Francesco Coirazza
“Multiculturalism lastly now not applies to Quebec! […] It’s a mannequin that has all the time been dangerous to Quebec,” claimed Minister of the French Language Jean-François Roberge within the salon rouge of the Quebec legislature on 28 Might 2025. On that day, Quebec’s Nationwide Meeting handed Invoice 84: An Act Respecting Nationwide Integration, a controversial legislation launched by the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) authorities. Spearheaded by Roberge, the invoice establishes a brand new integration framework aimed toward preserving Quebec’s French language and cultural identification by shifting additional away from Canada’s multicultural immigration mannequin. Two events that, at one time or one other, have claimed to be on the left voted on the invoice that Wednesday morning. They landed on reverse sides of the ledger. The Parti Québecois (PQ), arguably a social democratic social gathering for a major a part of its existence, voted with the CAQ, whereas the youthful and extra unambiguously leftist Québec solidaire (QS) voted towards the invoice.[1] As we’ll come to acknowledge, these opposing responses underscore a deep ideological cut up inside Quebec’s nationalist Left—one more and more outlined by the immigration query. On this specific case, Invoice 84 can be utilized as a lens to disclose how two progressive events—the PQ and QS—have grown aside (with the PQ making a pointy departure from leftist politics), particularly when contemplating the new matter of immigration in Quebec. By retracing their respective historic progressions, we’re in a position to perceive how nationalism in Quebec can be utilized each as a instrument for exclusion or a basis for solidarity and inclusion alongside cultural strains.
Based in 1968, the Parti Québécois emerged out of the Quiet Revolution and the rising help for Quebec sovereignty. It was initially a celebration of the left, combining social democracy with cultural nationalism. André Bernard outlines how “through the time of its first mandate, from 1976 to 1981, the PQ authorities adopted typical practices that different social-democratic maintained throughout that very same period.” Moreover, Bernard notes, “most PQ members through the seventies known as themselves social-democrats. René Lévesque, their chief, typically outlined himself as such and supported social-democratic resolutions.” [2] The PQ’s first electoral victory in 1976 marked the start of a authorities that emphasised francophone empowerment but additionally advocated progressive measures akin to the mixing of newcomers. As Martin Pâquet explains, PQ insurance policies within the Seventies have been grounded within the concept of “Autant de façons d’être Québécois” (Some ways to be Quebecois) — a pluralist ideology that acknowledged various cultural contributions inside a typical nationwide identification.[3] Immigration quickly diversified below the PQ: by 1980, immigrants from the Maghreb, Latin America, and Southeast Asia made up 53% of Quebec’s immigration consumption, in comparison with 27% in 1973.[4] This elevated acceptance of allophone immigrants mirrored a deliberate coverage of openness in early PQ coverage. Below the PQ within the 70’s there was a way more even enjoying discipline for all potential immigrants, francophones and allophones alike. Gérald Godin, former PQ Minister of Immigration (and, apparently, October Disaster detainee), embodied this inclusive imaginative and prescient. He hoped Quebec would turn into “ a worldwide mannequin, a homeland the place a brotherhood between various peoples may have been achieved.”[5] Godin’s efforts to regularize the standing of 10,000 undocumented Haitians in 1981 (regardless of pressures from the federal authorities) additional confirmed this progressive stance.[6]
Nonetheless, the PQ’s method to immigrant and allophone communities started to shift following the failed 1995 sovereignty referendum. In his concession speech, Premier Jacques Parizeau blamed the loss on “cash and ethnic votes,”[7] a press release that despatched shockwaves via Quebec society. By drawing a transparent line between “actual” Quebecers and immigrants, Parizeau blurred the strains on the inclusive nature of the PQ’s sovereignty mission. This watershed second marked a brand new tack for the PQ on the immigration query, a shift that might assist open the door for a brand new participant on the Quebec left. This shift crystallized throughout Pauline Marois’ PQ authorities (2012–2014). Whereas general immigration was rising in Quebec, the one main dip throughout that interval occurred below Marois, falling from 55,000 to 49,000 immigrants yearly. This drop in immigration may be attributed to adjustments within the Quebec Expert Employee Program (QSWP). Marois’ authorities elevated the burden of French proficiency within the choice course of, allocating as much as 22 factors for language abilities, with a heavy emphasis on superior French.[8] Whereas framed as cultural safety, the impact was to display screen out non-francophone candidates, successfully utilizing francization as a instrument of exclusion somewhat than inclusion, like within the 70’s.
The PQ has since doubled down on this place in recent times. Its 2024 platform, Un Québec libre de ses choix (A Quebec free to decide on), requires reducing short-term immigration in half inside 4 years and lowering everlasting immigration to pre-2003 (that’s, pre-Liberal authorities) ranges. It blames immigrants for strained public companies and frames lowering immigration as an answer to the query of integration within the province. Part 5.1.1 contrasts the PQ and Liberal eras when it comes to the immigration query: “The companies weren’t in a state of fixed strain as is the case at the moment, with amongst different issues the opening of 1267 reception lessons to answer this wave of migration.”[9] This place helps clarify the PQ’s final help for Invoice 84. Whereas chief Paul St-Pierre Plamondon criticized the CAQ for hypocrisy—proposing new integration legal guidelines whereas reducing francization funding—he emphasised the necessity to scale back immigration ranges as the true resolution. “The underside line,” St-Pierre Plamondon said, is that “if [the government does not] management the degrees of immigration [. . .] [they] can desk payments all [they] need [. . .] the monetary and political selections of the CAQ communicate for themselves.”[10] St-Pierre Plamondon focused the problem of excessive immigration numbers below the CAQ authorities regardless of it having no direct correlation with the introduction of the invoice. Like Parizeau in 1995, his message is evident: Quebec’s cultural cohesion is threatened by demographic range.
Whereas the PQ shifted towards cultural protectionism, Québec Solidaire (QS) emerged in 2006 to reclaim a progressive imaginative and prescient of sovereignty. Fashioned in direct opposition to Lucien Bouchard’s 2005 manifesto, Pour un Québec lucide (For a lucid Quebec), QS merged grassroots activism with Left parliamentary politics. Its founding paperwork, just like the 2006 Manifeste pour un Québec solidaire (Manifesto for a united Quebec), made it clear: sovereignty was a instrument to attain a socially democratic, inclusive state.[11] From the outset, QS framed immigration as important to that imaginative and prescient. The manifesto argued for increasing immigration and recognizing the credentials of newcomers. A decade later, the 2017 Présentation de Québec solidaire (Presentation of Québec solidaire) reaffirmed this stance, emphasizing the “ethical and political duty to welcome refugee people and households” and asserting that “Quebec can be enriched by the contribution of individuals belonging to totally different immigrant communities.”[12] For QS, inclusion and cultural autonomy are mutually reinforcing. This notion is additional echoed by students akin to Eric Montigny who claims that “concerning immigration [. . .] up to date Québec nationalism is pluralistic because it depends upon the flexibility of the state to welcome extra residents to the nation.”[13]
QS’ dedication to immigration was on full show throughout a press convention over Invoice 84. QS spokesperson Ruba Ghazal denounced the CAQ’s resolution to chop integration funding whereas demanding better efforts for immigrant integration. “If [M. Roberge] needs to place a legislation about integration,” she mentioned, “he shouldn’t minimize the mixing measures of his authorities.” Ghazal’s response highlights QS’s basic perception: that profitable francization requires funding, not restriction. QS’s critique additionally resisted the scapegoating of immigrants for the province’s challenges. “The federal government ought to cease pointing to immigration as the reason for all the issues that the federal government creates,” Ghazal argued “the way in which to resolve this downside is to put money into public companies like well being and training.” [14] This displays a constant social democratic lens: blame systemic underfunding, not immigrants. Importantly, QS’s method to nationalism facilities on inclusion, not exclusion. Their 2024 initiative, Nouveau Québec, promotes sovereignty to youthful generations via a story of shared belonging. A quote from Ghazal, herself a Palestinian-born Québécoise, precisely encapsulates the marketing campaign: “I’ve two nations, however no nation. I need my nation of Quebec.”[15] Her assertion captures the social gathering’s effort to assemble a nationwide identification that embraces range somewhat than retreating from it. Scholar Catherine Xhardez observes that QS, not like the CAQ or PQ, doesn’t marketing campaign on immigration thresholds. This silence is strategic: it positions immigration as a social good somewhat than an issue to be managed. Additional, the immigration query is just not merely diminished to numbers in QS’s method. Xhardez and Mireille Paquet write that “immigration is now a subject round which elections may be fought and received,” but QS persistently resists utilizing immigration stats and numbers as planks of their coverage.[16]
The reactions to Invoice 84 reveal two divergent paths for purportedly progressive events in Quebec politics. The Parti Québécois, as soon as a celebration that welcomed range below the guise of Quebec nationalism, has steadily come to equate sovereignty with cultural defensiveness. From Gérald Godin’s inclusive imaginative and prescient to Jacques Parizeau’s ethnic blame and now Paul St-Pierre Plamondon’s outright anti-immigration stance, the PQ’s trajectory reveals a celebration more and more outlined by a narrowing imaginative and prescient of Quebec society and nationalism—one which does embody outsiders. In distinction, Québec Solidaire has used that exact same nationalist framework to argue for a extra open, pluralist Quebec. For QS, sovereignty is a basis for social justice and equitable inclusion. Its rejection of Invoice 84 indicators its true dedication to left politics, not like the PQ, which is hardly acknowledged as a leftist social gathering anymore. It displays a dedication to the concept Quebec tradition and language can thrive via solidarity, somewhat than exclusion.
Francesco Coirazza is a third-year historical past undergraduate pupil at McGill College. His work primarily offers with the historical past of immigration and Quebec.
[1] Thomas Laberge, “Roberge Veut Renvoyer Le Multiculturalisme Dans Les « limbes De L’histoire »,” La Presse, final modified Might 28, 2025, https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/politique/2025-05-28/roberge-veut-renvoyer-le-multiculturalisme-dans-les-limbes-de-l-histoire.php. Translated by creator.
[2] André Bernard, “Le Parti québécois, parti social-démocrate: les années du pouvoir (1976-1985),” in La social-démocratie en cette fin de siècle / Late Twentieth-Century Social Democracy (PUQ, 2011), 115, https://canadacommons.ca/artifacts/1881987/la-social-democratie-en-cette-fin-de-siecle/2631342/view/?web page=5. Translated by creator.
[3] Martin Pâquet, “Les normes du contrat 1968-1981,” in Tracer les marges de la cité: étranger, immigrant et Etat au Québec, 1627-1981 (Montréal: Boréal, 2005), 201. Translated by creator.
[4] Pâquet, “Les normes du contrat”, 203. Translated by creator.
[5] Erik Ok. Desrosiers, Nationalisme et racisme: Analyse de dix ans de discours du Parti Québécois à l’égard des communautés minoritaires du Québec (1981-1990) (McGill College, 1992), 43, https://proxy.library.mcgill.ca/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/nationalisme-et-racisme-analyse-de-dix-ans/docview/304048008/se-2. Translated by creator.
[6] Robert McKenzie, “Quebecers Warming As much as Immigrants,” The Toronto Star, March 24, 1988, A26, https://www.proquest.com/hnptorontostar/docview/1364742564/5583284AF144A0DPQ/14?accountid=12339&sourcetype=Newspapers
[7] Chaîne du Québec, “Jacques Parizeau – 30 octobre 1995,” YouTube, October 30, 1995, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y61a2Vh-NdY. Translated by creator.
[8] Éditeur officielle du Québec, Gazette officielle du Québec: Legal guidelines and Rules, Vol. 145, No. 29, (Montréal: Bibliothèque nationale du Québec, 2013), https://www.publicationsduquebec.gouv.qc.ca/fileadmin/gazette/pdf_encrypte/gaz_entiere/1329-A.pdf.
[9] Parti Québécois, Un Québec libre de ses choix: pour un modèle viable en immigration (Québec Metropolis: L’Assemblée nationale du Québec, 2024), 70, https://pq.org/independance/plan-immigration/. Translated by creator.
[10] Montréal Gazette, “PQ skeptical of the CAQ’s promise of a brand new mannequin for integrating immigrants,” YouTube, January 28, 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SbtR-fFHJE.
[11] Françoise David, Manifeste pour un Québec solidaire, (Montréal, 2006), https://classiques.uqam.ca/contemporains/finances_publiques_qc/manifeste_qc_solidaire. Translated by creator.
[12] Québec Solidaire, Présentation de Québec Solidaire, (Montréal: Comité régional de formation de Québec solidaire Capitale-nationale, 2017), https://api-wp.quebecsolidaire.web/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/PrepercentCCpercent81sentation-de-QUEpercentCCpercent81BEC-SOLIDAIRE_2017.pdf. Translated by creator.
[13] Eric Montigny, “A New Get together System Linked to the Evolution of Quebec Nationalism,” French Politics 21, no. 3 (June/July 2023): 261, https://doi.org/10.1057/s41253-023-00222-3.
[14] Montreal Gazette, “Legault’s name for relocating asylum seekers is ‘extremely irresponsible,’ Québec solidaire says,” YouTube, October 3, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYQQqIX7PXk.
[15] Québec Solidaire, “Construisons ensemble un Pays qui nous ressemble,” accessed June 11, 2025, https://www.nouveauquebec.information/. Translated by creator.
[16] Catherine Xhardez, “Chapitre 12 L’immigration et l’élection québécoise de 2018,” in Nouvelles dynamiques de l’immigration au Québec, (Montréal: Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 2022) https://doi.org/10.1515/9782760646049-013; Catherine Xhardez and Mireille Paquet, “Past the Standard Suspects and In the direction of Politicisation: Immigration in Quebec’s Get together Manifestos, 1991–2018,” Journal of Worldwide Migration and Integration 22, no. 2 (August 2020): 675, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-020-00764-3.
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