Bill 84: Quebec tables legislation requiring newcomers to adopt ‘common culture’
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Posted January 30, 2025 11:00 am.
Last Updated January 30, 2025 4:29 pm.
Quebec’s immigration minister tabled a bill Thursday that will require newcomers to adhere to Quebec values like gender equality and secularism.
Bill 84 aims to establish a “common culture” in Quebec as a “vehicle for social cohesion.”
It would modify the provincial charter of rights to state that the exercise of individual rights must comply with the province’s model for integrating immigrants.
“A culture of which the French language is the principal vehicle, and which enables the integration into Quebec society of immigrants and people identifying with cultural minorities,” Immigration Minister Jean-François Roberge said Thursday.
“To this end, the bill details the foundations of this integration model, which is based on the notion of reciprocity, whereby integration into the Quebec nation constitutes a common objective and a shared commitment between Quebec and all those who live there.”
It’s the CAQ government’s way of putting Quebec identity back at the forefront of the political agenda.
“Men and women are equal in Quebec,” Roberge said. “There is a Quebec culture. Multiculturalism says that we don’t have a common culture. We have a common culture.
“We have a Quebec culture. We don’t want ghettos. We want a society. We are the cohesion.”
The bill would require the government to develop a policy on integration into the Quebec nation and its culture, touching on such areas as democratic values, access to Quebec cultural content and respect for the Quebec flag and other provincial emblems.
Roberge says the legislation allows Quebec to “take measures to ensure the continued vitality and sharing of the French language and Quebec culture, and that all Quebecers are expected to cooperate in welcoming immigrants and fostering their integration into the Quebec nation.”
“You come to a country, they can’t stay where they are, but they choose to come here,” he added. “I hope they want to be part of the nation.”
‘We need more time’ to learn French: newcomer
Newcomer José, who did not want to provide his real name nor his country of origin due to his precarious immigration status, says he came to Quebec last October from Central America and was enrolled in Quebec’s French program shortly after.
“We really want to adopt the culture but sometimes we feel rejected by the same society because when people don’t listen to our French, very fluent, they don’t want to speak to us,” José told CityNews.
“I’m a very tolerant person and when I arrived in a new country, I opened my mind, and I like to respect other countries’ policies and culture, and I also like to be respected.”
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Melissa Claisse, a communications and advocacy coordinator at Welcome Collective, says the government is overlooking how committed some newcomers are to being part of Quebec’s cultural fabric.
“Every day I see newcomers at Welcome Collective who work so incredibly hard to learn French quickly,” Claisse said.
“And I think that this law sends a message to newcomers that the government doesn’t recognize those efforts.”
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While trying, José says his struggle to learn French has kept him from getting work and fully integrating.
“At school we are taught French but not actually the culture,” he said. “We need more time, we need other activities and other programs to be integrated and to actually learn the culture.
“They want us to integrate faster, they should create other programs besides francisation. Francisation is not enough. A culture is part of a life, it’s not just the language and we don’t learn it overnight.”
Roberge said the government could update its existing values test for immigrants once the law is passed, and could make integration classes mandatory for new arrivals.
“I would like to see the government take actions that would help people feel more comfortable in Quebec to learn French faster,” said Claisse. “Right now there’s a lot of long wait times for French classes. We’re seeing the government cut in French classes.”
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A ‘moral duty’
The minister previously said 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. Canada has not defined a common culture for the country, Roberge said, and Quebec prefers the idea of interculturalism, focused on integrating immigrants into Quebec culture.
Newcomers have a “moral duty” to adhere to Quebec culture, Roberge said, adding that there will be obligations laid out in the bill — mechanisms to ensure its principles are upheld.
“The bill provides that the government may determine which of the forms of financial assistance that may be granted by the organizations to which the national policy applies must be compatible with the Québec model of national integration and its foundations,” Roberge said.
Roberge says the proposed law would reinforce a sense of belonging and that all Quebecers would be expected to collaborate in welcoming people from different backgrounds.
“The Quebec culture is alive it will change people coming from all around the world, they add something… of course they have to adhere to our fundamental value,” the minister said.
Earlier this week, Roberge rejected the idea that his government, which has been trailing in the polls for more than a year, is falling back on nationalist sentiment to score political points.
Roberge pointed out that the CAQ tabled two other major identity-related bills — its secularism law and its overhaul of the French language law — when the government was leading in public opinion surveys. “Our values don’t change according to the latest polls,” he said.
Roberge said Quebec is under strain from the volume of recent arrivals, and that the government plans to reduce the number of temporary immigrants in Quebec.
–With files from The Canadian Press