A delegation of Muslim women brought pastries and dialogue to a small Quebec town that has adopted a controversial code of conduct apparently aimed at their faith.

"It appears that there's a misunderstanding -- a sort of generalization over many things that we believe is our duty to clear up for them," May Haidar of the Canadian Islamic Congress told CTV Montreal in Herouxville.

Local officials in the mostly white, French-speaking, Catholic town of Herouxville, northeast of Montreal, adopted a code of conduct for immigrants two weeks ago.

Included in the code:

• Women should be able to show their faces in public (aside from costumes worn on Halloween), and they should also be permitted to drive and write cheques.
• It is "completely outside norms to... kill women by stoning them in public, burning them alive, burning them with acid, circumcising them etc."

Town councillor Andre Drouin, who wrote the "Community Standards" resolution, said, "We want the whole world to understand we are no kind of racist."

He told CTV Montreal he realizes some of the words used in the resolution are harsh, but he remained resolved over its message.

"The thing that you need to be sure of is that we're going where we're going to go. Please give me the right to state who I am, basically," he said.

Haidar called the resolution a "discriminatory statement. The Charter of Rights gives every individual the freedom to live and act and wear whatever he wants," she said.

The Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) and Canadian Muslim Forum (CMF) have both decried the statement as "deliberate hate-mongering."

They both say the town council was wrong to publicize a code of conduct that "clearly propagates negative stereotypes of Canadian minorities."

The two groups are considering filing a joint complaint with the Quebec Human Rights Commission.

"What we have seen in the Herouxville declaration is symptomatic of a dangerous trend in Quebec and Canada that could set multicultural progress back generations," the two groups warned in a news release.

The town council will decide whether to reword the next of the resolution at the next town meeting and will make changes if warranted, but Drouin said the list will remain in place.

Drouin told CTV News that he has received about 2,000 e-mails of support -- 700 more than Herouxville's population of about 1,300.

Vigorous debate

CTV Montreal reporter Paul Karwatsky said there was a lot of vigorous debate at Sunday's meeting, but the event was peaceful as the Muslim women tried to bridge their beliefs with town residents and leaders.

"Most of the people who turned up to greet (the women) didn't know what to expect, so they were pretty reserved at first," said Karwatsky. "But once most realized that the women were there to simply voice their concerns and explain Islamic culture, most happily listened."

One female resident told CTV Montreal, however, that while the women have every right to visit, "they could have gone to another village." One man complained about the Muslim womens' headscarves.

The town's resolution has stirred into the larger "reasonable accommodation" debate for minorities and immigrants in Quebec. In Montreal, the debate has focused on paid days off granted to Muslim and Jewish school board employees who observe religious holidays.

Quebec Premier Jean Charest, saying the debate has gotten out of hand, launched a formal government commission last week to examine the matter.

Two respected academics, Charles Taylor and Gerard Bouchard (brother of former premier Lucien Bouchard), will have one year to prepare a report.

However, Mario Dumont, leader of the Action democratique du Quebec, issued a letter in January saying there should be limits on accommodating minorities. A poll about that time found that about three in five Quebecers admitted to having some racist feelings towards ethnic groups.

Other controversies have erupted in Canada. For example, Ontario decided against allowing sharia law courts for mediating Muslim family disputes.

But some observers are taken with the bluntness of the Herouxville code.

Errol Mendes of the University of Ottawa thinks it says something about the nation as a whole.

"I think it's reflective of the fact that Canada is actually fracturing into two nations," he said.

"The urban nation where 80 per cent of Canadians live, and the rural parts of Canada which do not have a lot of interaction with immigrants and different cultures."

With reports from CTV's Paul Karwatsky and Graham Richardson