Que. town slightly re-words immigrant resolution

Coun. Andre Drouin takes a walk outside his home in Herouxville, Que. (CP / Paul Chiasson)

The town council in Herouxville, Quebec, has changed some of the wording in its controversial code of conduct. But the resolution's overall message-- that immigrants must fit in with the town -- remains.

The town made the changes at a council meeting Monday night.

"We changed some punctuation and a few adverbs, and we removed the phrase `stoning of women','' Coun. Ginette Pothier explained.

Coun. Andre Drouin, who wrote the original resolution, said the changes were made "because people said we used words that were supposedly offensive."

The town says on its website that the revision is the "definitive and final" version of the text.

Herouxville, a town of 1,300 mostly white, French-speaking residents northeast of Montreal, has drawn international attention because of the "Community Standards" resolution it adopted last month.

Among the points in the code: Women should be able to show their faces in public and should also be permitted to drive and write cheques. And it is "completely outside norms to... kill women by stoning them in public, burning them alive, burning them with acid, circumcising them etc."

The resolution has no legal weight but is the code by which the town expects its residents to abide.

Many Muslim leaders have called the missive a direct attack on their religion and an example of "hate-mongering." The Canadian Islamic Congress says the Herouxville declaration perpetuates negative sterotypes about Canadian minorities, and cites acts "that don't even occur in Canada."

The CIC and Canadian Muslim Forum are lodging a complaint with the Quebec Human Rights Commission.

May Haidar of the Canadian Islamic Congress, who led a delegation of Muslim women from Montreal on a visit to the town last weekend, called the resolution a "discriminatory statement."

"The Charter of Rights gives every individual the freedom to live and act and wear whatever he wants," she said.

Drouin responded that the town council isn't racist. He told CTV Montreal that he realized some of the words in the resolution were harsh, but he remained resolved about its message.

Quebec Premier Jean Charest has launched a formal government commission to examine the matter. Two respected academics, Charles Taylor and Gerard Bouchard (brother of former premier Lucien Bouchard), will have one year to prepare a report.