The Alfalfafield

Like, actually?

Let me tell you, people: I am committed to covering this election. So much so that I suffered through the French-language debate last night, dubbed into English by the CBC. And though I’m sure a ton of nuance was lost in translation, one thing came through loud and clear – the niqab is a pretty friggin’ big deal in Quebec.

Which made me pine for the good old days when Quebecers mostly wanted to talk about independence – until I remembered Jacques Parizeau blaming the ’95 referendum defeat on “money and the ethnic vote”.

Multicultural “tolerance” – or the lack thereof – is a festering open wound upon this society, and nowhere more so than in Quebec, where the unkillable Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe* seems to have staked his comeback battle against the NDP entirely on his position on the niqab.

He’s against it, in case you haven’t been paying attention.

So much against it, in fact, that he takes great pride in pointing out that while other parties (like, every single party in Quebec) want to force Muslim women to remove their niqabs to access government services, he goes even further – he wants them to be forced to remove their niqabs to vote.

Because nothing says feminism like messing with women’s ability to vote. Continue Reading