CANADA

Cities uniting against Bill 21 is a notable feature

 A remarkable thing happened at the Toronto City Council meeting in December – in a unanimous vote (with only one absent member), the council confirmed Toronto’s opposition to Quebec’s Law 21, which bans Canadian public employees such as teachers, police officers and lawyers from wearing religious symbols. hijabs, crosses, turbans and yarmulkes.

In addition, the council committed $ 100,000 in financial support to the legal challenge from Bill 21 led by the National Council of Canadian Muslims, the World Sikh Organization and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA).

The city council is a group of elected officials who sometimes have bitter disagreements over whether an individual tree should be felled in a city of three million people, so the lack of objections to supporting the challenge is truly remarkable.

And while the hundreds of thousands are a drop in the bucket compared to Toronto’s overall budget, even the cheap skaters in the council voted for it, and they have sometimes objected to even smaller amounts being spent on other areas.

It was a moment of moral clarity that should be noted and praised. City councils often make proclamations on various topics over which they have no direct control, but this definitive moral stance also spreads across the country.

Just before the holiday, Calgary City Council discussed support for the legal challenge, and many city council members gave passionate speeches about why Bill 21 is wrong, ultimately committing Calgary to non-financial support for the case. Similarly, Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown has called on “100” cities across the country to support the legal challenge, and other cities, such as Markham, have or are taking up the case.

This action at the municipal level stands in stark contrast to the federal government’s lack of it, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has taken a hands-free approach to Bill 21. Being critical of Quebec on such issues is a third trajectory of Canadian politics. Remember the grief that Shachi Kurl, moderator of the English debate during the federal election, got back in September when she simply asked the party leaders about Bill 21.

Avoiding the subject is then understandable, but it is also cowardly given the effort, and how directly it undermines not only the freedoms we have as Canadians, but also our much-celebrated multiculturalism, something that is often taken up as something to be done. be proud of. What to do with it all, when in a crunch it is not defended by people at the top? However, Canadian cities, the level of government that is given the least respect, take the lead here.

With the challenge of Bill 21, there are nuances of 2015, when the federal Conservative government planned a niqab ban, and the loudest opposition came from mayors like Naheed Nenshi in Calgary and Don Iveson in Edmonton.

Municipal politicians are closest to the people they represent, without the distance, both physical and legislative, that provincial and federal representatives have, so it is logical that they defend individual freedom in this way. Cities should be deadlines and beacons of freedom, and bill 21 damages, in the words of the CCLA, especially immigrants and racist communities.

Some critics of the city-led challenge to Bill 21 have said it will have unintended effects such as making Quebecers feel attacked, but it is a very status quo, federal form of framing, the same that allows or forces, the Prime Minister to sit this out.

Mayor John Tory, for his part, has focused on the national implications of Bill 21 and the need to fight for the values ​​outlined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That is the right position to take.

Cities have often taken the lead when other levels of government have stalled, especially in terms of human and civil rights, and even in public health. A decade and a half ago, before same-sex marriage was formalized by federal law, Toronto City Hall performed same-sex ceremonies in response to the wishes and demands of the Toronto people.

Two decades earlier, when HIV / AIDS was spreading rapidly and national governments were shaking, cities and their public health departments were on the streets. Recently, many Canadian cities have also been positive about climate policy.

While it’s easy to take symbolic positions and $ 100,000 is ultimately not that much money, I wonder if the uplifting fight against Bill 21 could have some other unintended effects, such as showing cities across the country what they can do. or can try to do when they stand together behind a common cause.

Up to 80 percent of Canadians live in urban areas, but urban issues often receive little attention at the federal level, and provincial governments are largely content to maintain significant control over municipal affairs. The united voice with which cities speak out against Bill 21 could be the start of a long-awaited urban movement in Canada.