Ouebec’s proposed law will enforce ‘common culture’ on immigrants
Quebec will formally distance itself from Canadian multiculturalism in legislation to be tabled on Thursday that will outline a “common culture” that newcomers must embrace, Immigration Minister Jean-François Roberge has announced.
The proposed law will include mechanisms to enforce adherence to values such as gender equality and secularism, Mr. Roberge told reporters in Quebec City on Tuesday, although he offered no details about how. The bill will try to prevent the “ghettoization” of immigrant communities by defining a social contract that will emphasize French as the official language of Quebec.
“We will be pretty clear. We are a nation, we have a culture, we have democratic values,” he said. “And people coming here must accept that.”
The legislation is part of an effort by the governing Coalition Avenir Québec to “integrate” immigrants into francophone Quebec society and impose a set of cultural values on the province as a whole. Bill 21, passed in 2019, prevents some public sector workers including teachers from wearing visible religious symbols such as hijabs. The Supreme Court of Canada announced last week that it would hear a legal challenge to the law mounted by a variety of civil society groups.
The place of immigrants in Quebec has been under renewed scrutiny since the controversy around a Montreal school last fall where a group of teachers, largely of North African descent, were accused of creating a toxic climate and avoiding parts of the curriculum that clashed with their values. A government report on the situation spurred investigations of 17 public schools over claims of Muslim religious practices emerging in classrooms across the province.
Opposition parties also pointed out that Premier François Legault has overseen the cancellation of French-language classes for immigrants affecting thousands of students because of budget cuts last year, programs widely seen as helpful in integrating newcomers.
“The financial and political decisions of the CAQ over the past seven years, they speak for themselves,” Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon told reporters. “I think they’re very much oriented toward communications and political tactics.”
Ruba Ghazal, spokesperson of the leftist Québec Solidaire, accused Mr. Legault’s party of reviving the issue of multiculturalism to score political points. “Mr. Roberge and the CAQ government always play the identity and nationalism card to distract from their real actions,” she said.
The Immigration Minister insisted that the government’s motivations went deeper than short-term political gain. Quebec has never accepted the concept of Canadian multiculturalism, first outlined in a 1971 policy to promote cultural diversity and enshrined in law in 1988, Mr. Roberge said.
This article was first reported by The Globe and Mail
