A family’s presentation at the Charter of Values hearings in the National Assembly is getting a lot of attention online.
A YouTube video where the Pineault-Caron family spoke of their travels to Morocco and Turkey shows them concerned and dumbfounded by common Muslim customs.
Among these customs was taking off shoes upon entering a mosque and praying on all fours. “Taking off your shoes, what is that?” said Genevieve Caron. “Praying on all fours on a little carpet – what is that?” Caron said they complied because they had gone there to visit, but when she toured the mosque and saw a large curtain, with men praying on one side and women praying on the other, she remained “marked” by what she’s seen.
Claude Pineault [pictured] went on to describe his experience in a marketplace in Tangier, Morocco, where he said he was pickpocketed by two men wearing religious headgear. “Who was under those disguises? Women? Men? I don’t know,” he said, “What I do know is it’s unthinkable to permit people to walk around in Quebec – on the streets, in public places, anywhere besides houses and in private – wearing these disguises.”
Pineault also said he doesn’t feel safe on the streets of Montreal anymore, because of all the street gangs. Pineault told the commission he is “not at all racist.”
The Pineault-Caron family is one of many presentations set to be made by private citizens and public institutions both for and against Bill 60 over the next several weeks.
See also “Pineault-Caron secular charter testimony goes viral on YouTube”, CBC News, 18 January 2014