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NDP leader Thomas Mulcair speaks to reporters at his office in Montreal, Tuesday, August 20, 2013.Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press

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Thomas Mulcair's reluctance to be drawn into the debate surrounding a proposed charter of secular values for Quebec is perfectly reasonable. It is also politically dangerous.

Parti Quebecois Premier Pauline Marois appears ready and willing to inflame linguistic and cultural tensions within Quebec in the name of protecting the province's secular values. As well as fomenting divisions within the province, the charter is bound to anger Canadians outside it, where it will be seen as a blatant assault on freedom of religion and the rights of minorities. No federal party is at greater danger of being consumed by the resulting furor than the NDP.

The good news, which came Monday, is that the opposition parties in Quebec do not appear willing to play the PQ's game. Francois Legault, leader of the Coalition Avenir Quebec, said the PQ's proposal was "too radical," though a less comprehensive version of the charter might be allowed to pass.

If the CAQ teams up with Liberals to defeat the proposed charter, or if the final document is sufficiently moderate, this tempest may pass.

But there can be no good that comes out of this for the NDP. The most Mr. Mulcair can hope for is to limit the bad.

Proposals for a Charter of Quebec Values will be introduced into the National Assembly in the autumn, but details have already leaked out. If the reports are true, all public officials, from doctors to daycare workers, will be prohibited from wearing religious clothing or symbols at work. A crucifix around the neck would be as illegal as a turban.

Several polls show that the proposal is popular with Quebec francophones–65 per cent of whom support the idea of the charter, according to a poll by Leger Marketing–but unpopular with anglophones and allophones (those whose native tongue is neither English nor French).

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau wasted no time in condemning the charter. "To force people into a situation where they have to decide between their job and their religion or decide whether or not they are Quebeckers first or Muslim first – for me, that's not a question we should be asking people to think about, as Canadians or as Quebeckers," he said last week.

The federal Conservatives have been more circumspect. "Canadians believe that freedom of religion and conscience are universal values and we would hope that these are values and principles that would be respected," Jason Kenney, wearing his hat as multiculturalism minister, told reporters last week.

But Prime Minister Stephen Harper will almost certainly criticize the charter, sooner or later. Immigrant voters outside Quebec are a key element in the Conservative electoral coalition and the Conservative base will have no time for another act of Quebecois cultural exceptionalism.

It is the NDP who currently dominate Quebec federally. Many of the same voters who helped the NDP virtually sweep the province in the last election support the secular charter. Mr. Mulcair will not want to alienate them.

Outside Quebec, however, the party risks losing support if it is seen to accept a law that limits religious freedom.

For example, the NDP has high hopes of making gains in Saskatchewan in the next election. But Saskatchewan voters will not warm to a party that appears to waffle on the right of Quebec government workers to profess their religion in public.

On Monday, Mr. Mulcair took a stand, sort of. "Bouchard-Taylor made a series of well-balanced recommendations," he told reporters, referring to the 2008 report on "reasonable accommodation" that was co-chaired by the historian Gerald Bouchard and the philosopher Charles Taylor. "If there's anything in what Madame Marois is proposing that goes against that, then for us, it's an absolute nonstarter and we will stand up strongly against it."

The report recommended, among other things, that officials in the justice system, such as judges, crown prosecutors and prison guards, should not be allowed to display religious symbols at work, but that other public servants could wear what they chose.

That also appears to be roughly the position of the CAQ (though Mr. Legault would add teachers to the list). If the PQ's charter does indeed extend the ban to all public servants, then the CAQ is likely to combine with the Liberals to defeat the charter. If the PQ retreats to something along the lines of Bouchard-Taylor, then the new law may pass with only grumbles instead of howls.

But if Ms. Marois is determined to fight for a militant version of the charter, perhaps even fighting an election on the issue, then the NDP's nuanced position could be seen as insufficiently secular among French voters and excessively restrictive by voters outside Quebec.

Which, to repeat, means that no good can come from any of this for the NDP. Mr. Mulcair can only cross his fingers and hopes it all goes away, so that people can return their focus to the latest outrage in the Senate.

John Ibbitson is the chief political writer in Ottawa.

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