Mouvement laïque québécois

Municipal Prayers: The Current Situation

(as of early 2009)

Marie-Michelle Poisson, President, MLQ

This is a translation of the article Le point sur les prières municipales which appeared in Number 14 of Cité laïque, humanist magazine of the Mouvement laïque québécois

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The Mouvement laïque québécois (MLQ: Quebec Secular Movement) has, over the last several years, actively supported five different complaints before the Quebec Human Rights Commission (CDPDJ: Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse) concerning the reciting of prayers during municipal council meetings. In all five cases the CDPDJ has decided in favour of the complainants, declaring that such a practice is discriminatory by virtue of paragraphs 3 and 10 of the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms.

In 1999, the Montreal Urban Community (MUC) voted against a human rights decision which would have required it to cease the practice of prayers at their meetings. However, this was of little consequence as the MUC was dissolved shortly thereafter (because of municipal mergers).

In the year 2000, the municipality of Outremont decided to replace the reciting of a prayer by a moment of silence. This compromise was judged by the CDPDJ to be acceptable and chosen by several other municipalities. The Quebec Union of Municipalities recommends this solution.

In Laval in 2004, the decision rendered by the CDPDJ was not respected by the mayor Yves Vaillancourt, who was consequently called before the Human Rights Tribunal. After a tedious process which lasted five years and cost the city of Laval more than $240,000 in lawyers’ fees, the tribunal came to a decision in favour of the complainant. The MLQ honoured the courage and determination of Danièle Payette by awarding her the Prix Condorcet-Dessaulles in 2008. This was an important and precedent setting victory.

In Saguenay in 2008, mayor Jean Tremblay paid no heed to the Laval precedent and decided to flout the CDPDJ’s judgement in favour of the complainant Simoneau, a resident of that city. Thus Tremblay found himself, like Laval’s mayor, called before the Human Rights Tribunal. The sessions of this tribunal will be held in late March 2009. The mayor of Saguenay is dealing with a more serious lawsuit than that involving Laval because he must respond to accusations of damages and denial of rights. The damages are the result of the fact that the mayor continued to have the prayer recited at several municipal meetings knowing full well that the CDPDJ had already judged the practice to be an infringement of Mr. Simoneau’s rights. The charge of denial of rights results from mayor Tremblay’s arrogant decision to force a new series of legal proceedings before the Human Rights Tribunal, despite the fact that a similar judgement has already been brought before the court, proceedings which are very costly for Quebec taxpayers. Consequently, the amounts claimed by the complainant and the MLQ total $100,000.

In the hope that this redundant litigation may serve nevertheless to advance the cause of secularization of public institutions, the complaint has been formulated in such a way that, this time, the Tribunal will be forced to make a legal decision concerning the discriminatory character of a meeting protocol which involves blatant religious symbols such as a sacred heart or a crucifix. Should the Tribunal declare that the presence of these symbols is indeed discriminatory, a new legal precedent will thus be set. This jurisprudence could eventually be applied as a new way of justifying the removal of the crucifix from the Quebec National Assembly.

In 2008 mayor Yves Lévesque of Trois-Rivières decided to cease the reciting of prayers at council meetings of that municipality, thus conforming to the recommendations of the CDPDJ. But this apparent victory turned out to be rather disappointing when it was learned that the mayor had decided to have the prayer recited by citizens in his stead. The situation took a decidedly revolting turn when the complainant, Louise Hubert, was seen in a television news report to be the target of copious booing, insults and even pushing during the municipal meeting of January 19, 2009. It was clear that mayor Lévesque found this incident to be rather amusing, and made no effort to re-establish order other than by asking Ms. Hubert to be quiet, when she was only making a legitimate attempt to intervene during the question period in order to ask the mayor for his official response to the CDPDJ. Ms. Hubert, fearing for her safety, requested police assistance when leaving the meeting. These alarming events were such that, on the day following the altercation, the CDPDJ found it necessary to issue an open letter to the news media, calling for calm.

Ms. Hubert has subsequently brought formal assault charges against two citizens. She also has the possibility of submitting a new complaint to CDPDJ by virtue of the fact that the reciting of prayer by meeting participants, as instigated by mayor Lévesque, contravenes Quebec legislation concerning cities and towns. This legislation limits the right of speech of citizens during municipal meetings to asking questions of elected officials or of public officers present at the meeting.

There is no longer any room for doubt: the reciting of prayer during municipal council meetings is discriminatory and a violation of citizens’ freedom of conscience. The report of the Bouchard-Taylor commission confirms this: “… in order to respect the principle of separation between churches and State, and the neutrality of the State, we recommend that the crucifix above the speaker’s seat in the Quebec National Assembly be withdrawn … and that municipal councils abandon the reciting of prayer during their public meetings.”

Unlike Ms. Payette, Mr. Alain Simoneau has not benefited from the support of the CDPDJ to bring suit against the mayor of Saguenay before the Human Rights Tribunal. Furthermore, the CDPDJ has not denounced the subterfuge of the mayor of Trois-Rivières and thus has not decided to sue the mayor in court. The commission has gone no further than suggesting to Ms. Hubert that she submit a new complaint concerning the reciting of prayers by citizens and the altercation of which she was the target. We do not understand the lack of resolve of the CDPDJ given the intransigence of those who have actively defied its decisions. The complainants are, after all, sorely in need of solid support from the CDPDJ because such developments are burdensome for the citizens involved, costly for the municipalities when mayors spend considerable sums of public funds on lawyers’ fees in order to maintain an obsolete practice, and also costly for Quebec taxpayers in general, who must ultimately assume the operating costs of the CDPDJ and the Human Rights Tribunal. The Saguenay case alone will require that an entire tribunal travel to the region for a full four-day session. Furthermore, neither in the Quebec government nor in opposition does anyone seems concerned with the political consequences of this type of conflict.

We must therefore intensify our public and political interventions. The MLQ has on two occasions communicated with the minister of Municipal Affairs and Regions, Ms. Nathalie Normandeau, to request that measures be taken to enforce decisions of the CDPDJ and the Human Rights Tribunal. In particular, we have requested that the Municipal Commission conduct an inquiry in order to expose those municipalities which continue to violate the law by refusing to obey the recent judgement of the Human Rights Tribunal, and that the Municipal Commission determine for each city the procedure to be followed during public meetings. But the minister has not followed up our requests.

The government’s inaction in this regard can only have the effect of greatly undermining the public’s confidence in it democratic institutions.

The recalcitrant mayors have unilaterally committed a substantial portion of their municipal budgets based only on their personal convictions and this attitude has resulted in legal proceedings which are costly for all Quebec taxpayers.

Mayors Lévesque and Tremblay have on several occasions publically disavowed, in the media, the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms and have furthermore declared several times that they do not recognize the authority of the CDPDJ; mayor Tremblay has even declared in a radio interview that the CDPDJ is wrong.

Mayor Lévesque, for his part, has adopted the tactic of inciting citizens to violate actively the spirit of the Commission’s decisions by asking them to recite the prayer in his stead. This arrogant manoeuvre has caused the atmosphere of municipal meetings to degrade to the point that dissident citizens prefer to abstain from participating in the democratic life of the municipality rather than be the target of the atrocious hostility directed at Louise Hubert.

How can the minister tolerate such behaviour from elected municipal officials without calling into question her own support for civic institutions in general? Much is at stake here: proper management of public funds; recognition of the legitimacy of fundamental rights; recognition of the authority of the CDPDJ; respect for democratic institutions; and respect for the law.

Every elected provincial official, whatever his or her political party, is afraid of losing votes whenever questions of religion are raised. This was obvious when the National Assembly voted unanimously, and on the very day that the Bouchard-Taylor report was made public, to maintain the crucifix. Given subsequent developments in the matter of municipal prayers, it is now clear just how unwise this rash decision was. Our provincial legislative representatives have shown a total lack of vision and have missed the perfect opportunity to curb the misdeeds of these petty municipal tyrants who prefer the sectarian tradition of Duplessis to the humanist heritage of René Lévesque.

We are convinced that our elected officials will see things differently the moment that they finally understand that the majority of voters respect the Charter and the Commission’s decisions, and that they wish to participate actively in public institutions that are truly democratic.

The priority now is to get our elected officials to understand this. In our opinion, rather than repeatedly going before the courts, it will be much more effective in future to make our case in the court of public opinion, to write to newspapers, to mayors, to our elected representatives and ministers to demand that they intervene in order to stop once and for all these antiquated practices. The individual citizens who have taken the initiative to submit formal complaints have been very courageous, but their efforts will have been in vain as long as elected officials consider them to be in the minority. It is now up to each and every one of us to act, to show that we are the majority!

(Translation: David Rand)

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