Monday, March 23, 2026
one of these religious groups hit it on the head.
“Bill 21 states that there exists something fundamentally wrong and harmful with religious practices, some of them in particular, from which we must protect the public,” argued Olga Redko, lawyer for Ichrak Nourel Hak and other Muslim teachers in the province.
"The message that they've received is that they're not worthy of participating in provincial institutions because their expression of faith is contrary to Quebec's values," she said.
there you go. you got it. exactly. you understand perfectly well.
that is the opinion of the overwhelming majority of quebeckers.
and.....you don't care. you want to try to force your values on their kids anyways.
you selfish piece of shit. go fuck yourself.
i've told you why i support bill 21. what do i think about the constitutional challenge?
it doesn't stand a chance. the court might rule the law is unconstitutional, but it has no jurisdiction to unilaterally amend the charter. there is a process to amend the charter, and an appeal to the supreme court is not it.
the appeal is a performative act by the federal government. it knows it has no chance of success. in fact, if it thought the appeal had a chance of success, i think it's extremely unlikely that it would risk the wrath of quebecois voters in launching it. the liberals, at both the provincial and federal level, have actually supported very similar legislation.
so, the whole thing is a political stunt by ottawa. it has no chance of success. the supreme court should probably even declare some of the groups arguing against the law to be vexatious litigants, as their arguments have no legal basis and are absurd and a waste of time. while the court cannot declare the federal government vexatious, the appeal is clearly vexatious to the letter of the term, in every conceivable way. it's not a serious legal argument, it's a time wasting and performative political exercise.
the supreme court has a lot of power, but it cannot amend the constitution. that's it. case closed. go home.
the purpose of the notwithstanding clause was supposed to be the opposite of this. a right-wing government in alberta led by peter lougheed was afraid that ottawa might do something like pass a law banning abortion (in canada, our roe v wade is called morgantaler and didn't happen until 1988 and could not have happened without the constitution, as ratified in 1982) and wanted a trump card. the justice minister at the time, jean chretien, did not support this position. nor did mr chretien support the inclusion of property rights, religious rights or religious language in the constitution, which was what lougheed concerned about, exactly. what if this crazy guy chretien became prime minister one day?
pierre trudeau famously kicked chretien in the shins in response, and we have a notwithstanding clause, notwithstanding chretien's opposition to it.
if the court really doesn't like bill 21 in the end, something i'm not convinced will be the case, it has the option to state as much. it would then need to do something called balancing, using a process called an oakes test. the oakes test asks if the law is a justifiable rights restriction, even if it's unconstitutional. this is not the united states.
so, the court needs to ask:
- is the law unconstitutional?
- is the law consistent with the quebec constitution?
- if the law is unconstitutional, is it a justified rights restriction?
- if the law is not a justified rights restriction, does the court have jurisdiction to overturn it?
the government might get the answer it wants on every question except the last one. i don't think that's going to be the case, but it might be.
a possible outcome is therefore the supreme court releasing a scathing analysis, but finding it has no jurisdiction to overturn the law.
i think that a more likely outcome is that the court's majority will conclude that the law is consistent with quebec's charter, and decide that that is more important. this might, in theory, be a law that can only exist in quebec, the notwithstanding clause notwithstanding. that would clarify how provincial governments in the rest of the country need to act if they want to emulate the law in their own provinces.
i live in windsor, on which is sardonically called south detroit. i've been to hamtramck quite frequently, which was a small polish community in metro detroit before it got swarmed by muslim immigrants. hamtramck was at one point the live music capital of detroit because the rent was cheap and it had it's own little downtown.
the muslim immigrants took over the city hall and tried to ban the gays and the music. the non-muslim residents of the city are extremely liberal and actually helped to get them elected, only to have the knife stabbed in their back. they never supported liberal anything. they're the most conservative group in the country, and in the world. it's created a nightmare, in which a segment of detroit has been forced to fight for it's survival against an immigrant community trying to wipe them out.
the only reason that hasn't happened in toronto is due to amalgamation. if toronto had not amalgamated, there would be a hamtramck in the gta by now.
but you can look at the school council in toronto to get the point.
compare the public schools in toronto to montreal and you'll understand why quebec passed bill 21 and why it's necessary to implement it. due to bill 21, montreal will survive. toronto is on the path to being the next detroit.
it would seem like kushner is talking with the shah, who is the "respected iranian leader" trump is talking about.
i don't support putting the shah back in power, but this was predictable enough. if trump can't get a good stooge in the regime, he'll parachute one in.
my solidarity remains with the resistance groups on the ground, and the same logic about timelines applies to them. iran is done. now, it's a race against time as to who can get in there first.
- the chinese, with lingering regime support
- the iranian resistance, which is lead by the kurds, with israeli tactical support
- the americans, via the shah, and likely with arab troops and a small american marine force
that's what is developing.
all.
set.
go!
i don't have the burrow lines, so i don't think it's rat scabies.
the least wrong answer seems to be that these damned rats, which seem to be dead, tracked in some fleas, and i'll have to figure that out. ugh.
it's a nice apartment for cheap. this is why it's cheap. but i'm smart. i'll figure this out.
i may have to get tested to figure out what's biting me. i have removed two dead rats and i have some kind of itchy rash. i don't know if it's fleas, mites or rat scabies but i don't think it's all just ingrowns.
i don't have my kit set up yet, man. fuck off. stop biting me.
the only insect in here that i've been able to actually find and observe and see are black ants. i have tried to block up some holes but it seems a little much for ant bites.
i dunno.
it looks like a contradiction, but in fact i pointed out the same thing in ukraine, when things looked like they were on autopilot. they were. and they are now.
people imagine that war is random and crazy because it's seen as irrational and stupid. war is what happens when hot-headed yosemite sams can't get the damned rabbit using their faculties of reason and resort to the stupidity of violence out of desperation. right? wrong.
in the modern world, people get paid to plan wars out years ahead of time and when they happen they're predetermined and, by extension, virtually impossible to stop. there was almost nothing that the russians could have done to stop ukraine from happening, in 2014. a deep state contingency plan kicked in. post-kgb forces started operating independently of centralized authority. if putin claimed he had no idea, he was probably being honest.
so, who is making decisions in iran?
the answer is that they were already made before this happened, and what's unfolding was pre-determined, pre-scripted. we're left to wait for the program to finish and for the ammunition to run out. there are no negotiations possible because there's nobody to negotiate with, in addition to the system being structurally and inherently irrational by design. there's nobody to push stop. there's a system running without a control mechanism.
the iranians are dead. we just have to let them die in front of us, and it might be painful. i don't know what's been programmed or how long the show lasts.
the americans and the world should be trying to figure out what the chinese are doing.
so, what the fuck?
"I AM PLEASE TO REPORT THAT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND THE COUNTRY OF IRAN, HAVE HAD, OVER THE LAST TWO DAYS, VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS REGARDING A COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION OF OUR HOSTILITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST.
"BASED ON THE TENOR AND TONE OF THESE IN DEPTH, DETAILED, AND CONSTRUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS, WITCH WILL CONTINUE THROUGHOUT THE WEEK, I HAVE INSTRUCTED THE DEPARTMENT OF WAR TO POSTPONE ANY AND ALL MILITARY STRIKES AGAINST IRANIAN POWER PLANTS AND ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE FOR A FIVE DAY PERIOD, SUBJECT TO THE SUCCESS OF THE ONGOING MEETINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP"
don coyote is absolutely certain that he's a master negotiator, and his brilliant tactic of bullying irrational actors into submission will be overwhelmingly successful, so he's going to give the utterly insane iranians another chance to get their heads out of their asses before he pounds the shit out of them, which he clearly had no intent to do, because the iranians were supposed to be good little mullahs, once trump got them shaking for their lives in their turbans.
right.
five days?
who is taking bets on the likelihood of china taking over the strait in the next five days? i'll put $50 on yalu, jim.
we've got five days. that's all we've got. five days.
my brain hurts.
a lot.
at the end of the day, we're all fucking monkeys living in extended clan groups, and this is how primate society works - we expel the ones we don't like.
it's better than submitting to the biggest ape with the biggest club.
and you should remember that the latter is, in the end, what all the religious monkeys actually want.
a lot of fucking hippies are going to bitch and complain that laws like bill 21, or the much stronger french laws, "exclude" people.
but, that's the point.
excluding people because you reject their values and beliefs is the most fundamental characteristic of democracy and any system that takes that away is a body blow to the concept of democratic freedom. freedom of association is more important than freedom of speech, as free speech requires freedom of association as a pre-requisite to be workable. it is utterly imperative that the secular majority, where it exists, is able to exclude the religious from participating in society, as a statement of principles and values. rejecting that is synonymous with rejecting democracy.
but we know that that's the point and that that's what these counter-arguments are about. these people don't give the slightest fuck about democracy. they think they're special. in fact, they think they're superior. they think they deserve special rules because they're superior, and that their beliefs are not subject to criticism because they're better than you, and they'll even try to silence you if you try to criticize them. well, look at what they actually believe, and process how stupid it is, and then try to get your head around the delusional thinking underlying that. then, they wonder why they're being excluded, and complain it's not fair.
sociologists would describe laws like this an informal means of social control. the ostracism is intended to send the message that they're being excluded because their beliefs are not acceptable. that's the point. that's the intention. if you realize it, you understand. they need to get the point and adjust, not sit on their thumbs and bitch and whine about it.
to me the issue isn't about politicians, it's about public servants, including teachers and doctors. while i'm not particularly upset about a ban like this, and get it, i would also argue that the restrictions on political symbols at work don't really apply to politicians because they aren't providing services, or not exactly. it's subtle. a political staffer that provides services to a population in a riding should not be able to display political or religious symbols while doing so, but for the politician itself, it's somewhat irrelevant. kind of. broadly, but not really.
i would not vote for a politician that displays religious symbols and would choose not to associate with them if they win. that's largely enough, as i probably don't need to interact with them directly, and they aren't exactly public servants.
but the keffiyah ban should logically be extended to hijabs and other religious symbols, so long as it exists, and even if i don't think the legislature is a valid area of regulation, in this respect. i'm more concerned about keeping politics and religion out of schools, hospitals and places where services are received, like service ontario.
it's kind of a step in the right direction, though, even if it misses the point.
i understand that a lot of people insist a religious symbol is something different than a political slogan, and will get offended by the suggestion. but i don't give a fuck if they're offended.
nobody is able to explain why a religious symbol is something different than a political slogan and, in the process, they consistently concede, explicitly or not, that it isn't something different than a political slogan at all.
in ontario, i think a ban on religious symbols at work would fall under the scope of the following legislation:
key to this is the idea that a religion is the same thing as a political party, in a truly secular state. arguing otherwise is the part of the debate i have difficulty understanding; i don't understand how somebody can tell me a religion is something different than an opinion, and still think we live in a democracy. if you're going to look at me with a straight face and tell me religious beliefs have some special sanctified place and are different than any other opinion, you are legislating faith above the law, and don't believe in equality or democracy. if religious belief is the same as any other opinion, than a religion is nothing more or less than a political party, and it should be taxed like a political party and have restrictions on donations to it that are the same as donating to a political party. further, any activity in support of that religion or political party would be banned at work, including symbols associated with the religion / political party.
the united states has a similar law called the hatch act, and there is some case law supporting the same position at the federal level in canada, but i don't want to look it up right now.
quebec's bill 21 is important in canada's constitutional rights framework because it ensures that the non-religious, who are the vast majority of canadians, have the right to exist in true freedom from any kind of religious coercion and are not being forced by state dictate to interact with people they would otherwise choose not to associate with. i don't want to have to tolerate religious people, i have no legal or moral obligation to tolerate them and i expect the legal and constitutional framework of the country i live in to uphold my right to not be forced to tolerate them.
i would like to see bill 21 enacted federally and applied to the federal work force, as well as encted provincially and applied to the province of ontario.
i do think that the government of quebec made a mistake in enacting the notwithstanding clause as it frames the question in the wrong terms. there are already strong restrictions on political activity in the public service, and there is no discernible difference between a political party and a religion in a secular society. they really didn't need a new law to ban religious symbols in the workplace, as it falls under the prohibition on political activity.
as an atheist, i feel extremely uncomfortable interacting with religious people in any way at all, for any reason, and insist i have the right to receive services by people that do not believe in any kind of god, at all times. this is about my rights to live free of religious coercion, which are important. the supposed, so-called right to believe in imaginary nonsense is not important, it's utterly retarded, and the idea should be done away with entirely in any advanced, modern, secular, enlightened society looking to the future instead of the past.
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