The public hearings are concluding at the National Assembly, as part of Bill 1, the 2025 Constitutional Act on Quebec presented by the government.
This project, already criticized by several people due to the lack of consultation, is now even more fragile after François Legault announced his departure as leader of the CAQ and at least one of his potential successors distanced herself from it.
Christine Fréchette indeed opted for caution, after seeing how much including the right to abortion in the draft constitution had been criticized by many organizations and authorities.
She says she wants to wait for the results of the consultations before deciding the fate of the last autonomist element with a caquiste twist.
An already biased assessment?
The problem is that this assessment will clearly be based on the briefs submitted to the parliamentary committee. And this worries us because of the disproportion of the speeches that are and will be heard there.
Our organization, the Réseau féministe québécois, submitted a thesis on December 4.
It seemed important to us to make our voice heard, as unfortunately there are few organizations left that publicly defend women's rights from a universalist perspective in Quebec.
Although Bill 1 is imperfect, it seemed to us that it represented an important step forward for women's rights, namely the explicit recognition of equality between women and men as a fundamental constitutional principle that takes precedence over any religious belief that places women in a subordinate position to men.
The Erasure of the Category 'Women'
We were extremely surprised to find that the Fédération des femmes du Québec, along with 70 organizations, the vast majority of which target women in precarious situations, opposed this inclusion in the draft constitution, arguing that it was not "inclusive" enough.
How did an organization founded to work for the continuous improvement of equality between women and men come to advocate for the outright erasure of the category of women?
We might say it’s a mystery, but in fact, that’s far from the case: the FFQ has adopted an intersectional approach that links the struggles of women to those of trans and non-binary people.
And since, according to this perspective, these latter categories are more oppressed than women, everything must be done to put them at the forefront of all struggles, even if it means harming women.
A uniform activist rhetoric
The more we listened to parliamentary sessions, the more surprised we were many groups presented the same arguments before the Commission.
It goes without saying that nothing prevents them from forming a coalition to present this vision, if they share it. And nothing prevents them from being critical of the project either. There are indeed certain elements that we also criticize.
But what surprises us the most is that these organizations, most of which are community organizations made possible by (far too limited) government grants, all completely forgot their mission.
The network of Auberges du cœur, for example, or the Family Center for Persons with Disabilities, presented their arguments without ever highlighting their members or the mission they are supposed to represent.
Their perspective boiled down to: the CAQ is imposing a bill without prior consultation and wants to silence organizations by preventing them from criticizing the government.
Therefore, it is an authoritarian government, a real democratic drift, a project that is anything but inclusive, since it seeks to impose French, and intends to prioritize gender equality over religious rights.
Do their members support these spokespersons? Do they agree with these ideas? Wouldn’t they prefer that these employees put their efforts and energy into speaking about them? About their specific realities? Are all the groups represented by these coalitions aware of these positions?
Do the groups and women members of the FFQ know that their federation no longer defends them?
A distorted civil society?
For us, it is important because the work of this parliamentary committee is an opportunity to hear the voice of the citizens. More than 200 submissions have been filed, and just as many groups will be heard. This shows that this consultation is considered important by many.
But if half of the groups deliver the same arguments, repeat exactly the same ideas, without much concern for what their members actually think, without using their speaking time to defend their cause and their members, how is that representative of civil society?
This convergence of opinions may suggest that a large part of the population of Quebec shares these ideas. That may be the case, but we strongly doubt that the majority of the population would agree, for example, to remove equality between women and men from the project.
We fear that this distortion of reality in favor of a very vocal segment of activist circles will influence the fate of this bill, starting with the importance that the new leader of the CAQ will give it.
To read the article: Constitution québécoise: des «féministes» contre la catégorie «femme» - Libre Média
