The Notion Of Cultural Identity in Quebec’s Political Discourses

The article that follows is included in a collection of scientific papers (it is preceded by the

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You can freely quote this article provided that you mention the following bibliographical

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Author: PETKOV, Yavor

Title: The Notion Of Cultural Identity in Quebec’s Political Discourses

Name of the volume : Fulbright International Summer Institute – 2013, Ph.D. Student’s

Forum: Transatlantic Dialogues in the Field of Social Sciences /ISBN 978-954-07-3755-3/

Pages: pp. 95-112

Year of publication: 2014

Publisher: “Alma Mater” University Complex for Social Sciences (Sofia University) /

University Press “St. Kliment Ohridski”

Place of publication: Sofia (Bulgaria)

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BY THE AUTHOR AND THE PUBLISHER

THE NOTION OF CULTURAL IDENTITY IN QUEBEC’S POLITICAL

DISCOURSES

Yavor Petkov

THE NOTION OF CULTURAL IDENTITY IN QUEBEC’S POLITICAL

DISCOURSES

Yavor Petkov, Sofia University “St. Kliment Ochridski”, Bulgaria

1. Introduction

Since the beginning of the 1980s, following the Quiet Revolution, modern Quebec has

“decided to be […] definitely pluralist” (I: 24)1. The Canada-Quebec Accord concerning

immigration and temporary admission of foreigners, which was enacted in 1991, sanctions

Quebec’s exclusive right to control the selection of the permanent immigrants who have

chosen to settle in its territory. The Montreal region is particularly involved in this process,

since, according to the census of 2001, 70 % of the persons born abroad and present in

Quebec live in Montreal. In 2004, Montreal hosts more than 120 cultural communities (ibid.)

of which 51% have declared to be members of a “visible minority”. The immigration policy

statement In Quebec to Build Together2 (1990) depicts a highly diversified society in terms of

cultural identities whose various ingredients interact one with another. While the first

Québécois immigration policy statement, Many Ways to Be Québécois3 (1981) insisted on the

idea of “convergence”, i.e. a “common direction towards the same point” (Quebec

Government 1981: 3), which derived from a “heavy and demanding definition of Québécois

citizenship” (Sévigny 2008: 89) and from a “concealed will to assimilate” (Labelle 1997: 20),

and while “the Québécois culture must be above all a French one” (Quebec Government

1981: 189), the statement of 1991 asserts that the onus for a successful integration is both on

the newcomers and on the Québécois society (cf. the much talked [95] about “moral contract”

that represents one of the milestones of the process of shaping Quebec’s pluralist policy; this

notion, as highlighted by Labelle, will later be transformed into the notion of “shared public

culture” (Labelle 2012). Quebec’s immigration policy falls within the global framework of the

Quebec-made multiculturalism known as interculturalism, which D. Karmis qualifies as an

“integrationist nationalism”:

1 All passages quoted here that are originally written in French are translated by the author for the needs of this

paper. 2 French title: "Au Québec pour bâtir ensemble"

3 French title: "Autant de façons d’être québécois"

“a conflation of civic identity and an integrationist

variant of cultural identity […]”. (Karmis 2003:

109).

Following the Trudeau government’s declaration, Canada adopted multiculturalism as a

structuring principle of the Canadian federal state. But the Canadian civic and multicultural

nationalism of the Trudeauists equates the identity and the political claims of the nations of

Canada with the ones of the ethno-cultural communities originating in recent immigration. In

general, Trudeau would clearly oppose to any kind of territorial nationalism, which he

deemed retrograde and unreasonable. This concept clashed with Quebec’s vision according to

which nationalism and the claim for political recognition of the cultural specificities of

Quebec are part of its survival strategy, of its effort to withstand assimilation by the

Anglophone community. Waddington et al. use rather strong terms to describe the attitude of

the Québécois towards multiculturalism:

“Multiculturalism is, on the whole, a dirty word in

Québec. This is not because Québécois are

particularly xenophobic […] [but rather on the

grounds that] the Canadian government’s policy of

multiculturalism is a betrayal of Québec’s historical

status within the Canadian federation and

undermines Québec’s grounds for seeking greater

political autonomy from Canada” (Waddington et al.

2012: 312).

Quebec’s effort to build a society relying on the dialogue between cultures while

remaining faithful to its national cause and to the promotion of the French language is

considered by many observers to be the most successful attempt to apply the pluralist ideal, “a

promising [95] “middle way” between the hegemonic tendencies of strict republicanism and

the centrifugal tendencies of multiculturalism” (Waddington et al. 2012: 327), “a middle way

between assimilation and the mere juxtaposition of cultures” whose primary advantage lies in

its flexible, adaptable nature (Coulon 2010: 13), “a third way between a Canadian

multiculturalism that has been accused of essentialising cultures and isolating them one from

another […] and French Jacobinism […].” (Mc Andrew 2003: 351).

According to other observers, e.g. Leroux (2010), Quebec’s policy remains marked by

nationalism and the recognition of otherness is a fallacy. Finally, other critiques find that there

is not any substantial difference between the two lines of policy. D. Salée (as quoted by

Leroux) for instance not only highlights the similarity between the two philosophies, but

relativizes them, as their implementation tends to compromise them:

“[D]espite the lofty and humanist ideals that are said

to inform their respective understandings of

diversity management, both are susceptible to

straying away from those ideals or implementing

them without much conviction.” (Leroux 2010:

113).

In all the cases, like multiculturalism, interculturalism relies on a specific notion of

cultural identity. In my opinion, even though it is the central concept on which the two

political visions rely, cultural identity remains a vague term. Despite the fact that culture is

defined more or less clearly in the Larose Commission’s report (only in 2001), I find it

necessary to articulate this understanding by exploring its manifestation in official political

discourses. On the other hand, the very fact of using concepts such as cultural identity,

cultural community, etc. has been acutely criticised by certain thinkers like Labelle, who

qualifies this discursive act as a “categorisation”:

“One of the perverse effects of the federal and

Québécois policies concerns the governmental and

administrative categorisation of the groups […]. The

distinction between the Québécois (as associated

[97] with the ex-French Canadians) and the cultural

communities (as associated with the minority

groups) jeopardises the full Québécois citizenship in

the broad sense of the word” (Labelle 1997: 22).

In this respect, she cites the statement of an ethno-cultural group leader (the quote is

taken from her poll of 1995): “Many among the Lebanese oppose to them being called

immigrants. They are Québécois... I can’t stand people saying either neo-Québécois, or

cultural minorities, or ethnic groups; it gives me the impression of being in a kind of a zoo”

(Labelle 1997: 23).

The present paper aims at delimiting as concretely as possible what the political

statements to study mean under the term of cultural identity. My corpus will be limited to four

statements from the 1990-2006 period that contain more or less general reflections on cultures

and their interactions, and thus lend themselves to the objective of the paper (two among these

documents were thoroughly studied by Sévigny, who shows that “from the perspective of a

“unity-diversity” continuum, Quebec often turns out to be on the side of unity”, Sévigny

2008: 129). The documents to study will namely be the following: the 1990 immigration and

integration policy statement In Quebec to Build Together (referred to hereinafter as I), the

2001 statement French : a Language for Everyone4 of the Commission of the General

Assemblies regarding the State and the Future of the French language in Quebec, commonly

referred to as the Larose Commission (II), the Action Plan of the Montreal Region in the Field

of Immigration, Integration and Intercultural Relations of 2006 (III), and the 2005

consultation document titled The Full Participation of the Black Communities in Quebec’s

Society5 (IV). For the sake of objectivity, I opt for a structuralist hence ideologically neutral

analysis. If I should use Saussure’s terminology, I will try to define the signified of the term of

cultural identity as conveyed by the discourses under study. [98]

2. What is cultural identity?

Ingredients

The Larose Commission provides an explicit definition of culture in the glossary at the

end of the report. Other passages of the text are also revealing of the fundamental ingredients

of cultural identity in the authors’ minds:

“By uniting the values, the knowledge, and the

institutions of the Québécois people, which find

their expression in various activities and in an

artistic, intellectual, and material production, as well

as in certain original symbols, the Québécois culture

is naturally in the centre of the Québécois identity,

hence citizenship.” (II:14)

Therefore, culture is moulded out of values (ethical ingredients), knowledge (civilizational

ingredients), and institutions (political ingredients). It manifests itself through artistic,

intellectual, and material productions, and it produces its own “original symbols”. It is

incumbent to the school to pass this culture on. The school should transmit “knowledge and

4 French title: “Le français, une langue pour tout le monde”

5 French title: “ La pleine participation à la société québécoise des communautés noires”

know-how and teach how to discover and understand the world that we live in [i.e.

civilizational ingredients], as well as the knowledge of the public and citizen life [i.e. political

ingredients]” (II: 37). As already specified earlier, the Larose Commission’s report provides

itself a consistent definition of what culture is that confirms what I just discovered:

“Culture: A set of signs, symbols, values,

institutions, artistic, intellectual, and material

products on the basis of which individuals and

groups organise their perception of the world in

order to build a universe of meaning that should

allow them to construe their experiences, and

orientate their actions and their personal and group

life. ” (II: 224).

This definition lends additional features to the notion of cultural identity. Culture appears

to be a way of organising the perception of the world. It allows building a “universe of

meaning”, a consistent [99] perception of an intelligible world, which goes in the same

direction as the image of nationalism provided by Graefe:

“Nationalism also produces a series of universally

shared codes, symbols, and meanings which not only

entail a certain representation of the world, but also

help the nation join the international economy”

(Graefe 2003: 487-488).

It is thanks to this intelligibility of the world that individuals are able to lend meaning to

their existence: it helps them understand their past (“experiences”) and project their future,

both socially and personally (“their actions, and their personal and group life”). I can

therefore extend the list of the ingredients of culture (ethical, civilizational, and political) with

its cognitive or psychological ingredients. Culture also comprises two levels of impact: the

individual one (“individuals”) and the collective one (“groups”).

Manifestations

The Action Plan of the Montreal Region enumerates the ways in which cultural diversity,

i.e. the coexistence of multiple cultural identities, influences the social and material

environment of life:

“Cultural diversity, the number of immigrants, and

the members of the cultural communities influence

life in the neighbourhoods, school life for the young

and their parents, family relations, cultural and

spare-time activities, the public services, the

economic activities, and the professional sphere.”

(III: 9).

The effects of having a cultural identity can therefore be found at the level of collective or

social life (life in the neighbourhoods, cultural and spare-time activities), family life, political

life, and economic life.

In The Full Participation of the Black Communities in Quebec’s society, the

contribution of these communities to the construction of the Québécois identity is materialised

through their artistic, intellectual, and civic input: [100]

“The black population has participated in the

development of Quebec in terms of culture,

scientific research and the development of the

Québécois institutions, and namely in the field of

healthcare and education. […] The jazzmen have

been animating the Montreal cultural life since the

beginning of the 20th

century. […] The black

population also proved its attachment to the country

by participating in its defence. Black soldiers were

part of the troops that withstood the American

invasion of 1812.” (IV: 1)

I can now draw two conclusions: cultural identity shapes life in society, as well as family

life, political life, and professional life. As regards the interactions between the various

cultural identities (in the present case, those between the Québécois identity and the black

communities’ one), they take place at the artistic, intellectual, and civic levels. Of course, we

should ask ourselves whether it is legitimate to use the term of black communities as referring

to a single cultural identity, since it relies on a racial rather than cultural criterion, but this

question is out of the scope of the present study.

2. Origins of Cultural Identity

It seems that the Larose Commission has a twofold notion of cultural identity. On the one

hand, it is naturally formed in the course of history, as the passage on p. 14 quoted above

shows it. From this perspective, Native Americans’ cultures are considered to be an integral

part of the Québécois identity:

“The Commission deems it substantial to continue to

acknowledge that the Native American and Inuit

nations have contributed to the shaping of the

Québécois soul and that their members are citizens

of Quebec without a shade of doubt” (II:16).

The American part of this “Québécois soul” seems to stem precisely from this organic

historical link with the Native Americans:

“Quebec could not claim its americanness without

restructuring its cultural relations with the aboriginal

nations” [idem]. [101]

At the same time, it is about “restructuring” these relations. For the authors of the report,

culture is both an innate feature and a project; it is the product of history, but, given that any

people is able to direct the course of its historical existence, cultural identity can be modelled.

This is why, in order to be a pole of unity and ensure the necessary social cohesion that it

needs so as to be thriving, the Québécois society “still has to incorporate huge parts of its

identity” (II: 15). Culture is an entity that can be built and formed from heterogeneous

elements. This conception lends a non-innate, supplementary character to cultural identity. It

also confirms that cultural identity can be formed through conscious cultivating efforts,

through a kind of cultural engineering. Society can generate itself the conditions necessary for

the formation of the desired culture. Indeed, according to the Larose Commission, Quebec is

an “original society project that takes shape” (II: 19) rather than an already existing entity.

This is why Quebec aims to “highlight the entire linguistic and cultural heritage present in its

territory” (II: 16), which once again confirms the “farmable” character of cultural identity,

since it is important to maintain the population’s awareness of the importance of its various

ingredients.

On the other hand, this vision supposes that one can change their cultural identity. The

bearers of the Québécois identity have to recognize themselves in it, make it their own, so that

the cultural modelling can be efficient. For the Larose Commission, human beings are able to

reinvent themselves culturally. Following this logic, cultural identity is not an innate attribute,

but rather a variable that we can value through our conscious choices:

“Newcomers, recent or old citizens, members of

such community or historical nation, they all have to

recognize themselves and be recognised in the

Québécois culture being built.” (II: 15).

The 1990 statement conveys the same representation:

“The Québécois culture is a dynamic one. Although

it is part of the continuation of Quebec’s heritage, it

aims to be constantly changing and open to the

various contributions” (I: 18) [102]

From its first page, the document recognises individuals’ right not only to transform

their cultural identity, but also to renounce all kinds of identity definition and instead claim

their civic status:

“Therefore, it is important to remind that, in a

democratic society, the choice as to whether or not

to be part of one’s group of origin belongs to each

individual, and that, anthropologically speaking, all

the Quebec communities could be qualified as

“cultural” (I: 2).

Cultural identity appears to be both a result of the past and a future-oriented project.

Human beings possess a historically formed identity, but they are able to change it, and even

deny any kind of identity belonging.

Contradictory Aspects

The Larose Commission’s posture is paradoxical insofar as it claims to be a protector

of cultural diversity, but also of the prominence of the adoptive French-Canadian culture. On

the one hand, it describes a projected, constantly changing Québécois culture that should

encompass the multiple contributions of all the ingredients of the Québécois society (ethnic

francophones, anglophones, Native Americans, Inuits, and newcomers). On the other hand, it

refers to a pre-existing culture onto which the immigrants are simply expected to latch. This is

probably an expression of the Québécois nationalism, which, while aspiring to a civic nation,

to a “dialogical subject of the nation”, to use Beauchemin’s term (2003), grants a privileged

status to the French fact, hence to the French-Canadian culture. On this subject, G. Mahrouse,

as quoted by Leroux, asserts:

“One overriding tension for those from Anglophone

and Allophone communities is that we are told that

we do not understand the particularities of Quebec

history and its struggle for national identity. [...]

That given its particular history as a minority culture

under siege, Quebec simply cannot afford to be too

tolerant, lest it be swallowed up by Anglophones and

immigrants.” (Leroux 2010: 111). [103]

Leroux likens certain nationalist discourses such as Mario Dumont’s reaction to the

Bouchard-Taylor Commission’s report, to what M. Mamdani calls “culture-talk”:

“[culture-talk] assumes that every culture has a

tangible essence that defines it, and it then explains

politics as a consequence of that essence. Under

these cultural regimes, groups of people are

associated with some very broad notion of a fixed

and immutable culture in a way that closely

resembles the scientific racism of the past, except

that meanings associated with values, beliefs, and

practices (as opposed to biological traits) are

naturalized to certain “cultures,” thereby evading

analytical or political scrutiny” (Mamdani quoted by

par Leroux, p. 115).

Therefore, the Québécois culture-talk fixes and essentialises the notion of cultural

identity. This tendency is more or less present in the texts that I am studying here too,

especially in the Larose Commission’s report, which implies that the Québécois cultural

identity is entrenched in Quebec’s history. In the mind of the authors of the report, the

concept of cultural identity is at least ambiguous – an ambiguity observed by Beauchemin:

“Quebec is at an identity crossroad. It has not

liquidated its French Canadian memory, but at the

same time it does not entirely recognize itself in it”

(Beauchemin 2003: 43).

I can conclude that, for the texts being studied, cultural identity is an ambivalent

entity: it is both attached to the past and future-oriented. Insofar as it is future-oriented, it is a

variable property, since humans can cultivate and model their identity. I also noticed the fact

that this ambivalence may give rise to contradictions. Considering culture as the result of a

past conveys an essentialising vision that counters the dynamic, evolving image of identity.

This conservative attitude of Quebec may be qualified as purely nationalist, but it can also be

accounted for by the historical evolution of the Québécois mentality (see Kyloušek 2009).

[104]

3. The Evolving Nature of Cultural Identity

The Larose report finds that Quebec’s aspiration to openness is “encouraged by a

worldwide tendency to maintain the diversity of languages and cultures” (II: 4). Culture is

therefore a vulnerable entity exposed to the danger of being depersonalised in front of the

“surging thrust of globalisation” [idem]. Indeed, the Commission asserts that the Anglo-Saxon

language and culture represent a menace for all “fragile” cultures. Globalisation

problematizes the question of languages and cultures (cf. II: 171). In the authors’ minds,

culture is an ephemeral substance exposed to influences that threaten to destroy it by

depriving it from its distinctive features. On the other hand, if an entity can be destroyed, this

means that it is a consistent and harmonious whole, like an organism that functions well until

a disease ruins its integrity. This is once again the ambivalent idea according to which cultural

identity is both fixed and likely to change, but here we can notice that the change might turn

to degradation if it is not accompanied by a conscious cultivating effort that manages possibly

harmful factors. In order to stick to the size constraints of this paper, I am going to study only

two of these factors.

The Social-Cohesion Factor

The cohesion and the solidarity between the bearers of a culture guarantee its vigour. The

Quebec project “materializes the Québécois people’s need to unite and emerge from the

anonymity to which globalization condemns small States” (II: 11).

“The Québécois citizenship, which was born from a

need for social cohesion, imposes itself because we

are undergoing a period of great upheavals and an

age of confusion in terms of language and identity”

(II: 11).

Unlike the Quebec project, multiculturalism is not seen as favouring social cohesion:

“By abandoning the defensive attitude of a minority,

by rejecting the dividing and ethnic character of

multiculturalism, the [105] Québécois nation relies

more and more on the uniting potential of a shared

culture […]” (II: 14).

The exclusion within a community entails a feeling of alienation among its different

ingredients and thus threatens its cohesion. This observation is confirmed by The Full

Participation of the Black Communities in Quebec’s society:

“The feeling of victimization and exclusion develops

in many members of the black communities and

finds an expression in the alienation from the social,

community, and political lives and in a withdrawal

inside the community life of the group of origin.

This situation can only spoil social and democratic

life both for the black communities and for the entire

Québécois society.” (IV: 24).

The Political Factor

The authors of the report of the Larose Commission clearly associate the resistance of a

culture (and especially of its language) with political rights:

“In the wake of the Quiet Revolution, after

discovering the leverage of State power that it

finally was able to handle, the Québécois nation

allowed the French language not only to resist a

threat of assimilation that would erode it from

within, but it managed to erect the French language

up to the status of the ordinary and customary

language of public life.” (II: 9).

Therefore, the political powers of the Québécois people ensure the sovereignty of its

language, which then becomes the language of public life, i.e. the primary communication

tool used by the members of the Québécois society. Indeed, Quebec equates language and

cultural identity. The Charter of the French Language is, in this sense, the fundamental

document of the Québécois culture’s political emancipation, since it has allowed the

Québécois to discover “the leverage of State power”. The enemy of the Québécois identity,

the Anglo-Saxon threat embodied by federal Canada and the United States, is seen as being

aware of the importance of political autonomy for the thriving of the [106] Québécois culture.

Canada is considered to “reduce Quebec’s capacity to legislate” and to “limit its freedom to

sign international treaties, which come under the authority of the federal government even

though they have certain impacts on the provisions of the Charter of the French Language”

(II:11). The United States are also seen as being against the Québécois project:

“As for the Americans, they remain opposed to our

legislation, which they consider to reduce the

individual freedoms and limit the use of English. For

them, language and culture are separated and they do

not understand how protecting the Québécois culture

involves among others the protection of the French

language, although 25 American States have adopted

declarations that proclaim English as their official

language.” (II: 184).

All this proves that the Québécois discourses see political rights as the leverage that

allows cultural identity to maintain its integrity and resistance. In order to emphasize the

importance of Quebec’s state policy, the Larose Commission explains the cultural differences

between the Québécois and the other North American Francophone communities as follows:

“The rise of the Québécois nationalism, the

secularisation of the Québécois society, the increased

importance of governmental interventions, and the

self-affirmation of regionalisms almost everywhere in

Canada contributed to the differentiation between the

Canadian, Acadian and Québécois Francophone

communities.” (II: 154).

The commission thus identifies a few important properties of the Québécois citizenship:

secularism, nationalism, government control (religious and political characteristics). But these

specificities of the Québécois State seem to have given birth to cultural differences (cf.

“differentiation between the Canadian, Acadian and Québécois Francophone communities”).

Cultural identity therefore depends on the policy adopted by the political power that rules the

territory where this [107] identity has taken root. This power is likely not only to alter its

traits, but also to fortify or weaken it. In this sense, Quebec’s nationalism seems to have

played a crucial role in kindling the passion for consolidation of the Québécois society. In the

absence of such a policy, another Francophone community, the Cajuns, is assumed to be

estranged from the very notion of cultural identity:

“The Franco-Americans often keep a memory of the

Quebec that they once left, a memory that tends to

become increasingly folkloric and distant from

contemporary Quebec. Today’s Quebec surprises

them and they do not always understand its

aspirations, and namely its need to be a society of

French language.” (II: 154).

The term of “folkloric” refers to a state of decay in which cultural identity becomes a

stereotyped abstraction well away from the present reality, as if it belonged to the universe of

myths only. The mythification of cultural identity both results from and causes its weakening.

The Larose Commission thus suggests that cultural identity, both in terms of distinctive

features and resistance, is indebted to the governmental framework in which it evolves. In his

master’s thesis, Sévigny assert the following regarding the Quebec’s interculturalist

governmental framework:

“I propose a study of multiculturalism that represents,

in its minimal form, the pluralist variant of political

liberalism. Then I discuss another form of

multiculturalism, the intercutluralism, which claims to

be a republican version of multiculturalism”

(Sévigny 2008: 6)

The difference between the two approaches resides in the degree of State intervention in

the functioning of society. Petr Horák summarises John Locke’s liberal ideas in A Letter

Concerning Toleration (a “fundamental text on tolerance for the Euro-American civilization”)

on the subject of the State as follows:

“State authorities […] are not expected to interfere in

the private area. Quite the contrary, they must observe

a strict neutrality [108] and keep the two areas – the

public one and the private one - separated one from

another” (Horák 2009: 15).

But for the ideologists of the Québécois project, state control guarantees the preserving of

cultural identity. However, as already noticed for other factors, cultural identity is not only

determined by but also determines the policy of the state that frames it. According to the 1990

statement, certain cultures are less inclined to take part in “democratic deliberation” with

other cultures. Although it criticizes the concept “Québécois from the cultural communities”,

the document still acknowledges that:

“Indeed, this notion enables to delimit […] the

persistence of specific issues related to the full

participation in our society, which are entirely or

partially due to the ethnic origin” (I: 2).

Certain cultural identities are thus not strictly related to citizenship. Unlike these

identities, as formulated by Labelle, the Québécois pluralist society relies on the notion of

citizenship meaning shared civic identity and civic heritage, an increasingly powerful

tendency since the second half of the 1990s:

“A new approach that promotes citizenship, shared

civic identity, and civic heritage is being promoted.

The shared civic heritage is defined as based on three

principles: “a set of rights and freedoms guaranteed

for everyone; the sharing of elements of identity that

are part of a history and a culture; responsibilities and

a duty to participate” (Labelle 2012).

Citizenship (democratic values, pluralism, French as the official language) may clash with

certain cultures:

“The difficulty to have, on a day-to-day basis,

harmonious inter-community relations within a

society that is at once Francophone, democratic, and

pluralist sometimes provokes, with both sides,

reactions of rejection or seclusion.” (I: 7) [109]

In other terms, the failure to actively enjoy citizenship might be an integral part of a given

identity. I can now conclude that the State is seen as a protector of the prosperity of cultural

identity. But the efficiency of its intervention depends on the degree to which nationals

commit themselves to citizenship.

4. Conclusion

During this quick overview of Quebec’s immigration and pluralism policy as stated by the

competent authorities, I managed to answer two basic questions that I find fundamental to any

kind of study: what and how. The “what” corresponds to the need to know what cultural

identity is. The “how” refers to the composition and the origin of the entity studied, as well as

to the ways it interacts with external factors.

In this way, I observed that, for the documents under study, cultural identity is a mode of

organizing the perception of the world. It is composed of values (ethical ingredients),

knowledge (civilizational ingredients), institutions (political ingredients), and perceptions

(psychological ingredients). Cultural identity concerns two levels: an individual and a group

one. The manifestations of having a cultural identity can be found in collective life, family

life, the artistic and intellectual creations, the spare-time activities, the public institutions, and

the economic and professional relations.

The Québécois discourses convey two visions of identity that are, at least at first sight,

contradictory: culture is both an innate property and a project; it results from history, but it

can be modelled. We can thus distinguish between an initial identity (one that is inherited and

stemming from the past) and a new identity (an acquired one). In the case of the Québécois

identity, which for the immigrants is a new identity and which aims to encompass various

initial identities, we could talk about a generic identity that should be built from

heterogeneous elements through conscious cultivating efforts. As a result, cultural identity is a

changing, non-definitive entity. Human beings have the ability to reinvent themselves

culturally. They can also renounce any explicit identity belonging. From this perspective,

cultural [110] identity is not an innate attribute, but rather a variable subject to our conscious

choices.

Cultural identity is also a vulnerable entity exposed to the danger of being deprived from

its distinctive features and specificities, hence of perishing. I observed two factors that

determine the resistance of a cultural identity, and namely the social cohesion and the political

rights of its bearers.

The results obtained through this study should allow a comparison between the notion

of cultural identity in the Québécois political discourses and other discourses, in order to draw

conclusions as regards the plurality of the points of view in Quebec and Canada.

TEXTS STUDIED

(1) I: Government of Quebec. Au Québec pour bâtir ensemble. Énoncé de politique en matière

d’immigration et d’intégration, 1990 (consulted online on October 31, 2013 at

http://www.micc.gouv.qc.ca)

(2) II: Commission des États généraux sur la situation et l’avenir de la langue française au Québec. Le

français, une langue pour tout le monde, 2001 (consulted online on October 31, 2013 at

http://www.spl.gouv.qc.ca)

(3) III: Conférence régionale des élus de Montréal. Plan d’action de la région de Montreal en matière

d’immigration, d’intégration et de relations interculturelles, 2006 (consulted online on October 31,

2013 at www.credemontreal.qc.ca)

(4) IV: Direction générale des relations interculturelles. La pleine participation à la société québécoise des

communautés noires, 2005 (consulted online on October 31, 2013 at http://www.micc.gouv.qc.ca)

(5) Government of Canada. Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (consulted online on October 31,

2013 at http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca)

(6) Government of Quebec. Charte de la langue française (consulted online on October 31, 2013 at

www.oqlf.gouv.qc.ca)

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES

Quebec Government 1981: Ministère des Communautés culturelles et de l'Immigration. Autant de façons d'être

Québécois: Plan d'action à l'intention des communautés culturelles, Québec: Ministère des Communautés

culturelles et de l'Immigration, 1983

Sévigny 2008: Sévigny, Charles-Antoine. Citoyenneté et pluralisme culturel: le modèle québécois face à l'idéal

de l'interculturalisme, master’s thesis available online at http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/thesescanada,

consulted on October 13, 2013.

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