National Network for Equitable Library Service

What does diversity mean for the Quebec identity? Who gets to consider themselves a Quebecer? The author, a young journalist who moved to Quebec City from Saskatchewan, has some critical questions for the adopted province she loves. Are Quebecers less tolerant than other Canadians? Ongoing debate about secularism and religious symbols has led many observers to ask that very question. Premier François Legault denies that racism or Islamophobia exists, even after gunman Alexandre Bissonnette opened fire in a Quebec City mosque in 2017, killing six people and wounding 19 others. The Quebec government has now established a religious symbols ban for some public employees. The increasingly diverse new reality is sometimes embraced and sometimes met with anti-immigrant sentiment if not outright hostility from alt-right groups.