Bill 84, An Act respecting national integration

Bill 84 – AN ACT RESPECTING NATIONAL INTEGRATION
THE PARLIAMENT OF QUÉBEC ENACTS AS FOLLOWS:
CHAPTER I
PURPOSE
The purpose of this Act is to establish the Québec national integration
model, which fosters the vitality and preservation of Québec culture as the
common culture and vector for social cohesion. Québec culture, of which the
French language is the main vehicle, enables immigrants and persons identifying
with cultural minorities to integrate into Québec society.
CHAPTER II
MODEL AND FOUNDATIONS
2. The Québec State affirms and establishes the Québec national integration
model. The model is based on the principle of reciprocity according to which
integration into the Québec nation is a common objective and a commitment
shared between the Québec State and all persons living in Québec, including
immigrants and persons identifying with cultural minorities.
3. The common culture, to which all are called upon to adhere and to
contribute, is characterized in particular by the French language, the civil law
tradition, specific institutions, distinct social values, a specific history, and the
importance given to equality between women and men, to the laicity of the
State and to the protection of Québec’s only official and common language.
4. In order to foster adherence and contribution by all to the common culture,
the national integration model requires the welcoming and the full participation,
in French, of immigrant persons and persons identifying with cultural
minorities, and relies on interaction and closer ties between those persons and
persons identifying with the French-speaking majority.
As a distinct host society, the Québec nation has its own integration model,
which counters isolation and withdrawal into specific ethnocultural groups.
The model is distinct from Canadian multiculturalism.

7 March
Special edition of QCGN Network News, one devoted entirely to the recently presented provincial Bill 84 on “intégration nationale,” a broad and powerful bill dedicated to ensuring widespread adherence to “Quebec culture.”
WHY Bill 84 IS IMPORTANT
Along with Quebec’s Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, the Charter of the French Language (Bills 101, 96, what is now called Law 14), and Bill 21, which defines a secular state, Bill 84 will serve as a fourth “pillar” of a proposed Quebec constitution the government of Premier François Legault is expected to advance before the next provincial election in the fall of 2026.
Bill 84 is what is called “framework legislation” – a vague, bare bones bill that will be followed by a formal and more detailed Policy that must be presented within 18 months, as well as regulations spelling out more precisely how the Bill will be applied and enforced.
Because there is so little in it as yet, it is deceptively benign.
The Bill follows Bill 96/Law 14 in cementing not only that French is the official and common language of Quebec, but it suggests, in an unspoken sense, that French is the only language Quebecers should use if they are to be considered full participants in this society.
It also seeks to establish a required adherence to a “Quebec culture” that appears to evoke a narrower, more rigid definition of what that culture is – and what it will exclude. Defining this Quebec culture more precisely is crucial, because the Bill places so much emphasis on the need for all Quebecers to embrace it – not just the newly arrived.
We are especially concerned that this Bill contains no more than a fleeting reference to the English-speaking community of Quebec. This omission is symbolically powerful and can only be interpreted as deliberate. Ours is a community that has played an enormous role in enriching and developing Quebec – economically, culturally, socially and intellectually – for more than two centuries.
We are also bothered by the clear indications that this Bill creates a framework that could lead to restrictions of Quebec financial assistance to organizations and/or events based on the degree they support the proposed national integration model. Others have echoed those concerns.
That this Bill defines Quebec as a quasi-sovereign nation state, is another worry, as is the fact that the Bill, even without the use of the constitutional notwithstanding clause, further subordinates fundamental rights in Quebec.

3 March
Municipalities, rights groups concerned about Quebec bill on integrating immigrants
(Canadian Press via Global) The bill, tabled in January by Quebec’s right-leaning Coalition Avenir Québec government, would have immigrants adhere to shared values including gender equality, secularism and protection of the French language. The legislation is the latest in a series of bills that aim to reinforce Quebec identity, following the province’s secularism law and its overhaul of the language law.
It’s intended as Quebec’s answer to the Canadian model of multiculturalism that promotes cultural diversity, which the government believes is harmful to social cohesion in Quebec. Immigration Minister Jean-François Roberge has said he wants to avoid cultural “ghettos.”
It would also allow the government to make public funding contingent on adherence to a forthcoming integration policy. Roberge has suggested, for example, that festivals could have their funding cut if they don’t promote Quebec’s common culture. That part of the bill has prompted concerns from organizations representing Quebec municipalities, which say it encroaches on municipal autonomy. The Union des municipalités du Québec is calling on the government to scrap that part of the legislation outright.
Could Quebec’s new integration bill alienate minority groups?
Quebec Community Groups Network Director General Sylvia Martin-Laforge joins CJAD 800’s Elias Makos “Bill 84 would put the French language and Quebec identity above basic rights and freedoms,” says Martin-Laforge. She explains why the QCGN is just one of many organizations that believes the bill is too vague and worries what it means for minority group funding for cultural events and what it could mean for the English-speaking community. Makos believes the bill is just solidifying the already existing interculturalism approach in Quebec and thinks there isn’t much to worry about. Meanwhile, opposition continues to mount, with hearings to discuss the bill set to resume March 18.

26-27 February
Integration law should not take precedence over Quebec charter, QESBA tells committee
By Philip Authier
If the government wants to show its immigration integration policy is inclusive, it should accord a formal place to the distinct culture of Quebec’s English-speaking community, one that is different from that of anglophones in the rest of Canada, a committee of the legislature was told Wednesday. And before proceeding with any new laws, regulations and decisions that will probably affect the community, a real consultation process must take place.
This message to the government was delivered Wednesday by the Quebec English School Boards Association (QESBA) on the second day of hearings into the Legault government’s new Bill 84, An Act Respecting National Integration. Considered controversial from the get-go and criticized because of its vague language, the bill hopes to create a social contract with new arrivals based on the principles of interculturalism. “We have been here from the start,” QESBA president Joe Ortona told the committee during a cordial and wide-ranging 45-minute session at the committee. “The anglophone community has existed before the creation of the province of Quebec. “For us all this is important — to recognize the rights we have and to respect them so we can all work together. If we want to be really inclusive and show we are part of the nation and Quebec, there has to be recognition.”
Anglos ‘not the enemy of French in Quebec,’ group tells CAQ
Philip Authier
Representatives of the English-speaking community have accused the Legault government of wanting to write the community out of history with its new immigration integration bill. Appearing before the legislative committee examining Bill 84 Tuesday, the Quebec Community Groups Network presented a strongly worded brief that says the legislation appears to not only to establish French as the official language of Quebec, “but in a very real sense the only language Quebecers should use if they are to be considered full participants of society.”

30-31 January
FIRST READING: Inside Quebec’s new plan to kill multiculturalism
Quebec’s rhetoric isn’t that far off a growing Canadian tendency towards ensuring newcomers adopt ‘shared values’
Quebec immigration minister tables bill requiring newcomers to ‘participate fully, in French’
(Global) The Legault government has now tabled another bill aimed at convincing immigrants to conform to Quebec culture. If adopted, the legislation could lead some community groups and festivals to lose their funding
The Quebec government has tabled legislation that would modify the provincial charter of rights to state that the exercise of individual rights must comply with the province’s model for integrating immigrants.
The bill tabled in the provincial legislature Thursday morning by Immigration Minister Jean-François Roberge requires newcomers to embrace Quebec’s common culture.
‘Enshrining discrimination’: New Quebec plan to integrate immigrants will further stigmatize newcomers, critics say
By Andy Riga
A Quebec human rights organization and a Muslim group say the Legault government’s new immigrant integration plan will further stigmatize newcomers and is designed to force minorities to conform to a narrow vision of Quebec culture. They were reacting to a bill, introduced by the Coalition Avenir Québec government Thursday [30 January], that aims to “foster adherence” to a “common culture.” The government described the proposed law as a new social contract between immigrants and Quebec society.
Bill 84 suggests the province’s culture is characterized by “distinct social values, a specific history, and the importance given to equality between women and men, to the laicity of the State and to the protection of Quebec’s only official and common language,” French. Under the plan, Quebec would not fund groups or events unless they respect Bill 84’s “fundamental principles,” Immigration, Francization and Integration Minister Jean-François Roberge has said. As an example of a group that would receive funding, he referred to an ethnically diverse event featuring artists performing “well-known Quebec songs, but reinterpreted in samba.” The Ligue des droits et libertés on Friday accused the CAQ government of “increasingly conflating immigration with various social problems related to the state’s disengagement.” It cited as examples the housing crisis, homelessness, a lack of daycare spaces and the “disintegration of the health network.”

Multiculturalism is a bad fit for Quebec, immigration minister says
(Montreal Gazette) The minister responsible for immigration has justified the presentation of new legislation on the integration of immigrants by saying he wants to promote a common Quebec culture and less “ghettoization” of new arrivals. Jean-François Roberge, the minister of immigration, francization and integration, said the legislation he will table Thursday will act as a counterweight to the Canadian concept of multiculturalism, which he said remains a bad fit for Quebec because it fails to clearly define a common culture with principles Quebecers believe in. Newcomers need to clearly understand Quebec is different from the rest of Canada when they arrive, Roberge said. He said the proof of the need for a new bill, with a focus on the concept of interculturalism, lies in part in new data produced by Quebec’s French language commissioner showing the children of immigrants identify less with Quebec than their parents did.

Some cultural events may see funding cut under new bill for integration of immigrants