Remarks on Yom Kippur “insulting”
Anie Samson’s begrudging remarks about cancelling a city council session for Yom Kippur are being called insulting by Marvin Rotrand, but at the same time it’s clear this is also a partisan shot, Samson being a Vision Montreal mayor. Vision’s press flack says “Quant à Anie Samson, elle souhaite simplement une laïcisation des institutions publiques et que les assemblées se tiennent normalement le jour des fêtes religieuses” – fine, but Christmas falls on a Tuesday this year, so is Samson saying she wants council sessions to proceed regardless on December 25?
Ephraim 18:07 on 2012/09/23 Permalink
Yeah, I want to see that…
Philippe 19:37 on 2012/09/23 Permalink
Statutory holidays in Canada (and the West in general) mostly correspond to Christian holidays, so she doesn’t need to give up Christmas to denounce this. What is the justification given for adjourning the council for Yom Kippur? Large organisations will often allow religious minorities to take their own holidays off, but shutting off the entire business? I can’t think of an any.
Kate 23:49 on 2012/09/23 Permalink
That item also notes that city council has adjourned for Yom Kippur for 30 years. I think according them this one day a year is merely a respectful gesture to a community that’s been so important to Montreal’s economy and culture.
Ian 05:44 on 2012/09/24 Permalink
Philippe – stop being an apologist for oblique racism. While holidays do tend to coincide with religious occasions, there’s lots of religious occasions we don’t get holidays for and what’s more, only 3 of 9 of our stat holidays in Quebec are religious. That’s not the point of this issue – Marois calls for secularization in the National Assembly, but that doesn’t apply to the cross, Samson calls for secularization of council adjournments but that doesn’t apply to Christian holidays. Peculiar, that. I’m all for banning all religious trappings from civic life, but we need to do it to ALL of them. I find it peculiar that Quebecois nationalists won’t forget that Anglos once lorded it over them until the Quiet Revolution, but have mysteriously forgotten about how the Church conspired to keep them without public libraries, demanded tithes, and encouraged sexual ignorance & the repression of women.
Jack 06:11 on 2012/09/24 Permalink
@ Ian your point about current Quebec historical production ‘forgetting” the devastating impact the Roman Catholic Church had on this society is a good one. I just read a piece by Charles Philippe Courtois, who teaches history at College Militaire Royal, in which he did a “survol” of Quebec’s French Canadian majority in a couple of pages.The Church was mentioned once in a very limited way, it was astounding.
Ephraim 06:49 on 2012/09/24 Permalink
If it’s been done for 30 years, it’s a tradition and therefore should be upheld. Of course, L-J Papineau would be ashamed of this nonsense.
steph 08:34 on 2012/09/24 Permalink
We love our pagan solstice holidays a lot in Quebec. Where else do they celebrate high summer with bonfires and a day off?
Philippe 09:00 on 2012/09/24 Permalink
I’m not intimately familiar with labour history but I believe most of the western hemisphere has on the one hand real or nominal separation of Church and State, on the other hand the few religious holidays that have official status are Christian, probably for historic reasons. It’s not clear to me why one needs to upend this status quo to disagree with public servants helping themselves to another day off. Of course those are not my tax dollars at work (or not) so I don’t feel strongly about it.
Regarding the Catholic Church issue, it’s complicated. First the only truly visceral hatred of the RCC is mostly found in fringe leftist circles, and those who lived through the Quiet Revolution. And anglo media, for some unfathomable reason. That’s my experience at least.
But a lot (most?) of us still get baptised, married and buried in a religious setting, for cultural reasons. As far as I know midnight mass is also still popular on Christmas.
Re: anglo oppression vs RCC oppression… I think maybe because for the vast majority of people upward mobility in economic sense is far more important than public libraries? Tithes, sexual ignorance, repression of women, ye Gods, what crimes we had to go through this while you guys experienced the wanton liberated mores of Victorian society.
Philippe 09:26 on 2012/09/24 Permalink
Just one more thing: anglo oppression is not really a topic of conversation anymore except for kooks and fringe groups. Again, in my experience.
Ian 09:28 on 2012/09/24 Permalink
The late 60s were hardly Victorian in the Anglo world, but I guess you didn’t hear about that. Nice attempt at hand-wavery, though. The RCC did a lot of harm to Quebecois culture, and while you claim that “a lot” of “you” still go through the motions, church attendance continues to hit record lows as time progresses. There are a lot of empty churches in our fair land.
Philippe 10:22 on 2012/09/24 Permalink
So a few extra decades worth of anachronistic obscurantism warrants eternal animosity in your book?
Religious practice has cratered and is unlikely to pick up in the foreseeable future, I’m just saying Catholicism still holds a small folkloric role as rite of passage in many people’s life, and they may take exception to seeing its symbols attacked by extrinsic actors.
Kate 11:14 on 2012/09/24 Permalink
There have been Jews in Montreal since the 18th century – the first synagogue, Shearith Israel, was built in 1768. How long does a community have to be here before they stop being considered “extrinsic”?
Ian 11:29 on 2012/09/24 Permalink
Whether Catholicism holds a folkloric role or not is irrelevant – either we are moving toward secularization, or we are moving toward suppressing non-christian religions. That Marois and Samson only seek to exclude non-Christian religions makes quite a clear statement. Also, Philippe – that you seem to think only French people were Catholic is kind of funny. I guess you never heard of the Irish?
Philippe 11:31 on 2012/09/24 Permalink
By definition of the word, any non-Catholic group is extrinsic to a (nominally) Catholic group. However it’s my understanding that the challenge to the crucifix in parliament emanates from atheists, not from Jews.
Ian 11:38 on 2012/09/24 Permalink
You’re being wilfully obtuse – the challenge to overt religious symbols in parliament and in civic life did not come from atheists. Or are you suggesting Marois and Samson are atheists?
Philippe 11:47 on 2012/09/24 Permalink
I’m aware the Irish are/were Catholics, I don’t see what made you think I did not.
No\Deli 13:06 on 2012/09/24 Permalink
It’s entertaining, but you guys are missing the point: when a civil servant refuses an opportunity to take a day off – speaks out against it! – you know her motivations are fishy.
Meanwhile, Lionel smiles from his grave, his legacy secure.
Philippe 13:22 on 2012/09/24 Permalink
There are two issues here.
First is the preservation of some aspects of Catholic imagery in public life, exemplified by the cross in parliament. A challenge to this was put forth by the Bouchard-Taylor commission and, I believe, some individual atheist activists (if I recall correctly, I may be confusing with the issue of prayer at Saguenay city hall). Regarding this issue, I will let the motion unanimously adopted by the Liberal-led assembly of the time speak for itself:
“Que l’Assemblée nationale réitère sa volonté de promouvoir la langue, l’histoire, la culture et les valeurs de la nation québécoise, favorise l’intégration de chacun à notre nation dans un esprit d’ouverture et de réciprocité et témoigne de son attachement à notre patrimoine religieux et historique représenté par le crucifix de notre Salon bleu et nos armoiries ornant nos institutions.”
Second is the PQ’s secularism charter. There’s no point in denying that these types of policies are attempts to suppress certain forms of religous expression from public life, but there’s also no point in denying that it’s in the air du temps. It also sounds like all things being equal, you might approve of the move — if it weren’t for item 1 above.
Coming back to the original point of this thread… what? Either every religious holiday is a day off or none are?
Philippe 14:21 on 2012/09/24 Permalink
Marvin Mortrand is quoted here as saying that the council doesn’t convene during the entire month of Ramadan? And that makes nobody twitch? M-kay. I wonder how that’s gonna go over when Ramadan starts being celebrated in Spring, then Winter, and then Fall past the 2015 horizon…
Jack 19:50 on 2012/09/24 Permalink
Philippe thanks for doing a lot of the heavy lifting here.This article I read in Le Devoir on Saturday gave me some hope that looking at this issue from multiple places can provide different opportunities for understanding and tolerance.
If the an ex-president of the SSJBQ and former Bloc MP can see this…..
http://www.ledevoir.com/politique/quebec/359768/quand-un-separatiste-se-separe
Also note in the comments Michel Seymour ex President of the intellectuals for sovereignty.