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sabotabbyQuebec gonna Quebec, and the new CAQ government is wasting no time in reminding me of why my family got the fuck out of there. They passed two new bills, Bill 9 and Bill 21, both of which could just be called "Fuck the Muslims" because that's the intent. Bill 21 bans religious symbols (but we're really talking about hijabs, and turbans because Sikhs are always swept up in Islamophobic nets) for public service workers and officials. That's teachers, cops, lawyers, judges, you name it. Anyone in the public sector can't wear a religious symbol. Unless it's a cross. Because as much as CAQ keeps making noise about removing the giant-ass crucifix hanging in the National Assembly, we know that Quebec "secularists" are really just Christians who want to sleep in on Sundays. Of course it's already being challenged because it's blatantly unconstitutional, but we're all just tossing around the Notwithstanding Clause like it's nothing these days.
Bill 9 tosses out 16,000 skilled immigrant applications and lays the groundwork for a "values test" to become a permanent resident. Which amounts to a Muslim ban, of course. That, they need federal permission to do, which isn't likely to happen even once the fascists take power in the fall. But they can still be dicks about the rest.
Not all Quebecois, of course. There's pretty strong opposition in Montreal. But this is some fashy-fash bullshit that they're getting away with for reasons.
Lest you think anything's better on the federal level, the Liberals proclaimed a climate emergency. Which, obviously, it is, so of course today they rammed through the Trans Mountain Pipeline, over the objection of Indigenous communities that are in the path of the inevitable oil spills. (Note: They could reroute it but nope. Right through Indigenous land and water supplies is always the bestest place to build a pipeline according to government engineers.) Did they do meaningful consultations? Nope, they'll do that later, you know, like after the thing is built.
If you're wondering how they can get away with that after weeping so many tears about the injustices done to Indigenous peoples over the course of Canada's bloody history—not to mention the fact that carbon emissions are turning our entire planet into a smoking hellscape, and Canada is really central to that destruction—just check out this lovely poll which suggests that Canadians are worried about the fact that we only have a few years to fix this fuckery, but not so worried that they're willing to pay a bit more in tax or make lifestyle changes or anything like that.
It's very hard to maintain a positive attitude, y'know?
Bill 9 tosses out 16,000 skilled immigrant applications and lays the groundwork for a "values test" to become a permanent resident. Which amounts to a Muslim ban, of course. That, they need federal permission to do, which isn't likely to happen even once the fascists take power in the fall. But they can still be dicks about the rest.
Not all Quebecois, of course. There's pretty strong opposition in Montreal. But this is some fashy-fash bullshit that they're getting away with for reasons.
Lest you think anything's better on the federal level, the Liberals proclaimed a climate emergency. Which, obviously, it is, so of course today they rammed through the Trans Mountain Pipeline, over the objection of Indigenous communities that are in the path of the inevitable oil spills. (Note: They could reroute it but nope. Right through Indigenous land and water supplies is always the bestest place to build a pipeline according to government engineers.) Did they do meaningful consultations? Nope, they'll do that later, you know, like after the thing is built.
If you're wondering how they can get away with that after weeping so many tears about the injustices done to Indigenous peoples over the course of Canada's bloody history—not to mention the fact that carbon emissions are turning our entire planet into a smoking hellscape, and Canada is really central to that destruction—just check out this lovely poll which suggests that Canadians are worried about the fact that we only have a few years to fix this fuckery, but not so worried that they're willing to pay a bit more in tax or make lifestyle changes or anything like that.
It's very hard to maintain a positive attitude, y'know?
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Date: 2019-06-19 01:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-06-19 01:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-06-19 02:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-06-19 11:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-06-19 03:26 am (UTC)We are sort of working on it in the sense that we now issue press releases about diversity (we did one for pride month that would perhaps have been more convincing if it were reasonably possible to be out at my agency, which...is nsm a good professional move).
By agency standards I was a diversity hire, in the sense that I both have tits and do field work. By any rational standard I am the WASPiest WASP of all time. I love the agency, but. We have some work to do. Although I guess we're not legally requiring bigotry, we're just not actually recruiting anyone against whom we might be bigoted, were we to admit to such a thing, which we don't.
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Date: 2019-06-19 11:17 am (UTC)My profession is still largely Nice White Ladies, and in fact I didn't even have a teacher who was a POC until high school. (But then we had a student teacher who was Muslim—and the mom and aunt of a group of my friends—and this led to all kinds of discussion on why people wear hijabs or don't, and practicing your faith in a diverse secular society, and I owe both her and her family a lot for educating me.) Most Jewish teachers, myself included, have experienced some kind of microaggression at work, and we're not even for the most part visible minorities.
And yet I've seen how powerful it is for kids to connect with teachers who look like them and who can talk to them about things that I don't have lived experience about. It enrages me that this potential is being cut off for absolutely no justifiable reason.
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Date: 2019-06-19 12:29 pm (UTC)Everty time I see this bullshit about religious symbols I'm reminded of a working group I was part of at CCO. There was a Jew with a hat and tassles and stuff (don't know the proper name), a Palestinian woman from east Jerusalem who wore a head scar, a Hindu oncologist and me. We all got on great and succeeded in developing a near miss indicator for chemotherapy. There's a paper on it in the ASCO archives.
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Date: 2019-06-19 11:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-06-19 09:27 pm (UTC)I gather there are supposed to be limits on the use of the Notwithstanding clause? Are there any moves to challenge any of these measures?
Trudeau is the absolute worst in pseudo-liberal fuckery. Whether it's the climate or indigenous women or whatever, he is like "In response to this urgent and tragic situation, I promise to double the heartfeltness of my words, and increase the warmth of my smile by 50%".
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Date: 2019-06-19 11:14 pm (UTC)Fucking Trudeau. His sincerity act is really starting to get old.