Québec to force "newcomers" to adopt "common culture"

What follows is excerpted from a report in the Groan & Wail, Canada's national snoozepaper.

Québec’s immigration minister says newcomers to the province need to embrace the “common culture,” as the government looks to put Québec identity back at the forefront of the political agenda. 

The Québec government will table a new bill Thursday on the integration of immigrants, which will require newcomers to adhere to Québec values like gender equality and secularism. 

"We will be pretty clear. We are a nation, we have a culture, we have democratic values," Immigration Minister Jean-François Roberge told reporters in Québec City as the provincial legislature resumed Tuesday following the holiday break. "And people coming here must accept that." (Walt's emphasis.)

M Roberge said the bill aims to prevent "ghettoization" of immigrant communities by defining a social contract that will emphasize French as the official language of Québec. He said Québec 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, the minister said, and Québec prefers the idea of interculturalism, focused on integrating immigrants into Québec culture. Newcomers have a "moral duty" to adhere to Québec culture, M Roberge said, adding that there will be obligations laid out in the bill – mechanisms to ensure its principles are upheld, though he offered no details.

Walt doubts that most Québécois would equate "gender equality" and "secularism" with traditional Québec values. Obviously M Roberge has in mind the new, woke, "progressive" values which have been imported from the US of A -- the ones he refers to as "democratic values". There should be a capital D there.

Nevertheless, Walt thinks making "newcomers" -- presumably including the bogus refugees and asylum-seekers which Québec is trying to push into other provinces -- adapt to the values and customs of their unwilling hosts, rather than the other way around, is a good idea. Many people in the rest of Canuckistan will wish their governments had the cojones to follow this course. 

Note from Ed.: I had a hard time finding an appropriate illustration of "Québec values". That tells you all ye know and all ye need to know about this subject.