Hassidim and the ‘Reasonable Accommodation’ debate in Quebec

Abstract

In February 2007, Quebec’s Premier made an announcement about a question which he said went ‘to the heart of Quebec’s future as a nation’ and about which a special commission had been created to study the ‘reasonable accommodation’ issue which had gripped the Canadian province for months. (The formal name of the Commission was the ‘Commission for Consultation on Accommodation in the Practices Regarding Cultural Differences.) That issue had emerged when, in January 2007, a municipal council in the Mauricie town of He´ rouxville had adopted a code of conduct for immigrants. The task of the Commission would be to report on the direction and escalation of the public debate about how to respond to religious minorities whose practices were clashing with fundamental rights and values. In the view of the Premier (and that of many local Quebecers) the essence of reasonable accommodation has been misrepresented in at least one specific instance: hassidic Jews had called for the installation of frosted windows in a YMCA in Montreal’s Mile End district, so that hassidic boys in a neighbouring synagogue would not be able to see women in exercise clothes. The objection to such a request was that it ran counter to a secular-based society which did not consider the religious demands of distinctive minorities to be privileged.