In November 2024, the advisory committee for constitutional questions in Quebec presented its final report, including a number of recommendations. He suggested that the government “act boldly and allow Quebec to apply its full constitutional freedom without limiting its autonomy.” At the top of the Committee proposals: to provide Quebec by his own institute; Establish the Constitutional Council of the National Assembly, reform the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms (Quebec Charter) and further distance yourself from the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Canadian Charter).
The idea is clear: not only in the technique and text of our laws, but also in the whole area of the spirit (structures, sources, methods; to our deep concept of basic freedoms that differ, the law on secularism become the latest example), Quebec is not Canada – And it is time to confirm it, loudly and clearly, constitutional means, to restore this autonomy in a matter that would never have to stop being ours.
In this perspective and in connection with the recommendation of 32, which proposes to “continue to develop and adopt the Framework Act on the Quebec Integration and Diversity Model”, Quebec would have a huge advantage in the adoption of the Quebec law on cultural convergence. It would therefore be advisable to build this concept against the concept of Canadian multiculturalism – a model of (un) integration of diversity, which simply has never been accepted in Quebec, neither before or during, nor after the Quebec without consent. Her government, her parliament and her people, the Canadian Charter and the 1982 Canada Constitution.
It should also be remembered that the concept of “cultural convergence” originates in the work of Camille Laurin, Fernando Dumont, Guy Rocher and Jacques-Hyvan Morin. The first government of René Lévesque emphasized this concept in its Quebec cultural development policy and recalled that it was not a “suitable metaphor or a rhetorical formula (…)”, and wanted to “indicate the basic axis of” development policy “. specific to Quebec in its particular reality concerning diversity and cohesion. ”
The report adds: “If French must be a common language in Quebec as it seems to be recognized everywhere, we must admit the consequences for culture. No, let’s repeat patiently, not because traditional French culture should cancel others in our territory, but because, like the language, it should serve as a focus of the convergence of various communities, which will also continue to demonstrate their presence and their own values. »
Such a law should have a quasi -resident status, such as the Charter Quebe, the Act on State Secularism and the French Language Charter. In addition, it should benefit from the protection of the parliamentary sovereignty. Such a status would give it the necessary tools to defeat the Canadian Act on Multiculturalism and the Canadian case law in the interpretation of laws adopted by the National Assembly of Quebec.
Such a model, accompanied by the text of the bill, was also outlined in a study from 2014 Institute de Recherche sur du Québec. Quebec has never been recognized in multicultural and “postnorininous” utopias promoted by Canada since 1982. A different model of collective management of common social life.
In short, cultural convergence offers a model of legal, language and cultural integration, especially through public policies, within health and educational systems, in the world of work, in the media and before the trial system. Quebec must not apologize for trying to promote French in Quebec, nor for the claim that religion is a choice and not a person’s state, nor for a statement that the history and culture of Quebec are not created per day. And that it is up to her institutions to take over the role of the unifying pole for the purpose of building an identity in which everyone can recognize, develop and interact together in society.
The choice of cultural convergence as a model of common life in Quebec is also closely linked to the collective law of Quebec to self -determination, as confirmed by the Quebec Parliament in the Act on Respecting Fundamental Rights and the privileges of the Quebec people and the state. In Quebec, which one of the articles stipulates that “Quebec people have the inalienable right to freely choose the political regime and the legal status of Quebec”.
Whatever we say and anything we do, it is time for Quebec to finally define a model in the application of his constitutional freedom, as advocated by the Advisory Committee, “clearly different from Canadian multiculturalism, focused on common life and (allowing) to confirm the different and French -speaking character Quebec and at the same time respect the plurality of his society.
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