Organizers of culturally diverse festival reject Premier Legault’s comments on multiculturalism
Posted June 26, 2022 11:27 am.
In the wake of Quebec Premier Francois Legault’s controversial comments about culture in the province, a festival took place to celebrate multiculturalism.
The inaugural edition of the Montreal Multicultural Festival at the Quartier des Spectacles showcased the city’s diverse communities on Saturday.
“I’m as Quebecois as somebody who lives in Sherbrooke or lives in the Gaspésie. We’re all Quebecois,” said festival attendee Brian Smith.
“I just know that there’s a large immigrant population here in Montreal,” added festival organizer Kidel Reid. “I mean, that is what Quebec is about, right? I’ve been hearing the word interculturalism of late, but we’re still about multiculturalism because as much as we are a part of Quebec, we are still who we are and we cannot hide that.”
The day-long event featured performances by Latinx, Caribbean, Indigenous groups. It was intended to strengthen and unite Montreal communities while combatting discrimination through awareness, education, and interaction with various cultures.
“We want to give back to the community and we want to highlight what we’re doing, so we couldn’t think of a better way to do it than to do a public event,” said Reid, the president of the Multicultural and Diversity Project
This comes after Legault recently made comments ahead of the province’s national holiday St-Jean-Baptiste. The Quebec premier said he is against the idea of multiculturalism and that it’s a threat to the French language and Quebec culture.
“It’s important that we don’t put all cultures all the same level,” he said.
“We have one culture, Quebec culture.”
On Saturday, festival goers and organizers strongly disagreed with Legault’s remarks.
“I love multiculturalism despite what Mr. Legault says, he’s for this interculturalism. Multicultural is everybody has the opportunity to share what they want to give to the community. Everybody, we’re all equal. There’s no one culture that is more important than others,” said Smith.
“We understand that we’re all Quebecers,” added Reid. “We all want to speak French. We all do speak French for the most part, because to function as a civil citizen here in Quebec, you have to, you can’t really go around it. So I would only tell him that people want to be a part of Quebec, but still they don’t want to give up their culture. They want to speak their own language at home, whether it be French, Spanish, English. They want to have the right to do so.”
For Caribbean dancer Shiata Lewis says being able to identify with one’s cultural background gives you a real sense of belonging.
“We realize that culturally as a people we have a lot more things in common than things that divide us and separate us, right?” said Lewis, the artistic director of West-Can Folk Performing Co. “So we don’t look at the petty little differences that we have in terms of the skin color, our language as a people.
“When you’re connected to your cultural roots in your heritage, you understand that we’re all one.”
