Quebec Election Results Scuttle Controversial Parts of Proposed Charter of Quebec Values

In elections in the Canadian province of Quebec on Monday, Liberals won 70 of the 125 seats in the National Assembly. Party Quebecois (PQ) won only 30. As reported by CTV News, this loss for PQ derails much of its push for a Charter of Quebec Values that, among other things, would have barred public employees from wearing overtly religious symbols in the workplace. (See prior posting.) During the election,  Liberal Leader Philippe Couillard said that he opposed the ban on public sector workers wearing religious symbols. Speaking to reporters yesterday, Couillard said he would quickly address the issues raised by the proposed Charter, and hoped to find elements such as government neutrality and protection of religious rights on which there is general agreement.

Ontario Court Orders Children From Jewish Sect Back To Quebec For Foster Care

In the Canadian province of Ontario yesterday, a trial court judge ordered that 13 children of the Jewish ultra-Orthodox Lev Tahor sect be returned to child protection authorities in Quebec where a court has already ordered the children be placed in foster care. (See prior posting.) When court proceedings were begun in Quebec, about 200 Lev Tahor members fled to Ontario in the middle of the night. As reported by Canadian Press, Chatham, Ontario judge Stephen Fuerth wrote in part:

It would be impractical at best and potentially harmful at worst if the society were now required, in the context of the need to protect the children, to conduct a separate and new investigation into all of the issues currently before the Court of Quebec...simply because the parents have decided as a tactical manoeuvre to absent themselves from Quebec in order to frustrate the process of justice that had started.

The court stayed its order for 30 days to give the families a chance to appeal, with provision for child protection workers to keep checking on the children. An appeal of the Quebec court order-- entered after the community fled-- is already being appealed.

Appeal In Ontario Court Seeks To Enforce Quebec Foster Care Order Against Alleged Jewish Religious Cult

As previously reported, last month the insular Orthodox Jewish sect Lev Tahor fled the Canadian province of Quebec and moved to Chatham-Kent, Ontario to avoid Quebec child welfare officials.  Some charge that Lev Tahor is a religious cult under control of its leader Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans. Now the Toronto Star reports that on Dec. 4, Chatham-Kent Children’s Services asked a Justice of the Peace for a warrant that would let them carry out a Quebec court order to place 14 Lev Tahor children in foster care under the guidance of Quebec child-welfare authorities. Quebec claims neglect, psychological abuse, poor nutrition, health problems and home schooling that fails to meet provincial standards.  The Ontario Justice of the Peace rejected the application for the warrant on Dec. 7, and Ontario authorities have filed an appeal.  A brief hearing on the appeal was held Wednesday, with a full hearing scheduled for Dec. 23. Meanwhile Lev Tahor will appeal the Quebec court ruling that first ordered the children into foster care even though they had been moved to Ontario.

Towns, Schools In Quebec Oppose Proposed Secular Charter

According to CBC News yesterday, universities, school boards and municipalities in Quebec are increasingly saying they will refuse to enforce Quebec's Bill 60, the province's proposed charter of secularism (see prior posting) if it is adopted by the National Assembly. On Monday, the Town Council of the Montreal suburb of Hampstead passed a strong resolution (full text in linked CBC News article) declaring in part:

...The separation of church and state should not ... be confused with the persecution of religion by the state....

[W]e reject the notion that people who believe in a deity are somehow lesser citizens. We reject the notion that wearing an identifiable religious symbol that does not physically impede a person from performing his/her duties, is a basis for discrimination;  

... [S]hould this Charter, or any variation which violates the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms or the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. be passed by the National Assembly, the Town of Hampstead will not recognize it as a valid law. We will not comply. We will not be complicit with hatred, racism and intolerance.

Insular Jewish Sect Leaves Quebec For Ontario To Escape Child Welfare and Education Officials

In Canada last Monday, 40 Orthodox Jewish families who are members of the fundamentalist, anti-Zionist Lev Tahor ("Pure Heart") sect left their homes in Quebec province and moved to Ontario to escape education and child welfare officials in Quebec. The Toronto Star reported yesterday that the evacuees, which included some 130 children, say they object to requirements that they teach a secular curriculum to their home-schooled children.  Provincial officials say their concerns were more about child neglect, psychological abuse, poor nutrition and health problems than about education.  They have forwarded evidence they collected to Ontario officials. The insular Lev Tahor sect-- whose women dress in black robes that cover them from head to toe and show only their faces-- are led by Shlomo Helbrans who some claim has created a mind-controlled cult.  Before re-establishing his group 13 years ago in Canada, Helbrans served a prison term in New York for second degree kidnapping. [Thanks to Scott Mange for the lead.]

UPDATE: According to the Times of Israel, on Nov. 26 a Quebec juvenile court judge ruled that 14 children from the Lev Tahor community are to be placed in foster care for a month and examined by doctors and psychologists. Apparently this order can be used by Ontario authorities to get a court order to return the children to foster care in Quebec.

Charter Affirming State Secularism Introduced Into Quebec Legislature

As previously reported, in August the ruling Parti Quebecois government in the Canadian province of Quebec announced its intention to introduce a secularist Charter of Quebec Values into the National Assembly.  Last Thursday it did so by introducing Bill 60, (full text) titled Charter Affirming the Values of State Secularism and Religious Neutrality and of Equality Between Women and Men, and Providing a Framework for Accommodation Requests.  Here is an excerpt from the Explanatory Notes summarizing the most important provisions of the bill:

Public bodies must, in the pursuit of their mission, remain neutral in religious matters and reflect the secular nature of the State. Accordingly, obligations are set out for personnel members of public bodies in the exercise of their functions, including a duty to remain neutral and exercise reserve in religious matters by, among other things, complying with the restriction on wearing religious objects that overtly indicate a religious affiliation. As well, personnel members of a public body must exercise their functions with their face uncovered, and persons to whom they provide services must also have their face uncovered when receiving such services.  The same rules apply to other persons, in particular to persons who exercise judicial functions, or adjudicative functions within the administrative branch, and to personnel members of the National Assembly.

Canadian Jewish Press reports on the concerns that various Jewish organizations have about the bill, including Section 38 that would allow the National Assembly to bar its members from wearing religious symbols.