Amid the upbeat recommendations for moderation and compromise, the report published on Thursday by Quebec academics Gérard Bouchard and Charles Taylor contains a more sombre warning. If exaggerated media reports about supposedly overbearing immigrants were enough to plunge Quebec into what the commissioners call a "psychodrama," what's to prevent another dangerous skid?
The government-commissioned report says the province's French-Canadian majority has the largest share of responsibility for patching up intercultural relations and warns of errors to avoid.
"The most harmful would be to give in to the way of fear, to the temptation of withdrawal and rejection, to play the victim, to fall back on an inheritance that, with the drop in the birth rate, leads to a future that has no long-term horizon - a frozen heritage that isolates and impoverishes," the authors write.
The problem, as seen in the immediate political reaction to the Bouchard-Taylor report, is that playing the victim and invoking a frozen-in-time heritage are the stock-in-trade of at least two of Quebec's main political parties, the Parti Québécois and Action démocratique du Québec. And even the governing Liberals are wary of seeming soft when it comes to the politics of identity.
Instead of looking in the mirror extended by Messrs. Bouchard and Taylor, both PQ leader Pauline Marois and ADQ leader Mario Dumont quickly lashed out at the commissioners for failing to appreciate Quebecers' insecurity about their society's survival.
At a news conference yesterday, Ms. Marois complained that the commissioners did not propose enshrining the "common values" of Quebecers in legislation. She tried to breathe new life into the Quebec Identity Act she introduced last fall, which would require new arrivals to pass a French test before they could become citizens of Quebec and run for office.
Mr. Dumont told reporters the commissioners did not go far enough in protecting "the culture of the majority." Like Ms. Marois, he said the province needs its own constitution to ensure the majority culture and values do not become diluted.
Premier Jean Charest's first response to the report was to introduce a motion rejecting the recommendation that the crucifix be moved from above the Speaker's chair in the National Assembly.
Yesterday he took out full-page ads in Quebec newspapers, with a subtle like-it-or-lump-it message to immigrants: "When one chooses Quebec, one also chooses Quebecers and their values." He also elaborated on his proposal to have immigrants sign a "contract" upon arrival promising to accept Quebec values.
"There are efforts to be made on both sides to ensure that those who come here know exactly where they are coming," he told a radio interviewer. "No one can say after, for example, that they didn't know they were coming to a society where French is the language of work, the language of our society."
Leaving aside the merits of the party's various proposals, the common theme uniting them is that immigration is a threat, a message that is nowhere to be found in the 300 pages written by Messrs. Bouchard and Taylor.
Rather, the authors portray immigrants to Quebec - the majority of whom are selected because they already speak French - as the key to a vibrant francophone Quebec. "From the point of view of French as a language of common usage [and also as mother tongue], it can be said that French-speaking Quebec is alive and well. But with the condition that the circle of identity is enlarged, that there are no barriers - and more specifically no hierarchy - separating different categories of francophones, as if they were not all of the same value."
The initial political response reflects what the report calls the "insecurity of the minority," always present in a people preoccupied with their own survival. Writing yesterday in La Presse, Alain Dubuc praised the Bouchard-Taylor report and said it is time for francophone Quebecers to get over their insecurity and learn how to behave like the majority they are.
"Francophones, who control the state and its institutions, have to assume their role, accept that they have duties and understand that the minorities are more fragile and more vulnerable," he wrote.
The politicians, unfortunately, have decided there are more votes to be found in appealing to people's fears.
National Post
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