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Former Quebec premier Lucien Bouchard is also against the values charter

Former Quebec premier Lucien Bouchard has joined the growing chorus of sovereignist voices who do not support the Parti Quebecois' proposed values charter, as is.

According to the Globe and Mail, Bourchard told French-language newspaper La Presse, that the charter — which would essentially ban all public employees from wearing overt religious symbols in public institutions — is divisive and simply not necessary.

"Look at how this is dividing Montreal and the regions, minorities among themselves, even in families, we’re seeing quarrels on subjects that never had seemed to pose problems before," Bouchard said.

The former PQ premier, federal cabinet minister and leader of the Bloc Quebecois said that the ban against religious symbols should be limited to authority figures such as police officers and judges.

[ Related: Former PQ premier Jacques Parizeau slams Values Charter, Quebec politicians react ]

Bouchard's comments come one day after his provincial predecessor — Jacques Parizeau — made similar assertions in an op-ed published in the Journal de Montréal.

Parizeau suggested that the PQ government was overreacting to a growing fear of Islam.

"For the most part, the only contact that most Quebecers have with the world of Islam is through these images of violence, repeated over and over: wars, riots, bombs, the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Boston marathon ... The reaction is obvious: We'll have none of that here!" he wrote, according to CBC News.

[ Related: New survey suggests Canadians’ opinions of non-Christian religions are deteriorating ]

The Montreal Gazette editorial board suggests that Parizeau’s "stinging critique will prompt the government to pull back from the most odious of the charter provisions it has announced so far."

"It is difficult to see that the charter, as now proposed, has sufficiently strong political legs to stand on anymore," they wrote, in a column published on Friday.

"Parizeau’s intervention makes it less likely that there will be a general election in late fall, and more likely that lingering unhappiness with Marois’s leadership from within the PQ and among its supporters will eventually grow into something stronger."

If Parizeau's words actually had that much power, you'd have to imagine that Bouchard's missive would be just as influential.

(Photo courtesy of the Canadian Press)

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