Intense opposition to secular charter on Day 3 of hearings

QUEBEC CITY – Two groups ripped into the PQ’s proposed Charter of Quebec Values on Thursday, as hearings entered their third day. The Quebec Bar and Townshippers’ associations both denounced the charter as unjustified and inapplicable. They said the bill trampled individual rights and would not hold up in court.

“The challenges to this bill will be never-ending,” warned Townshippers’ Association President Gerald Cutting. “It will certainly make its way again to the Supreme Court and instead of bringing clarity, a sense of stability and inclusion, it will further fracture us in different camps and create even more havoc than it has the potential to solve.”

The Townshippers told Democratic Institutions Minister Bernard Drainville they believe the bill will create a society of conformity and flagrant discrimination. They also denounced the PQ’s quiet initiative to use Bill 60 to enshrine the primacy of French as a value in Quebec’s Charter of Human Rights.

“We must be vigilant,” Cutting said. “There’s always someone who wants to take something away from us it seems. And am I paranoid? I think history will probably prove I am not.”

On Thursday, the Quebec Bar Association agreed with Cutting. In a leaked document the Bar was supposed to present later in February, lawyers argued the PQ’s proposal not only violates the Canadian Constitution but international treaties, as well.

“They’re in violation of the international covenants on civil and political rights which Canada ratified in 1976, and which Quebec has also signed on to,” Human Rights lawyer Pearl Eliadis told Global News.

“The bar favours the status quo,” said Drainville. “The status quo is not acceptable in our view.”

Drainville said he had his own legal opinions.

“We do not have the same reading as the Bar of Quebec’s reality. There is a strong consensus that religious accommodations should be set within a clear framework of rules.”

The CAQ argued the government’s legal advice should be made public.

“We ask them to show the legal advice they received from the lawyers of the government and we have no answers about that. He doesn’t want to show it,” said CAQ MNA Nathalie Roy.

Liberals maintained the PQ isn’t playing fair.

“Allow me to be skeptical of Mr. Drainville’s legal advice,” said Liberal Justice Critic Gilles Ouimet. “He’s no lawyer and I think he has clearly demonstrated that he’s prepared to do almost anything to achieve his goal.”

Hearings continue on Tuesday, Jan. 28 2014.