Did the media fuel the reasonable accommodation “crisis” ?

Journalists themselves were also put in the spotlight during the Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec conference last November, but no clear conclusion was reached. Things seem to be a lot less serious than one might think, said Julius Grey, a Quebec lawyer specialized in individual rights, and Raymond Corriveau, the president of the Conseil de presse du Québec and social communications professor at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières.

The Conseil de press, which is comprised of eight members of the administration council from the public sector, companies and journalists, acknowledged part of the complaint when it came to the headline.

Corriveau recognizes that certain media may have put emphasis on certain cases of reasonable accommodation, but at the same time, they also showed what was happening in society. “In the political elite and law, there is discomfort with this question and the media witnessed this very well.” He reminded that people know the media well and know that certain radio station or newspapers will emphasize things differently compared to others.

“Reflection on the role of the media has evolved with time. The citizen-analyst is much more sophisticated, and they have more interactive tools.” Corriveau underlined that the discourse of the 1950s that dominated the media and dictated what people thought is no more. “We can all congratulate ourselves, because even with this highly-covered process, there was only one complaint,” said Corriveau, adding the Conseil de presse du Québec’s mandate is to promote the highest ethical norms and media responsibility.

Grey, who is well-known for defending controversial cases, such as the right to wear a kirpan at school or the rights of Hassidic Jews to put up Eruv during their Sabbath, thinks the media did a good job. “They played a smaller role than they did in the Conservative law on crime prevention,” he said.

Grey said people tend to have a strong collective loyalty in situations like the Bouchard-Taylor Commission. He believed that while certain comments made by citizens showed some did not understand minorities, very few racist comments were written about in the newspapers and elsewhere. “The Bouchard-Taylor Commission will have shown that there is no distinction between the different social groups in society, but in the villages and in the regions. Opinions in Montreal and Vancouver are usually more similar than those in Joliette and Prince Rupert,” Grey said.