Reasonable compromise

The reasonable compromise is a legal concept Canadian resulting from the Jurisprudence associated with the Work world. It indicates the easing of a standard in order to counter the discrimination which this standard can create and which a person undergoes, with an aim of respecting the right to the equality of the Citoyen. This concept is the subject currently of Débat within the population Québécois E; February 8th, 2007 the Commission Bouchard-Taylor was setting-up for " to answer the expressions of mécontentement" within the population.

Description

This concept, resulting from the Law the labor is described as of 1985, by the Supreme court of Canada: “The obligation in the case of discrimination in consequence of an effect prejudicial, founded on the religion or the belief, consists in taking reasonable measures to get along with the plaintiff, unless that does not cause an excessive constraint: in other words, it is a question of taking measurements which can be reasonable to be meant without that unduly not blocking the business activity of the employer and does not impose excessive expenses to him”.

To know if it forced there excessive when one must examine:

limits of the financial and material resources
infringements of the rights of the other people or the public
the good performance of the company or the institution

The Notion of unconstrained reasonable compromise excessive is inherent in the right to the equality. It applies to several reasons for Discrimination, of which the Sexe, the Grossesse, the age, the Handicap and the Religion. In practice, they are the Femme S and the handicapped people which particularly benefitted from the concept in the work world.

Discusses in Quebec on the definition of the concept of “reasonable compromise”

In 2006, in Quebec, the concept of compromise reasonable became extensive for various reasons: economic growth, population growth and integration of a greater Handicapped number of S and Minority S inside the institutions. According to some, they call in question what is called the Québécois model, in particular as for the immigration policy.

With an aim of increasing the active population, Quebec continues a policy favorable to the arrival of French-speaking immigrants, who come especially from France, of Belgium, but also of places such as the the Antilles and the the Maghreb. However, the Maghrebians are mainly Musulman S and several practice their religion actively and claim the respect of their religious rights, which causes a discomfort at part of the population which, it, is mainly Catholique, practical very little and in the contrary case seldom its faith with work posts. The authorities try by various means, laws, policies and campaigns education, to eliminate the barriers with their integration.

However, after with certain requests and requests on behalf of individuals coming from ethnicities or monks minority and considered by part of the Media S and Public opinion as being excessive, dérangeantes, even opposites with the values of the Québécois, the term “compromise reasonable” acquired a sometimes pejorative connotation and with caused a dissatisfaction in the population.

Since 2006, the expression is sometimes galvaudée. Thus, several media described as being a reasonable measurement of compromise the fact that the panes of a room of exercises of Montreal where women in Tee-shirt involve themselves and in Short are frosted at the request of a hassidic Jewish group of . In the facts, this legal concept does not extend to this situation. Certain politicians, whose chief of ADQ, Mario Dumont, however used this example to denounce this growing phenomenon and to require that the concept be framed and defined by a board of inquiry.

The February 8th 2007, the Prime Minister for Quebec Jean Charest announces the creation of the Commission of consultation on the practices of compromises connected to the cultural differences chaired by two inhabitants of Quebec in reputation, the Historien Gerard Bouchard (brother of old the Prime Minister for Quebec Lucien Bouchard), professor with the Université of Quebec with Chicoutimi, and the Philosophe Charles Taylor, professor with the Université McGill. Their work should finish in March 2008.

Position of the MLQ

According to the laic Movement Québécois, the debate does not have strictly anything to see with the Immigration. He believes that it is necessary to guarantee the Laïcité in public institutions, that the requests of compromise of religious nature are not admissible and that the civil society does not have to deal with the individual choices of conscience as regards religion.

Comment of the episcopate

In February 2007, the cardinal Marc Ouellet, omitting to consider that the reasonable compromises can aim only individuals, requires some for the catholic and Protestant majority of the Province of Quebec. He says to note a faintness important in the population and that one seems to want to make disappear the symbols on the public place, which causes, according to him, a feeling of injustice.

According to the Parliament of the catholic bishops of Quebec, the origin of the problem comes from confusion between Culture and Religion. “One carries out that the debate of the compromise forces us to redefine our identity and we invite the other partners with defining their identity well and making the difference between what is strictly monk and what is cultural field”.

AECQ also published an entitled book the Dialog inter-monk in pluralist Quebec to have beacons in the dialog between the communities.

Overall picture of the problems in Canada

The religious school commissions had been presented like a compromise made to the members of the practicing Christian minority of Quebec. They were abolished by the Réforme Marois. When the Rapport Proulx in 1999 was published, it was written that the Christians had received “privileges” of the government during too a long time.

The legislators had made the point that the Moslems, the Jews and the others did not profit from such schools and that was unjust. The withdrawal of the courses of religion a few years later was presented by the government like a “reasonable compromise” made to the minorities.

In addition, the authors of the constitution of 1867 registered in the law which the catholic and Protestant minorities had the right to their particular schools. This constitutional clause is utltimement heiress of the Acte of Quebec. In 1810, the British colonial government had tried to remove the Catholic schools gradually and to replace them by English Protestant schools but had failed in front of the resistance of the clergy and the people.

At the end of the XIXe century, the father François-Marcel Richard required school rights for the acadian catholic minority. In the provinces of the west, Mgr Louis-Philippe-Adélard Langevin militated in favor of the Christian schools.

To circumvent the constitutional principle, the National Assembly of Quebec had to use the Clause nonobstante, a legal turning which makes it possible the provincial governments to temporarily be unaware of their obligations in the federal law. This same clause had been used to maintain the Loi 101 in its entirety during a certain time, before finally decreasing the range by it.

In Canada, it is difficult to modify the constitution, since one needs the agreement of all the provinces, then the clauses on the separate schools will remain in the constitution even if they are never respected by the local governments.

In 2007, some Ontarian political parties launch a campaign to make abolish the catholic school commissions of the Ontario. Such an attempt had already been undertaken in 1953 during the publication of the Rapport Cope which denounced the favors granted to the Free-Ontarian S.

In the same way, the removal of the schools anglo-Protestant women and anglo-catholics had been criticized by certain leaders of the community Anglo-inhabitant of Quebec E like a “unreasonable compromise” against this community.

For its part, the Association of the catholic parents of Quebec continues to require a better agreement in the file of the school compromises.

Mediatized cases

The port of Kirpan in a Québécois school

It is into 2002 that the concept was more particularly clarified by the Québécois media, when a young person Sikh decided to carry a Kirpan in a Québécois school . For the authorities of the school, the kirpan is a Arme, whereas for this young person sikh, it is about a religious symbol. Indeed, on a side, the wearing of knife without license is interdict in Quebec, whereas the Canadian Charte of the rights and freedoms recognizes the right to practice its Religion freely. In front of the refusal of the school to adapt the young person sikh and a legal proceeding, the media started to be interested in the business. At the conclusion of the lawsuit, mediatized, the young person sikh could carry to the school a kirpan in a wood sleeve placed inside a fabric bag bent so as to be able to be open. (Multani C. School commission Marguerite ‑ Bourgeoys, (2006) 1 R. C.S. 256) It is however important to note that the Supreme court, in this decision, uses only by analogy the concept of compromise reasonable, since the Canadian Charte of the rights and freedoms treats state of the " rather; limits raisonnables" with the basic rights.

The installation of a érouv with Outremont

Certain Jews hassidic of Outremont, in Montreal, addressed themselves to the Superior court of Quebec in order to obtain the permission to set up at the top of the city a érouv (also named eruv ). Judge Allan R. Hilton has, by declaratory judgment, confirmed this right on June 21st, 2001 ( Rosenberg C. Outremont , 500-05-060659-008) After many negociations, the érouv was tolerated by the municipality.

School program in the catholic private schools

In March 2007, a polemic emerges in connection with the instruction nuns in the private schools. The persons in charge of these schools denounced the fact that the government was not limited to legislate on the religion in the public sector, but that it also did it in the private schools related to the Church. For example, the archbishop of Quebec criticized the fact that the school of the Ursulines of Quebec undergoes the same constraints as certain schools of the public system.

The port of the hijab to the soccer

February 24th, 2007, with Laval, a young Ontarian Moslem woman 11 years is expelled of a match of soccer in which it takes part and which brings together young Canadian players. The handbook of this organization (reproducing the rules appearing in the payments of FIFA), as interpreted by the referee, prohibited the port of all the objects and clothing being able to create a risk for the safety of the participants. The referee, decides that the Hijab carried by the young person Fille is included in this category and asks him to withdraw it. In front of its refusal, it expels it. At this time, the trainer of the young girl withdraws the team of the tournament, followed at once by some other Ontarian teams. At the time of a meeting in Manchester, with the the United Kingdom, a member of the FIFA considers that “all this history is only a storm in a tea cup” and added that there are “enormously girls who play with a hidjab in the Arab countries without that raising difficulty”. The port of the hijab to football seems tolerated with the the United Kingdom and also in France, where the question of the hidjab is for a long time discussed. None the European media present at this meeting has good year to be interested on this subject.

The port of the safety cap by an employee Sikh

The Canadian court of the rights of the person, in first authority, judged that a compromise reasonable not to carry the safety cap for an employee Sikh could be granted. The Supreme court of Canada, ultimement, reversed this decision because the port of the safety cap is a normal professional requirement.

Sources

Bosset, Pierre: '' Réflexions on the range and the limits of the reasonable obligation of accommodation out of religious matter '' Commission of the rights of the person and the rights of youth

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