All I Said Was That Piece of Halibut Was Good Enough For Jehovah!

By now, I'm sure that everyone has heard of the Quebec town that recently passed a "code of conduct" for immigrants.  Now, ignoring how silly some of the things are (No stoning women to death?  I'm pretty sure that that's already covered by federal law.), I'm wondering if the townsfolk realise the unintended consequences of some of their "rules".

For example, the majority of the laws are quite blatantly aimed at Muslims.  However, there are some that likely could also apply to the town's current residents.

Take, for example, the ban on face coverings.  Clearly aimed at Muslim women who cover their faces.  However, that's not what the wording of the code of conduct says.  In fact, all the code of conduct says is:

"You may not hide your face as to be able to identify you while you are in public. The only time you may mask or cover your face is during Halloween […]"

Now, Hérouxville isn't listed on Environment Canada's list of weather stations for Quebec City, but Trois-Rivières is.  They also show that, although it has been a mild winter, there have also been days when the temperature has dipped down into the mid minus 30s once the wind chill is factored in.  But remember: it doesn't matter how cold it gets, you're still not allowed to cover your face.  (So unwrap that scarf, buster.)

Then, there's an interesting pair of paragraphs towards the end relating to food.  To me, it's interesting just because of the sheer broadness of the coverage.  To quote:

"They can eat any type of meat, vegetables or fruit. They don't eat just meat or just vegetables they can eat both at the same time and this throughout the whole year."

"If our children eat meat for example, they don't need to know where it came from or who killed it. Our people eat to nourish the body not the soul."

So, let's see, who does that cover?  Well, the "any type of meat" covers Jews, Muslims, certain sects of Buddhists and Hindus, and likely others.  In addition to those, the "this throughout the whole year" covers Catholics.  (Or, at least, it did back when I was still a practising one.  Although the "no meat/poultry on Friday" rule was lifted back in the '60s, Canon law from as recently as a decade ago still frowned upon eating meat/poultry on Ash Wednesday and Fridays during Lent.)

Now, I know that urban Quebec went largely secular during the Quiet Revolution, but I know nothing about the rural areas of the province — and the code of conduct happens to make references to Christian, and more importantly predominantly Catholic celebrations.  Which suggests that, again, residents themselves may be violating their own guidelines.  (And which also ties in to my experience with french-speaking small towns of the Acadian variety, which tended towards predominantly Catholic.)

Finally, in the same section we have a last swipe at meat, stating that "they don’t need to know where it came from or who killed it" — which could be seen as yet another swipe at Jewish immigrants.  But, just to be safe, you probably shouldn't ask if the chicken you're eating is free-range, they don't like that type of talk 'round there.