Reasonable accommodation in Quebec - neither reasonable nor accommodating

This week, the Quebec Council on the Status of Women, seeking to strengthen the principle of sexual equality against a perceived assault by religious groups, issued its own set of "reasonable-accommodation" rules. And rules is the operative word.

The council wants the Quebec government to enact legislation requiring all public and para-public workers desist from wearing clothing, headwear or jewellery that would indicate in any obvious way the person's religious affiliation.

No One Is Illegal - Montreal reports: Listen to an interview with Nazila Bettache of No One is Illegal Montreal on"Reasonable Accommodation" in Quebec. Currently a governmental commission is commencing this week in Canada, on the growing racism faced in Quebec by immigrants. In Quebec a series of government-initiated public hearings oncultural differences and immigrant integration has commenced this week.

A series of public hearings will occur throughout the coming months in Quebec, as part of the state commission lead by two Quebec academics who are not new immigrants. These government initiated take place within the context of growing racism toward new immigrants in Quebec, a pattern of racism directly targeting the Arab / Muslim community.

"Using the term accommodation simply put really, sort of implies to me a hierarchy of identities, where by, the identity the one that has been framed in the mainstream media as the so-called Quebcoies national identity," explains Bettache within the interview.