PQ minorities plan takes a step forward, with partial backing of opposition party

QUEBEC – The Parti Quebecois plan on minority accommodations may have taken a big step toward becoming a reality.

The party that likely has the swing vote in the legislature backs major parts of the plan.

The Coalition Avenir Quebec says it agrees that judges, police officers and elementary- and secondary-school teachers should be restricted from wearing religious symbols.

However, medical professionals and daycare teachers would be exempt under the CAQ proposal.

It so happens that Quebec has considerable wait times for hospital and daycare services — and workers in both those fields have already been featured in media reports saying they would refuse to comply to the PQ plan, quit their jobs, or leave Quebec.

Coalition Leader Francois Legault says that, if a court strikes down the plan, he would not hesitate to use the Constitution’s controversial notwithstanding clause to enforce it.

The CAQ’s votes are key because the PQ has only a minority in the legislature and the other big opposition party, the Liberals, is more hostile to the plan.

The emerging consensus in Quebec is that the issue could be a political winner.

A poll released today says 65 per cent of Quebec’s francophones, and 57 per cent of the overall population, agree with the idea.

Just 25 per cent of anglophone respondents said they agree. The Leger Marketing poll of 1,000 respondents was conducted over the weekend and has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.

But whether the plan is actually a vote-winner could be another story.

A poll published during last year’s election placed the minority accommodation issue as No. 15 on Quebec voters’ list of priorities — far behind economic and social issues.

The PQ campaigned last year on a plan to restrict religious clothing and included it in its inaugural speech in the legislature. Details of its plan were leaked last week to the Journal de Montreal, a tabloid newspaper that has promoted the issue since the mid-2000s.

The leaked plan says the government would restrict the right of state employees to wear religious clothing like turbans, hijabs and visible crucifixes.