As Quebec’s minorities come under fire, will anyone in Ottawa rise to their defence?

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I refuse to accuse Yves-François Blanchet of racism and Islamophobia. Nonetheless, questions have been raised about the proximity of the Bloc Québécois Leader to a movement that traffics in fear of racial, religious and other minorities in the name of an increasingly overt ethnic nationalism.

Well, that’s how I was going to begin the column, at any rate. By using the same underhanded language as Mr. Blanchet did with regard to new federal Transport Minister Omar Alghabra – whose appointment the Bloc Leader claimed raised certain “questions” about his “proximity” to “the political Islam movement,” although, of course, he “refused to accuse” him of anything – I’d show how easy it was to unfairly malign someone using guilt by association.

Except there’s no comparison between the two. The basis of Mr. Blanchet’s smear is that Mr. Alghabra was briefly president of the Canadian Arab Federation almost two decades ago. The CAF is an avowedly secular group. Mr. Alghabra has had no involvement with it since. His views, on the evidence of a career in public life spanning many years, are entirely mainstream, his conduct equally blameless.

His only proximity to political Islam, then, is that he is a) a politician and b) a Muslim. His appointment as minister raises no questions whatever, except among the usual suspects on the racist right, who have falsely accused Mr. Alghabra of supporting the imposition of Sharia law, among other slanders.

Mr. Blanchet, by contrast, indicts himself by his own words. He is, moreover, not just in vague proximity to a political movement, he is one of its leaders. When he slurs Mr. Alghabra, when he cites “questions” about his fitness for office raised only by the racist right, he does so with the aim of courting a certain strain of Quebec public opinion – those who are, shall we say, uncomfortable with Muslims. Such sentiments can be heard in any society, but they are not usually heard coming out of the mouths of political leaders.

But then, there’s a context to this particular event. Were Mr. Blanchet the leader not of the Bloc, but of the Conservative Party; were his name not Yves-François but John or Jim, and his riding not in Quebec but Ontario or Alberta, such open appeals to Islamophobia would be career-ending – or at least controversial. But as it is? A guarded statement from the Prime Minister, a couple of newspaper columns, but that’s about it. Challenged on his remarks, Mr. Blanchet has retreated not an inch. Why should he? It’s probably worth a couple of points in the polls on its own.

This is, after all, the province whose government has passed a law, Bill 21, banning the wearing of religious symbols across much of the public service – in effect, barring members of Certain Religious Minorities from employment in these fields – to wild popular acclaim. The intolerance that inspired the bill has since been turned on the bill’s critics. The Premier, François Legault, has lately assailed the City of Montreal for hiring, as its first commissioner on racism and systemic discrimination, Bochra Manaï. Why? Because she is a prominent opponent of Bill 21, who was involved in a court challenge of the the bill’s constitutionality. In Le Devoir, columnist (and former leader of the Parti Québécois) Jean-François Lisée warns the courts themselves cannot be trusted to rule on the bill, owing to the “Trudeauist” bias of federally appointed judges.

Indeed, the Quebec nation would seem to have enemies everywhere. A columnist for Le Journal de Montreal recently decried the CBC’s hiring of “its first veiled news anchor,” Ginella Massa, as host of Canada Tonight. Would we accept, she asked, “a journalist walking around with a Conservative Party or Green Party button?” And then, because perhaps her point was not clear enough: “How do you expect us to believe in Massa’s real objectivity” when she reports on “the city of Montreal, which has just hired Bochra Manaï as anti-racism commissioner?” Another Journal columnist, “fed up with seeing people who have taken full advantage of the generosity and openness of Quebeckers … spit in our face,” invited them to “get the hell out.”

It is not only the province’s religious minorities who must watch their tongues. The Legault government is poised to introduce legislation toughening and expanding the restrictions on the use of English under the province’s Bill 101. The rationale for the legislation – that French is threatened in Quebec, or even in serious decline – is a matter that, one would think, would be open to debate: the evidence is patchy, at best. Tell it to Montreal Liberal MP Emmanuella Lambropoulos.

For the crime of asking for “proof,” at a meeting of the official languages committee, that French was in fact in danger, Ms. Lambropoulos was stripped of her committee post and subjected to a public dressing down, not only by Bloc and Conservative MPs, but by her fellow Liberals. Meanwhile, the Trudeau government is preparing legislation of its own, to extend Bill 101-style restrictions to federally regulated employers. The measures will be implemented, delightfully, through amendments to the Official Languages Act, which was designed to protect the rights of linguistic minorities. Only some minorities are more equal than others.

Not that any of the opposition parties are likely to object: the NDP and the Conservatives are too heavily invested in bidding against the Bloc for the Quebec-nationalist vote. Bill 21′s assault on religious rights may at least have attracted some mild opposition from the federal parties, the Liberals more than the NDP or the Conservatives – not that any of them have lifted a hand to stop it, or are likely to. But the federalization of Bill 101 – shifting federal policy from even-handed support of all linguistic minorities to overt discrimination against one – will pass with enthusiastic all-party support.

Quebec’s anglophone minority has been cut adrift just as surely as its racial and religious minorities have been. This raises no questions, it seems.

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