Liberal Muslim MNA breaks ranks on values charter

Liberal MNA Fatima Houda-Pepin is seen here in a photo from the Liberal Party website.

QUEBEC -- The only Muslim woman in the provincial legislature has broken ranks with her Liberal party when it comes to the PQ's values charter plan.

"I am not in favour of the Charter as it is currently written," said Fatima Houda-Pepin Friday in a radio interview.

However Houda-Pepin wrote in a letter to The Canadian Press this week that she is "flabbergasted," "hurt" and "shocked" by one of her colleague's comments on the chador, wondering if her party's views on equality between men and women was modeled on those of countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Houda-Pepin was reacting to comments made by Marc Tanguay, the Liberal secularism critic, who said he would welcome Liberal candidates wearing the chador and would be happy to sit with them in the legislature. The chador is an open cloak which extends over the head but does not cover the face. It is worn by many Iranian women.

The Moroccan-born MNA said she does not support all aspects of the Charter of Values, but points out the chador is regarded as an instrument of oppression, and it was wrong for Tanguay to say the party would support a candidate who wears one.

Houda-Pepin said she has long been concerned about the rise of fundamentalism but has stayed silent on the Liberals' position, which opposes any ban on religious symbols as long as the face is uncovered.

Her public statement might not sway any actual votes in the legislature, where the Parti Quebecois plan does not have enough support to pass.

The government has threatened to make the Charter a confidence issue and take the plan out onto the campaign trail, where Houda-Pepin's words would inveitably be used against her party.

Her Liberals had publicly maintained a united front against the PQ plan -- now Houda-Pepin's coming-out on the issue has blown a hole in that unanimity.

In her letter, Houda-Pepin denounced what she described as "cultural relativism" that legitimizes symbols of oppression and radicalism.

The secularlism charter proposed by the Parti Quebecois government would ban anyone working in the public service from wearing overt religious symbols such as the hijab while on the job.

Houda-Pepin, who has sat in the legislature since 1994, says her party should agree to limit individual rights "when the public interest so requires," as in the case of equality between men and women.

She said there is already a precedent because Robert Bourassa, when he was premier, did not hesitate to invoke the notwithstanding clause of the Constitution to protect collective French-language rights.

Houda-Pepin did not make any recommendations to Liberal Leader Philippe Couillard in her letter.

The full text, translated, is below:

This is the straw that broke the camel's back. I'm stunned, hurt and shocked at what my colleague Marc Tanguay wrote in an article that appeared in La Presse and Le Devoir on November 12. Marc Tanguay, spokesman of the official opposition on the issue of secularism, wrote a essay entitled “Liberal candidates may wear the chador in the next election." To be clear, the Liberal caucus has never discussed this issue and has never taken such a position.

To quote his text, "One cannot play the game of limiting freedoms and this person who gets elected (wearing a chador) would have the democratic right and legitimacy to sit in the National Assembly."

But before a Liberal ever sits in the National Assembly, that person must first be a candidate and to become a candidate, that person must first get authorized by the Quebec Liberal party leader. Now is that the gender model that the Quebec Liberal Party wants to present to Quebec? Did Quebecers come all this way just to use gender models from Saudi Arabia and the Iran of the Ayatollahs? Am I still in the Liberal Party, a party embraced by the political and intellectual elites to lead a courageous fight for the separation of church and state in Quebec? Am I still in the Liberal Party of Adelard Goudbout, the party that granted to Quebec women the right to vote, after the Liberals fought hard for that right alongside suffragettes? Am I still in the same Liberal Party of Adelard Godbout, which established compulsory school that forced parents across Quebec to educate their children, both boys and girls? Am I still in the same Quebec Liberal Party of the Quiet Revolution which elected Marie-Claire Kirkland, the first woman member of the National Assembly and then passed legislation ending men’s guardianship over their wives?

When we know what the chador and its Afghan variant, the chadri, symbolize then how can we justify accepting such symbols in our mecca of democracy that is the National Assembly?

I'm a Liberal and federalist and I refuse any drift towards cultural relativism under the guise of religion to legitimize a symbol like the chador, which is the expression of the oppression of women, in addition to being the signature of radical fundamentalism.

Must we recall that the Quebec Liberal Party has already limited freedom of expression (a fundamental freedom) in commercial signage, through legislation and has even used the notwithstanding clause to exempt that law from the Charter of Rights and freedoms and the Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms? Yes, in a democracy, it is permissible to impose bans, when the public interest so requires. Gender equality is a fundamental but fragile right in the face of a fundamentalism that defines our century, we must protect and defend it and not put it at risk.

-With a file from The Canadian Press