What Québec's new Charter of Values will and will not do

There's a lot of chatter about the Charter of Québec Values proposed today by that province's government. Many of the chatterers obviously have not read the document or have not paid attention to the details. (That's where the devil is!) CBC News has published a helpful article listing five (5) things the Charter would and would not do. Here's the list.

Would
1.Bar public sector employees — including everyone from civil servants to teachers, provincial court judges, daycare workers, police, health-care personnel, municipal employees and university staff — from wearing a hijab, turban, kippa, large visible crucifix or other "ostentatious" religious symbols while on the job.
2.Allow five-year opt-outs from the ban for certain organizations, but not daycare workers or elementary school teachers.
3.Require that those receiving or providing government services uncover their faces.
4.Exempt elected members of the Quebec legislature from the regulations.
5.Amend Quebec's human rights legislation, the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, to specify limits on when someone can stake a claim for religious accommodation.

Wouldn't
1.Remove religious symbols and elements considered "emblematic of Quebec's cultural heritage." That includes: the crucifixes in the Quebec legislature and atop Mount Royal in Montreal, the thousands of religiously based geographic names (e.g. Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!) and the names of schools and hospitals.
2.Ban public sector employees from wearing small religious symbols like a ring with a Star of David, earrings with the Muslim crescent or a necklace with a small crucifix.
3.Eliminate subsidies to religious private schools. The Quebec government currently funds about 60 per cent of the budgets of most of the province's private schools, including parochial ones.
4.Ban opening prayers at municipal council meetings, which was recommended by the 2008 Bouchard-Taylor Commission report into cultural accommodation. The Quebec Court of Appeal ruled in May that such prayers do not necessarily violate Quebec's current human rights legislation.
5.Eliminate property tax exemptions for churches, mosques, synagogues and other religious buildings.

I have emphasized the words "receiving or providing" in the third "would". That's a very sharp hook in the tackle box. It means if you go to get your driver's licence renewed, or get your welfare cheque, or get a flu shot, you'll have to take off your kipa/turban/hijab/whatever. At least, that's the way I read it.

One last very important comment. Patrick Lagacé, writing in the Globe and Mail, predicts that the Charter will never be enacted. If it is made law, "progressive thinkers" are calling on the federal government to challenge its constitutionality in the courts, and Steve Harper's bumboy, the Hon. Jason Kenney has said that will be done.

So why is the Parti Québecois bringing this controversial bill forward? Simple, says M Lagacé. The PQ, being a minority government, could face an election at any time. They are shit scared they're going to lose, so they're playing to the unspoken but deeply felt wishes of the majority of the Québec electorate. 65% of those asked in a survey taken over the weekend say they approve of the Charter -- an idea whose time has come, no matter what the multicultists say.