Immigration.ca - Canada Immigration News - February 2007
On the eve of an election in Quebec, MPs in the province are in a heated and often contradicting debated over just how far society should go to accommodate religious and ethnic minorities in Quebec. According to former Liberal citizenship and immigration minister Denis Coderre, the debate is getting out of hand.
MP Irwin Cotler said the debate is escalating when it shouldn't be and a number of things are getting swept up into the debate that have nothing to do with the legal concept of accommodation.
While Premier Jean Charest and Parti Quebecois leader Andre Boisclair have sided in favor of accommodating minorities, Action Democratique leader Dumont has suggested the burden is on minorities to adapt.
Luc Harvey, Conservative MP for the Quebec City riding of Louis Hebert, has said that Quebec is an open society but that over accommodating is unacceptable when it affects gender equality. Harvey is quoted as saying, "Women should be seen as equal to men, nothing else. Those who have a problem with that, this is not where they should be living."
Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe said public institutions are secular and it is up to immigrants to integrate into Quebec society - but it is also up to society to ease that integration.
Following all these debates, the Quebec Human Rights Commission will hold a “broad consultation on the real and the imagined problems of accommodating newcomers to the province”. The commission will ask organizations that deal with immigrant communities to deal with their specific experiences.
The research and consultations “could take months”, and will provide a more reasoned forum to debate the issues.
Source:
The Gazette
Thursday, February 08, 2007
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/story.html?id=ff14db53-7bae-43fe-816c-1d77505b013e
