Catholic critics cool to new Liberal leader

Dion slammed for radical view of individual rights

By DEBORAH GYAPONG
Canadian Catholic News
Ottawa

Liberal leader Stéphane Dion, potentially Canada's next prime minister, gets mixed reviews from Catholic observers who like his stress on a sustainable environment and social justice but raise concerns about his highly individualistic notion of rights.

That approach could mean clashes down the road with group rights, especially those of families, religions and nationalities.

"Stéphane Dion is to be congratulated for setting the tone of the Liberal leadership debate that has now contributed to making the environment the key concern of Canadians," said Joe Gunn, a longtime justice and peace official, formerly for the Canadian bishops and currently for the Notre Dame Sisters' Visitation province.

Daniel Cere, professor of religion, law and public policy at McGill University agreed Dion's proactive approach will "receive a sympathetic hearing," noting John Paul II had called for "an ecological conversion among Catholics."

"What Dion brings to the political debate is a sort of Generation X form of Trudeau," Cere said. He described him as most "squeaky clean" Trudeau representative among all the candidates.

Appeals to Catholics

Cere assumes Dion will follow Trudeau's "just society" approach that will also appeal to Catholics. Dion has made social justice one of his "three pillars," along with a sustainable environment and economic prosperity.

Cere also sees Dion as in "lockstep" with the Trudeau legacy left by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The charter, however, Cere said is a "thin document" that does not go "far enough in the robust conception of rights that grounds the Catholic tradition."

"(Dion's) position is so grounded in an individualistic conception of rights," he said. "That kind of conception can be corrosive of forms of communal identity - family, religion or nationality."

The Catholic tradition sees human rights grounded in an authentic conception of the human person that recognizes the communal dimensions of family, social and national identities, he said.

"I don't think the Catholic community can feel completely comfortable with the Dion vision," he said.

Cere is especially worried about religious freedom, especially the rights of religious institutions to hold views inconsistent with so-called charter values.

Luc Gagnon, president of Quebec Campagne-Vie, agrees.

Gagnon fears Dion will go further than Chrétien and Martin, not only in the separation of Church and state, but also in the separation of morality and politics. He fears that the next "right" that might be championed is the "right to die."

Ahead of the curve

An in-depth profile in the Jan. 20 Globe and Mail seems to support Gagnon's view. Author Konrad Yakabuski quotes Dion's wife, political scientist Janine Krieber as saying that for Dion, "all that exists is the individual. Everything else is a social construction, hence does not exist."

Born in 1955, Dion grew up in Quebec City, son of famous Laval University political scientist Leon Deon, who opposed the "priest-ridden" Quebec society under the Duplessis regime. Dion's parents were ahead of the curve in the Quiet Revolution that swept Quebec in the 1960s.

Dion's Paris-born mother told the Globe and Mail that she was criticized for not wearing a hat to church, but that soon the family stopped attending except to have the children baptized or receive their first Communion.

Dion attended Catholic schools, and, according to the Globe, during an obligatory Confession "mocked the priest by seeking forgiveness for having lost his faith."

Marriage as irrelevant

Dion and his wife Janine Krieber lived together from the time they met as students at Laval, while they pursued studies in Paris and upon their return to take teaching posts in Montreal. According to a Dec. 9 Montreal Gazette article, they married in order to be able to adopt a child from religiously-conservative Peru.

"It shows to you his respect for the traditional institutions and for marriage and religion," Gagnon said, noting Dion would see marriage as irrelevant, so "of course he was for same-sex marriage."

His position on same-sex marriage is not a strong, doctrinal position, but something he would see as "just normal," reflecting modern society, Gagnon said.

Dion is best known for his staunch defence of Canadian federalism before and after the Quebec Referendum in 1995, and as architect of the Clarity Act, which became law in 2000. His robust, principled defence of a united Canada, despite being vilified in his home province, has given him a reputation for courage and integrity in the rest of Canada.

Though he served as a cabinet minister under Chrétien, his reputation has remained untouched by the sponsorship scandal that dogged Chrétien's government and contributed to Paul Martin's defeat in 2005.

Should there be another Quebec referendum, Canadian unity may be better served by having a Dion, a French Canadian, as prime minister than an anglophone, Gagnon said.

Cere and Gagnon also expressed concerns about Dion's statist approach to solving problems.

Dion supports a national daycare policy, imposing the Quebec model on the rest of the country. Gagnon said conflicts with Catholic notions of subsidiarity and "does not respect the freedom and responsibility of the parents."

Gunn hopes Dion's familiarity with the environment file will "create the changes needed for Canada to face the ecological crisis of our time."

But he pointed out Dion's record while Canada's environment minister from July 2004 to January 2006, got a failing grade from Canada's environmental commissioner, not only for lack of progress on reducing greenhouse gas emissions but also on protecting biodiversity and fish stocks.

"The government asked Canadians to buy 'green' but had no green purchasing policy itself," Gunn said. "And the government had weak policies and even weaker concerning clean water, especially on native reserves.

"Too bad his actual record as environment minister was underwhelming."

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