I'll speak in French, so you'll have the translation in English and then back into German.
My name is Thierry St-Cyr and I am a member of the Bloc Québécois, like Mr. Robert Carrier. Since your arrival on Parliament Hill, you have probably heard talk about the Bloc Québécois, a party that runs candidates only in Quebec and that believes Quebec should be an independent country. In the meantime, we work with our colleagues here in Canada, in order to move things forward.
I am very pleased that you are here today. I must tell you that I like Germany very much, having been there several times, including to Berlin, Hamburg, Baden-Baden and, of course to Munich, which is rather my favourite. I must admit to you that I had the opportunity to go to the real Oktoberfest, in Munich, and that I really enjoyed it.
I wanted to talk a bit with you about models of integration that coexist and, in certain cases, one might say, are in opposition to each other in Canada. In fact, if you are going to be in Montreal tomorrow, you should speak to representatives of the ministère de l'Immigration et des Communautés culturelles du Québec. It might be interesting to see how the Quebecois model is different and go back home with two models in mind. You could certainly take what appears to be most interesting from them.
As far as integration is concerned, once we have chosen our immigrants—because Quebec chooses in own immigrants under an agreement it has with the Canadian government—how do we integrate those people into society? You spoke of this earlier.
Since the 1970s in Canada, there has been a model of Canadian multiculturalism that is enshrined in the Constitution, according to which several cultures coexist but do not necessarily mix with each other. People come here, and Canada is made up of all these cultures. For example, when we are gathering statistics and people are asked what their origin is, there is a very small majority of people who say they are of Canadian descent. Most say they are of Hungarian, Greek or Brazilian descent, among others.
In Quebec, we have a model we call interculturalism, that is to say we believe that there is a common culture into which each immigrant must integrate, that he must contribute to, but from which he must also adopt common values, traditions and a way of living. This is often a source of disagreement between Quebec and the rest of Canada, because we have two very different ways of seeing integration. Multiculturalism is several cultures coexisting in Canada, and interculturalism is a common culture in Quebec with contributions coming from citizens of various origins.
Have you heard about these different visions between the governments, and in Germany, which one would you be closest to?