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That's surprising to me. Canada has a reputation where I am for being generally pro-immigration and friendly to immigrants. Is this not the case, or is it spe

That's surprising to me. Canada has a reputation where I am for being generally pro-immigration and friendly to immigrants. Is this not the case, or is it specifically different in Quebec?

mmastrac 4y ago
Quebec is effectively a country within a country. Even our legal systems differ in some major ways (this is why you often see contests that aren't valid in Quebec)!
mikrl 4y ago
You have to remember that Canada is not a monolith. Quebec is rather nationalistic for historical reasons. In ways both productive and pathological IMO. I won’t get into it as an Anglo and immigrant but I encourage you to visit QC some time and steep yourself in the culture. Montreal is an incredibly diverse city and then you have Levis across the river from Quebec City which is something like 90%+ white French Canadian. A few of our recent far right terrorists (groups and individuals) came out of Quebec; the historical leftist nationalism associated with the FLQ in the 70s is not the only style anymore.
__turbobrew__ 4y ago
Quebec enacts many policies to protect their culture — french language requirements, banning religious symbols and clothing in certain places and jobs, etc — which make it harder for immigrants (and Canadians from other provinces) to integrate. I don’t think Quebec is anti-immigration, but they expect immigrants to make more of an effort conforming to Quebec culture and identity than other Canadian provinces do.
- 4gotunameagain 4y ago
  shouldn't a small degree of forced uniformity aid in integration ? we've seen in other more liberal communities (Denmark, Sweden) that influx of culturally different immigrants tends to create nuclei of those cultures where they just interact amongst themselves, and never integrate. I would argue that expecting a middle eastern to integrate into a northern European society is a farce.
  - wahnfrieden 4y ago
    that might speak more to danish and swedish culture, biases than to the immigrants. you picked notoriously racist societies with strong public neonazi movements instead of an example like toronto
    - 4gotunameagain 4y ago
      I picked those societies because those are some of the ones I've interacted with therefore can have an opinion. And what I saw was not racism, what I saw was Arab immigrants trying to make Danish schools ban pork, or having a complete disregard to the "tidy" Danish way of life (whether you like that way of life or not)
  - g8oz 4y ago
    >>I would argue that expecting a middle eastern to integrate into a northern European society is a farce. I would argue that if the children of those immigrants are not fitting in then you have a problem. And that problem usually has to do with marginalization. In heavily immigrant areas do the people see themselves reflected in public insitutions? In teaching staff, bus drivers, police? America and Canada have historically been much better at this part than Europe.
    - 4gotunameagain 4y ago
      And how did that end up for America ? A country so fragmented and divided, torn by tensions to the point where recent discussions were mentioning civil war as a possibility, or even as an ongoing thing in a new form. Does immigration offer so much more other than cheap labour ?
      - jszymborski 4y ago
        Immigration is not the cause of polarisation in the US. There is a dangerous precedent of blaming all of a countries problems on immigrants and ethnic groups. Polarisation in the US, in my estimation, has a lot more to do with democratic backsliding [0] cause by economic inequality, populism, cultural conservatism and the concentration of power in the US gov't. Lots of things with much more evidence to point at before you start blaming immigrants. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_backsliding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_backsliding
- jszymborski 4y ago
  I wouldn't say Quebec is anti-immigration, but our leading politicians are. Premiere Francois Legault linked immigration to extremism and violence in the last couple of days [0], and the party who is polling second in terms of percent thinks that immigration should be lowered still [1]. [0] https://ici.radio-canada.ca/rci/en/news/1912126/legault-apologizes-for-comments-citing-extremism-violence-as-reasons-to-limit-immigration https://ici.radio-canada.ca/rci/en/news/1912126/legault-apol... [1] https://www.lesoleil.com/2021/11/21/le-parti-conservateur-du-quebec-veut-moins-dimmigrants-b1bcf3d41cd23fbc1a5606f8234d6cbd https://www.lesoleil.com/2021/11/21/le-parti-conservateur-du...
throwawaysleep 4y ago
Quebec is extremely nationalistic and bigoted.
- jszymborski 4y ago
  well, our politics are.

That's surprising to me. Canada has a reputation where I am for being generally pro-immigration and friendly to immigrants. Is this not the case, or is it specifically different in Quebec?

mmastrac 4y ago

Quebec is effectively a country within a country. Even our legal systems differ in some major ways (this is why you often see contests that aren't valid in Quebec)!

mikrl 4y ago

You have to remember that Canada is not a monolith. Quebec is rather nationalistic for historical reasons. In ways both productive and pathological IMO. I won’t get into it as an Anglo and immigrant but I encourage you to visit QC some time and steep yourself in the culture. Montreal is an incredibly diverse city and then you have Levis across the river from Quebec City which is something like 90%+ white French Canadian. A few of our recent far right terrorists (groups and individuals) came out of Quebec; the historical leftist nationalism associated with the FLQ in the 70s is not the only style anymore.

__turbobrew__ 4y ago

Quebec enacts many policies to protect their culture — french language requirements, banning religious symbols and clothing in certain places and jobs, etc — which make it harder for immigrants (and Canadians from other provinces) to integrate. I don’t think Quebec is anti-immigration, but they expect immigrants to make more of an effort conforming to Quebec culture and identity than other Canadian provinces do.

4gotunameagain 4y ago
shouldn't a small degree of forced uniformity aid in integration ? we've seen in other more liberal communities (Denmark, Sweden) that influx of culturally different immigrants tends to create nuclei of those cultures where they just interact amongst themselves, and never integrate. I would argue that expecting a middle eastern to integrate into a northern European society is a farce.
- wahnfrieden 4y ago
  that might speak more to danish and swedish culture, biases than to the immigrants. you picked notoriously racist societies with strong public neonazi movements instead of an example like toronto
  - 4gotunameagain 4y ago
    I picked those societies because those are some of the ones I've interacted with therefore can have an opinion. And what I saw was not racism, what I saw was Arab immigrants trying to make Danish schools ban pork, or having a complete disregard to the "tidy" Danish way of life (whether you like that way of life or not)
- g8oz 4y ago
  >>I would argue that expecting a middle eastern to integrate into a northern European society is a farce. I would argue that if the children of those immigrants are not fitting in then you have a problem. And that problem usually has to do with marginalization. In heavily immigrant areas do the people see themselves reflected in public insitutions? In teaching staff, bus drivers, police? America and Canada have historically been much better at this part than Europe.
  - 4gotunameagain 4y ago
    And how did that end up for America ? A country so fragmented and divided, torn by tensions to the point where recent discussions were mentioning civil war as a possibility, or even as an ongoing thing in a new form. Does immigration offer so much more other than cheap labour ?
    - jszymborski 4y ago
      Immigration is not the cause of polarisation in the US. There is a dangerous precedent of blaming all of a countries problems on immigrants and ethnic groups. Polarisation in the US, in my estimation, has a lot more to do with democratic backsliding [0] cause by economic inequality, populism, cultural conservatism and the concentration of power in the US gov't. Lots of things with much more evidence to point at before you start blaming immigrants. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_backsliding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_backsliding
jszymborski 4y ago
I wouldn't say Quebec is anti-immigration, but our leading politicians are. Premiere Francois Legault linked immigration to extremism and violence in the last couple of days [0], and the party who is polling second in terms of percent thinks that immigration should be lowered still [1]. [0] https://ici.radio-canada.ca/rci/en/news/1912126/legault-apologizes-for-comments-citing-extremism-violence-as-reasons-to-limit-immigration https://ici.radio-canada.ca/rci/en/news/1912126/legault-apol... [1] https://www.lesoleil.com/2021/11/21/le-parti-conservateur-du-quebec-veut-moins-dimmigrants-b1bcf3d41cd23fbc1a5606f8234d6cbd https://www.lesoleil.com/2021/11/21/le-parti-conservateur-du...

throwawaysleep 4y ago

Quebec is extremely nationalistic and bigoted.

jszymborski 4y ago
well, our politics are.