Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to distinguish between “diversity”, which is a state of affairs, and “multiculturalism”, which is a political choice. My colleagues from other parties do not seem to see the difference.
People can be against multiculturalism without being against diversity. We are not at all against diversity, but we are against this policy.
Some of the eminent academics who have examined the matter, including some in English Canada, say that multiculturalism can work. Others say it does not. However, it only ever works in one context: English Canada. It works when one's culture is dominant and one can be fairly certain that everyone else will be integrated eventually.
Those academics, those intellectuals, all say that this kind of policy will never work for a minority nation. My people, the Quebec nation, we are a minority. Imposing multiculturalism on a minority nation does not work. That has been our experience. That is not how we integrate people. Academics agree that it will not work.
It is often said that multiculturalism is a beautiful mosaic, but what is a mosaic? If people look closely, they will see small stones surrounded by cement. Creating small cement barriers between people is not an approach that works for us. What we want is for the cultures to integrate and for people to live in harmony, not just tolerate each other. We have a lot to learn from newcomers from every culture, from the people from different cultural communities who come to live among us. We do not just want to tolerate each other and live side by side separated by small cement barriers. We believe in integration. That is all that my colleague is proposing.
When I spoke about intellectuals from English Canada, I was thinking, for example, of Will Kymlicka, Evelyn Kallen and Vince Seymour Wilson, those great thinkers of Canadian multiculturalism.
According to them, multiculturalism can be a good policy for English Canada. They say that organic integration must be done by the so-called dominant society or majority, not by a minority nation.
All of these great thinkers agree that things are different in Quebec. Canada's multiculturalism cannot be transposed on Quebec.
That is all that my colleague said, but what contempt from some colleagues in the other parties. They are saying that Quebec does not want diversity, but this is not the case. There is a lot of confusion.
Quebec does not believe that multiculturalism is necessary to integrate diversity. There is a lot of confusion here, and everything is being mixed up.
Evelyn Kallen, a professor at York University in Toronto, sorts it all out in her book entitled Multiculturalism: Ideology, Policy and Reality. In it, she says that diversity is a reality, a state of affairs. Liking or disliking diversity is a feeling. As she points out, multiculturalism is one policy among many others. Nothing more. This policy may be appropriate in some places, perhaps more so in English Canada. I will leave that up to my colleagues to decide. I am not part of English Canada, so it is not up to me to debate it. That is up to them, but Quebec should be able to deal with its own affairs; we should not have decisions made for us.
Quebec is a diverse society, a welcoming society, a pluralistic society. We are not all alike in Quebec, and that is just fine. I believe that it is not enough to simply tolerate difference; one must love it. Difference challenges me, it makes me question things and forces me to evolve. It enriches me and makes me a better person, which I like. Interaction is needed for that to happen. For interaction to take place, we need a minimum of shared values on which we agree well enough that we can understand one another when we talk. This means we need a language we all understand, a common language. That is how we will interact, and mix and blend together. In Quebec we often say that we are a tight-knit bunch, but Boucar Diouf came up with the expression that Quebeckers like so much, “se métisser serré”, basically saying we are a tightly-knit diverse nation. That is how we like it, and that is how we will be able to live together, and not just side by side. That is how we are going to build the Quebec I love so much.
We must work together to pursue this great adventure of building an original society on this North American land. To achieve that, we, as Quebeckers, must be the ones to decide how we will interact with one another and how we will manage our differences in order to live together harmoniously.
The bill introduced by my esteemed colleague from Montcalm is simply intended to allow that. Nothing else.
The rest of Canada is the majority society. Not only that, but English Canadian culture, spread through the English language, is part of the dominant global culture. The same cannot be said of Quebec culture. I would like to quote from page 19 of the Bouchard-Taylor commission's report:
...the Canadian multiculturalism model does not appear to be well adapted to conditions in Québec.
Generally speaking, it is in the interests of any community to maintain a minimum of cohesion. It is subject to that condition that a community can adopt common orientations, ensure participation by citizens in public debate, create the feeling of solidarity required for an egalitarian society to function smoothly, mobilize the population in the event of a crisis, and take advantage of the enrichment that stems from ethnocultural diversity. For a small nation such as Québec, constantly concerned about its future as a cultural minority, integration also represents a condition for its development, or perhaps for its survival.
I think these few sentences say it all. I will repeat the last part of the sentence about Quebec, because I think it captures the issue perfectly: integration also represents a condition for its development, or perhaps for its survival.
Canada has chosen multiculturalism. That is its right. Canada is gambling on the idea that integration into the dominant society will naturally occur in the globally dominant language and culture. That may work, but Canada has no right to impose this model on Quebec, a minority nation.
The Canadian mosaic, as it is called, is not suitable for Quebec. As I have said, I am a Quebecker. I would not ask Canadians to become Quebeckers, nor would I ask Canada to change its diversity management policy to something that would suit Quebec better. That is not what we are asking for. All I want is for Canada to show the same respect for Quebec's choices.