| Hérouxville | |
|---|---|
| — Parish municipality — | |
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Hérouxville
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| Coordinates: | |
| Country | Canada |
| Province | Quebec |
| Region | Mauricie |
| Regional County | Mékinac |
| Founded | 1897 |
| Incorporated | April 13, 1904 |
| Government[1] | |
| • Mayor | Bernard Thompson |
| • Federal riding | Saint-Maurice—Champlain |
| • Prov. riding | Laviolette |
| Area[1][2] | |
| • Total | 54.51 km2 (21 sq mi) |
| • Land | 53.03 km2 (20.5 sq mi) |
| Population (2006)[2] | |
| • Total | 1,235 |
| • Density | 23.3/km2 (60.3/sq mi) |
| Time zone | EST (UTC-5) |
| • Summer (DST) | EDT (UTC-4) |
| Postal Code | G0X |
| Area code(s) | 418 and 581 |
| Website | municipalite.herouxville.qc.ca |
Hérouxville is a parish municipality in Quebec (Canada), located in the Regional county municipality (RCM) of Mékinac, and in the administrative region of Mauricie. It was founded in 1897. A small rural farming town, its main economic activity is agriculture.
Hérouxville is directly on the route to Saint-Tite and the Festival western de Saint-Tite, in addition to being the northeast gateway to Mauricie, a region renowned for its lush forests and quaint villages. It is located within the Laurentian Forest region, which has many lakes and rivers. The town centre of is in the style of the seigneurial period.
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Hérouxville received international attention in January 2007 when its town council passed controversial measures concerning practices which the residents deemed unsuitable for life in Herouxville for potential new immigrants, despite the fact that the town has no immigrant population.[3] Herouxville has a small population of 1,338 residents who are entirely White, francophone, and nominally Catholic.
Other rural communities in the region of Mékinac are also considering similar codes, despite featuring few or no immigrants at all.[4]
The mayor and the municipal council approved a code of behavior for immigrants, which occurred in the context of a debate on "reasonable accommodation" for other cultures in Quebec.[5][6][7] The code forbade carrying a weapon to school (even if symbolic), covering one's face, and indicated that accommodation of prayer in school will not be permitted.[8] It also stated that stoning women or burning them alive is prohibited, as is female genital cutting. It attests that "Our people eat to nourish the body, not the soul", and that health-care professionals "do not have to ask permission to perform blood transfusions."
The code was widely criticized as being premised on racist and insulting cultural stereotypes.[9] The Montreal Gazette noted that "while the values espoused might be universal, the code has sparked an international controversy because the intention appears to be to scare off newcomers with a code that presumes the worst of them."[10]
Quebec Premier Jean Charest called Herouxville's measures "exaggerated" after Town Councillor André Drouin appeared on a popular Quebec television show called Tout le monde en parle and said the reasonable accommodation situation had reached a state of emergency in Quebec.[11] The town later revised the standards after a delegation of Muslim women from the Canadian Islamic Congress came to meet townspeople.[12]
The original version of this document was published in French. The translation into English was done by an unknown party and is not identical to the original. An official English translation, which is more reflective of what was written in French, is currently being written.
La Presse columnist Alain Dubuc writes that "Although Hérouxville's reaction was xenophobic, immigrants may not be the main target of this revolt ... There is something else at work here, and it's the revolt against the big city, its ideas, its lifestyle, its influence. What happened in Hérouxville is the ultimate expression of the fracture between the metropolis and the regions ... Hérouxville was angered by the tolerance of Montrealers, by their passivity towards the changes brought out by immigration, by their multi-ethnic culture, their rejection of religion, their 'gay village' and their arrogant elites. For small towns such as Hérouxville, the real threat to their identity has little to do with veil-clad Muslim women, it is the urban world that is gradually drifting away from the traditional model."[13]
Population trend:[14]
Private dwellings occupied by usual residents: 556 (total dwellings: 620)
Mother tongue:
| Grandes-Piles | Saint-Tite | |||
| Saint-Séverin | ||||
| Hérouxville | ||||
| Shawinigan | Saint-Narcisse |
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