National Post: Barbara Kay: What the anglo media misses about Quebec's religious law.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/barbara-kay-what-the-anglo-media-misses-about-quebecs-religious-law

This sentence is the problem:

Let's just say it's complicated. Bill 21 is a law rooted in a vision of society — complete separation of church and state in state-sponsored civic life — that affects all religions equally.

This isn't true, because not all religions require any sort of visual symbolism - the majority ones in Canada don't: you don't have to wear a visible cross to be a Christian in most Christian denominations, for example. So the prohibition will not affect Christians in the same way as it will affect Sikhs, all of whom, if male, are supposed to wear turbans.

The law will not be one that "affects all religions equally"; even though it doesn't say it affects only minorities, those are who will feel its impact. This is a perfect example of the old adage about allegedly "equal" laws with unequal impact: "the laws are absolutely even-handed: they impartially prohibit both the rich and the poor alike from sleeping under bridges".

Your analogy is poor. The destitute don't have much choice about where to sleep, while a turban is a piece of cloth that can be removed.

The similarity between the two situations isn't that in both cases the persons subject to unequal impact or allegedly neutral laws have no choice; it is that in both cases the allegedly neutral laws have unequal impact.

To make it more specific: a law that (for example) forbade anyone from wearing a turban may apply equally to a Christian, a Jew and a Sikh, but will only impact the Sikh, because the Christian and the Jew don't generally want to wear turbans.

It is simply untrue to state that such a law "affects all religions equally", because not all religions require wearing a turban.

Generally speaking, a law with an unequal impact is more "progressive" if the unequal impact affects those who are presumptively favoured in society: for example, all being equal, a law that affects the rich more than the poor is to be preferred to a law that affects the poor more than the rich; and a law that affects the majority more than a minority is to be preferred to a law that affects a minority more than the majority. 

[Malthus]

Your analogy is poor. The destitute don't have much choice about where to sleep, while a turban is a piece of cloth that can be removed.

But the turban is far more than "a piece of cloth" to a sikh.  It is a requirement of their faith.  It is a symbol of their identity as sikhs.  It's also a way to show personality - there are many different colours and styles that can be worn.  And none of it impacts how someone can do a job - as mentioned I have a colleague who wears a turban, and I've seen a cop who also wears one.

Indeed, we've gone through this before on the federal level.

https://www.cbc.ca/2017/canadathestoryofus/the-turban-that-rocked-the-rcmp-how-baltej-singh-dhillon-challenged-the-rcmp-and-won-1.4110271

[Admiral Yi]

Amish can't drive nor use bus, I believe.

The hottie in Witness took the train.

[Razgovory]

Amish can't drive nor use bus, I believe.

The hottie in Witness took the train.

Yeah, viper isn't really that good on facts.  I've ridden buses with Amish people, I've seen Amish people at the mall and restaurants.

[Admiral Yi]

Yeah, viper isn't really that good on facts.

Why you gotta throw something like this in there Raz?

[Razgovory]

Yeah, viper isn't really that good on facts.

Why you gotta throw something like this in there Raz?

Cause he regularly does it.  It gets kind of annoying.

[viper37]

Amish can't drive nor use bus, I believe.

The hottie in Witness took the train.

Yeah, viper isn't really that good on facts.  I've ridden buses with Amish people, I've seen Amish people at the mall and restaurants.

I stand corrected.  I thought they were prevented from using modern technology by their Faith.

There aren't many Amish communities near where I live.  The last ones I saw were in Banshee...

[grumbler]

Your opinion is of absolutely no consequence to me. 

Yours, on the other hand, are a source of constant amusement to me.  Please carry on. 

[Grey Fox]

Should that means that we do nothing?

Is there a need to do something?

My position is usually that rights should be infringed by the government only where some reasonable concern is identified that can only be addressed by infringing rights, and the infringement should be limited to that necessary to addressing that concern.

It is impossible to reconcile the francosphere cultural position & the anglosphere cultural position on this matter. The divide is present here, it's present in my workplace, it's present in RoC/Quebec media. We just don't understand each other.

What concern is raised by (say) a teacher or cop wearing a turban?

From your point of view, I'm guessing nothing. It's  a symbol of ones religious faith (that is also, for some, part of their identity).
From our point of view, everything.  It's a symbol of ones religious faith (that you made part of your identity, you shouldn't do that).

Altho, every discussion on this skirts the real issue. The hijab. The women wearing them can lie to themselves and to us all they want about how it's their choice. The francosphere will call bullshit on it.


With that being said, I think we shouldn't have a law on this & that my fellow secular fundamentalists should get used to the idea that some teachers are going to be wearing hijabs, kippas & turban(not a lot of Sikh in Quebec tho). CAQ government should spend more time thinking about fixing the Uber problem than this thing.

[viper37]

I really, really, like that one.



Translation:
-"You are expelled"
"Oh yeah?"

[viper37]

CAQ government should spend more time thinking about fixing the Uber problem than this thing.

There is not much to do about Uber.  They may be an evil tax cheating multinational (like taxi drivers are models of honesty and never take undeclared tax payments...), but they agressively pushed a new business model.

Before Uber, not many taxis accepted debit or credit card.  Now nearly everyone does.
Before Uber, there was no way you could "call" a taxi with a cellphone app.  Now, many taxis of Montreal use an app, just like Uber.

I never took Uber in a city, and I have always received good service from a taxi driver, but I understand the convenience of using an app to call a ride, and prepay the amount on your credit card.

I understand the frustration of the taxi drivers.  Maybe the bill does not compensate them enough, I don't know.  I know that, just like agriculture, it is very, very hard, to push for changes while there is a quota system.  I can see, since we first put a dent in the quota system, that milk producers are really pushing to close the technological gap.  Uber did just that.  Despite the blatant disregard for our laws, yes.  And they have been fined, documents were seized.  But taxis started to adapt, to avoid losing shares to Uber.

Now they compete on equal footing.  No special license plate, no license&quotas, unregulated fees, etc, etc.

[dps]

My position is usually that rights should be infringed by the government only where some reasonable concern is identified that can only be addressed by infringing rights, and the infringement should be limited to that necessary to addressing that concern.

It is impossible to reconcile the francosphere cultural position & the anglosphere cultural position on this matter. The divide is present here, it's present in my workplace, it's present in RoC/Quebec media. We just don't understand each other.
[/quote]

I don't think that's a cultural position, it's an ideological position.  There are certainly native English speakers who would agree with what you refer to as the "francosphere cultural position" and I'm fairly sure the reverse is true as well.  And for the most part, we understand the "francosphere cultural position" perfectly--we understand repression--we just don't agree with it;  OTOH, those who hold the "francosphere cultural position" clearly don't understand freedom.

[Threviel]

I'm halfway with the frogs on this one, religion is a choice, what you wear is a choice. I do not believe that a teacher wearing a niqab can do the job properly, facial expressions is an important part of teaching, at least to kids. Nor do I believe that wearing a turban instead of a safety helmet on a construction site is ok. There are lots of work circumstances that require or is done better with special clothes. In the private I imagine that an abaya or hijab in the swimming pool is unhygienic for example, so there should be rules about that. Religion is after all just some dudes deciding to live by special rules, the state should not bend over backwards to empower that.

On the other hand I do believe that people have a right to dress as they want, so unless circumstances require it I don't think clothing should be regulated by law.