Montreal’s Community Organizations and Their Approach to Integration: A System Within a Dual System

Abstract

This article, based on systems thinking, explores how community organizations in Montreal providing newcomers support through the various stages of their settlement process operate within a local municipal system and a broader provincial system, both promoting integration and intercultural relations. On a local scale, the City of Montreal has set itself the goal of raising public awareness of the benefits of cultural diversity and wishes to encourage positive interactions in the public space. For those interviewed during our research, this municipal model of integration does not necessarily align with Quebec’s unique and unofficial integration model, interculturalism, which can be perceived as a political project supporting the French-speaking majority’s interests and which may seem incompatible with the social justice values espoused by community organizations. This article is based on verbatim excerpts gathered from individual and group in-depth interviews conducted with 37 community workers in the spring of 2023.

1. Introduction

Over the past decade, the strong growth of immigrant populations in Canada and the French-speaking province of Quebec has prompted their governments to question and rethink their model of integration, especially at a local level (White & Frozzini, 2022). According to Arsenault, White, and Dubé, the notion of integration itself is a complex one and could be defined as “a set of functional, cultural and social processes and interactions that enable newcomers to recognize themselves and find their place in the host society” (Arsenault et al., 2022). Federal and provincial integration policies, municipal public actions to manage cultural diversity, organizational dynamics, as well as daily social interactions and representations, are all complex interrelated dimensions that can impact immigrants’ identities, as well as integration trajectories and group relations. For several years now, authors have been agreeing on the need to take an interest in “deep diversity” (Rachédi & Taïbi, 2019), a phenomenon also known as “super-diversity”, which refers to the complexity of diversity, i.e. the multidimensionality of the human being, whose identity cannot be reduced to culture (White & Frozzini, 2022), as well as their multiple interactions with different individual, family, collective, and larger or smaller societal systems (Taylor & Gutmann, 1994) like the provincial and municipal ones.

In Canada, a policy of multiculturalism within a bilingual English-French framework was officially adopted on 8 October 1971 by then Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau. As this model of integration was immediately rejected by the Quebec government, interculturalism was proposed in a neo-nationalist move to assert itself against the federal government (Couture & St-Louis, 2022). Although these two models share several pluralist principles, such as the search for social cohesion, the rejection of assimilationism, the recognition of diversity, and the fight against discrimination, the management of cultural diversity in Canada and Quebec has regularly been thought of in a conflicting manner for about twenty years (White, 2021). On a municipal scale, and with the absence of concrete proposals from the state, Canadian cities are thinking about welcoming and integrating newcomers by developing urban spaces to promote intercommunity exchanges and interactions (Boucher, 2016). In the province of Quebec in particular, six cities are recognized as “Intercultural Cities” by the Council of Europe. This program for the management and promotion of cultural diversity corresponds to a synergy between local, academic, and political actors. Established in 2015, it helps support local and regional authorities around the world in developing intercultural strategies by offering analytical and practical tools. More than 140 cities are now identified as “Intercultural Cities” by the Council of Europe, both in Europe and beyond, including Australia, Canada, Japan, Israel, Mexico, Morocco, and the United States (Intercultural Cities Programme, n.d.).

In Quebec, immigration is predominantly urban. Of the 500,000 or so immigrants the province receives annually (16% of all Canadian immigration), nearly 85% settle first in Montreal and its metropolitan area (Savard et al., 2022). As a consequence, one of the difficulties faced by Quebec municipalities, especially Montreal, the province’s main immigrant settlement, is to combine, within the same territory, the rivalry of two integration models, one official under the federal state, the other unofficial under the provincial state (Carpentier, 2022). Despite the richness of cultural diversity, which is part of a unique Montreal identity, the city faces new challenges linked to the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion of people from different social and ethnocultural backgrounds.

In the fight against social exclusion in particular, grassroots organizations are close allies in supporting municipalities. As key players in issues concerning the integration of more or less recent immigrants or the fight against racism and discrimination, community organizations, which fall within the broader institutional framework of social action, are on the front line and in constant contact with people of all origins in order to meet their needs (Arsenault & Frozzini, 2024). Intercultural action or intervention consists, among other things, of supporting newcomers through the various stages of the settlement process and referring them to appropriate assistance resources (Montgomery & Bourassa-Dansereau, 2019). Driven by the values of solidarity and social justice, these organizations also aim to empower individuals while reinvigorating civic participation. Intercultural action in community organizations has a long history in Montreal, long before municipal action in this area. Yet, it is little-known and poorly documented. While the majority of studies carried out on pluralism and integration mainly focus on state action, there are still few studies devoted to more local scales, such as those of towns, organizations, or citizens’ groupings, particularly from an ethnographic perspective (White, 2017).

For structural and financial reasons, the voice of community workers is also often downplayed, whereas their intercultural experience and expertise have been built up in the field, often within groups of committed players. The aim of this article, based on a previous research conducted on the various aspects of intercultural intervention and relying on the word of community workers (see Le Moing, forthcoming), is to understand how the community perception of integration fits into a dual system corresponding to distinct municipal and provincial approaches to integration and intercultural relations. This involves analyzing community action in relation to the municipal intercultural policy, which includes initiatives that aim to “raise awareness of the benefits of diversity” but “also seek to reduce the negative impact of discrimination while encouraging positive interactions between people of diverse backgrounds” (White & Frozzini, 2022). This municipal action, which steers clear of ideological confrontations between the multicultural and intercultural models, can also be faced with a certain vagueness about an approach to intercultural relations that evolves according to the strategic choices of administrations or at the whim of municipal elections (Ville de Montréal, 2018). Montreal’s successive mayors have taken different stances on intercultural relations, depending on their pro- or anti-federalist leanings. While the previous mayor, Denis Coderre (2013–2017), advocated the notion of living together above all, the current mayor, Valérie Plante (2017–), places greater emphasis on the notion of inclusion. At the provincial level, Quebec interculturalism, whose interactionist philosophy is nonetheless close to that prevailing in Montreal’s community milieu, is the subject of much criticism from community workers, not least because of the current Legault (2018–) government’s denial of systemic racism in Quebec institutions. As we shall see at the end of this article, and in the light of the testimonies gathered, criticism also focuses on the maintenance of a power relationship between “native” Quebecers and minorities, the latter being often perceived as belonging to a homogeneous whole, despite their different life, migration and socioeconomic backgrounds.

After presenting our conceptual framework, our research posture and our methodology, we will examine how the community-based system often operates independently of a broader municipal and provincial system based on different public intercultural actions and discourses towards diversity and integration. This article will therefore draw on several verbatim extracts, numbered and identified by the name chosen by the respondents.

2. Conceptual and Methodological Framework

The knowledge of those involved, both observers and actors in social interactions, is a valuable analytical tool. Our research draws on a variety of recent works to analyze integration models and intercultural relations from macro- and microsocial angles. These include works from the fields of political science (Lamy & Mathieu, 2020; Carpentier & Gagnon, 2020; Couture & St-Louis, 2022; Gosselin-Tapp, 2023). Our research also draws on a number of works in sociology and anthropology (Rachédi & Taïbi, 2019; Montgomery & Agbobli, 2017; Emongo & White, 2014; White & Frozzini, 2022). Finally, this research has been enriched by several critical works and essays that are interested in the emergence of forces opposed to political interculturalism in Quebec (Idir & Ekobena, 2019; Benessaieh, 2019; Abadie, 2017; Rachédi et al., 2020).

This research also commits to decompartmentalizing knowledge, which is one objective of critical research on integration and intercultural relations, also called intercultural research (Rachédi et al., 2020). Vatz-Laaroussi proposes several key principles for intercultural research, including prioritizing the epistemological reference points of Others to whom the word is given. This means that the construction of reality must be gathered from the point of view of those primarily concerned, i.e., the subjects-actors who live it and suffer from invisibility, even if this may cause the researcher a form of destabilization (Laaroussi, 2007). The aim of this method is therefore to decentralize the so-called “academic” knowledge, or at least reduce “the asymmetry of knowledge between the two universes in order to optimize the usefulness and relevance of scientific productions” (White & Gratton, 2017). In the context of research carried out with community organizations, gathering the views of stakeholders can help optimize intercultural knowledge, particularly that related to experiments and case studies.

In the spring of 2023, the testimonies of 37 community workers on the island of Montreal were collected in the form of semi-structured individual (19) and group (six) interviews. Prior to the research, we had already been able to meet with several institutional players in 2022 in order to gain a better understanding of the challenges of intercultural action in the metropolis. The consultation of a dozen university colleagues whose research and knowledge exchange activities were carried out in close collaboration with the practical world was also useful in completing our data. Finally, in winter 2023, we contacted a total of 70 community organizations based on a number of lists provided by people in the community, university and municipal sectors who offer “intercultural” analysis and activities.

Lasting an average of 1 hour and 15 minutes, these 25 in-depth recorded interviews took place between April and May 2023. The recording of each interview involved guaranteeing the anonymity of the participants by asking them to choose a fictitious name that would be useful in identifying their testimony. In an effort to have their work taken into account, some respondents to our survey did not wish to preserve their anonymity and changed their first names. Also, some of them wished to publicize the name of their organization. The lack of institutional recognition they deplore no doubt explains why these participants did not wish to make their testimony anonymous, or indicated that they were not afraid of being recognized:

People will identify me quickly. It does not matter... Anyway, there is no secret here; what we do is public.

(1. Carlos)

Indeed, a number of organizations specializing in immigration issues are now well identified in the Montreal community landscape for publicly expressing their opinions on certain major issues related to the integration of ethnocultural and/or religious communities, issues which, according to these same organizations, are often subject to political instrumentalization. For example, the stir caused by the Loi sur la laïcité de l’État adopted in 2019 gave several of these organizations the opportunity to oppose Bill 21 in various media in order to denounce its discriminatory nature, to participate in consultation commissions and to issue recommendations to encourage society to become more inclusive.

These recorded interviews were initially intended to be semi directive but turned out to be quite flexible; the majority of interviews began with one or two general questions about the speaker’s background and the presentation of their organization; the answers given were then freely developed around the values, formats and challenges of intercultural action, requiring minimal intervention on our part to redirect the interview.

Of the 37 respondents, 27 were women and 10 men, and more than 20 identified themselves as having an immigrant and/or racial background but having been living in Quebec for a long time. For some, this identification is crucial, as it involves them personally and guides their professional practice. Several respondents who identified themselves in particular as racialized and/or “visible”, or as descendants of racialized migrants, spoke of situations of racism or discrimination of which they had personally been victims. The reactivation of these forms of exclusion has a daily impact on the helping relationship and on the awareness-raising work to be carried out with the community in general, which can also lead to a form of exhaustion.

These interviews were transcribed in full, corresponding to 550 pages of verbatims. These verbatims were then analyzed thematically, using the framework established in the interview grid and drawing on notes taken at the end of each interview (on reactions or situations observed during the recording). General themes, then numerous sub-themes, were identified, enabling us to gradually build up an analytical framework designed to account for intercultural intervention in all its complexity, operating mainly on a circumscribed local scale, but sometimes exerting an influence on a larger municipal (action may extend to the greater Montreal metropolitan area), provincial, or even federal scale.

At the end of an in-depth qualitative analysis of these 25 interviews, the data collected were organized around a thematic framework useful for understanding several phenomena rarely studied in the literature, such as the insertion of these community organizations in a defined historical, social, and institutional context, the more or less assertive claim of these organizations to so-called “intercultural” practices and approaches (see Le Moing, forthcoming), and the organizational assessment of municipal and provincial actions in managing pluralism and discourses on integration as we shall see in this article.

3. A System Within a Local System: Community Organizations in the Face of Public Action in Montreal

Relying on the logic of systems thinking, we believe that the complex phenomenon of cultural diversity can be analyzed by observing the way in which various systems, such as provincial or municipal intercultural initiatives, have a possible impact on decision-making processes in the field, and influence or not community practices. That is why the main aim of this research is to understand how Montreal’s community organizations operate within a local municipal system and a broader provincial system, both promoting integration and intercultural relations.

In particular, the testimonies of professionals offer relevant avenues of analysis regarding the City of Montreal’s intercultural action, which has been structured over time in partnership with institutional bodies, as well as key local players such as community organizations. This municipal expertise, which is based both on the promotion of diversity and intercultural dialogue and on the fight against racism and discrimination, is also distinct from the provincial model of interculturalism, which has elicited stronger reactions during our survey.

3.1. The City of Montreal’s Intercultural Action

For several years now, Montreal, like other Quebec municipalities, has set itself the goal of raising public awareness of the benefits of cultural diversity. Intercultural cities also wish to encourage positive interactions in the public space and promote a sense of belonging to the community (White & Frozzini, 2022), not least because the regionalization of Francophone economic immigration is currently one of the provincial government’s priorities (Gouvernement du Québec, 2024).

For more than fifty years, the City of Montreal has been developing expertise in the integration of newcomers, in particular through the creation of several bodies such as the Conseil Interculturel de Montréal (CIM), which sets recommendations on issues related to inequalities or forms of institutional discrimination. The rapid transformation of Montreal’s socio-demographic landscape (with the city’s population hosting over 80% of Quebec’s immigrant population), unlike any other municipality in the province, has prompted the city to develop public initiatives aimed at the socioeconomic integration of newcomers, as well as the development of “the welcoming and inclusive capacities of Montrealers” in its Montreal Inclusive action plan (Ville de Montréal, 2018). However, these actions as well as municipal institutions serving cultural diversity, such as the Bureau d’intégration des nouveaux arrivants de Montréal (BINAM), remain on the whole fairly unknown to community stakeholders, often because their organization has not applied for or obtained a funding program under this entity, such as the City of Montreal’s Programme Montréal Interculturel (PMI), which aims to support intercultural rapprochement projects (Ville de Montréal, 2023). Other respondents who are aware of the City of Montreal’s inclusion objectives and its selection criteria for funding community projects evoked, in the same way as the intercultural interactionist approach developed in the organizations, a relatively soft municipal action, mainly focused on the accompaniment and social integration of people of immigrant background.

This pluralist approach, which is seen as not very active but fairly consensual compared to the provincial approach, also no doubt explains why some speakers were unable to describe in detail the initiatives undertaken by the municipality, which they felt lacked prominence. Other testimonials reveal a certain suspicion of Montreal’s intercultural action. Public action, unlike community action, struggles to produce concrete results in terms of bringing people together:

Interculturalism is marketed but not necessarily acted upon. There are municipal bodies that welcome newcomers, and work on harmonious cultural and intercultural relations, but I do not see many tangible results. I see more community action than municipal action.

(2. Hélène)

Conversely, other respondents praised Montreal’s openness and “pro-activeness” (E) in raising the awareness of diversity, promoting intercultural dialogue, and combating racism, notably through the PMI funding program, which recognizes community actions in line with these three objectives:

I am pleased that there is a program on intercultural issues, which means trying to create contacts and cultural mediation. And I am also pleased that there is a budget for promoting cultural communities. So I am pleased with the team because it shows the city’s openness to communities (…) and to the intercultural approach.

(3. André)

3.2. Combating Racism and Systemic Discrimination in Montreal

The municipal action in Quebec in the fight against social exclusion and racism has clear objectives: to raise the awareness of the benefits of diversity, combat discrimination, encourage positive interactions between people of diverse backgrounds, and promote social cohesion within communities as well as a sense of belonging (White & Frozzini, 2022). It goes without saying that these objectives are not without their challenges, particularly when it comes to implementing them within a variety of municipal contexts that are supposed to adapt to diversity and ensure the accessibility of all public services to the entire population (Larouche-Leblanc, 2018). The integration of immigrants also represents a complex, cross-cutting field of public action, involving the legal, political, socioeconomic, cultural, religious, and spatial sectors (Carpentier, 2022). The major challenge specifically concerns the fight against racism and discrimination based on cultural and religious affiliation, which regularly hinders the social, economic, and political integration of many individuals from immigrant and/or racialized backgrounds. For example, under the Act Respecting Equal Access to Employment in Public Bodies, a provincial law that came into force in April 2001, municipalities must implement hiring measures for ethnic and visible (or racialized) minorities in order to correct the inequalities experienced by these groups (as well as women, aboriginal people, and people with disabilities) in the workplace (Loi sur l’accès à l’égalité en emploi|CDPDJ, 2018). This program, dissociated from the intercultural model, is rooted in a broader pluralist model that rejects all forms of discrimination, including racial discrimination (White & Frozzini, 2022).

Montreal in particular stands out for the unprecedented creation of an Office of the Commissioner for Combating Racism and Systemic Discrimination, which is intended to give greater visibility to “the progress of commitments, initiatives and plans aimed at combating racism and systemic discrimination, as well as the transformation of organizational culture” and the pursuit of “awareness-raising among managers for the production of approaches to diversity, equity and inclusion” (Ville de Montréal, n.d.). In particular, it was the lack of representativeness of municipal bodies in terms of cultural diversity, which is still being pointed out today, that led to the creation of this office:

Today, just look at BINAM (...) Look at the directory. There are almost no immigrants on the staff.

(1. Carlos)

Following a broad petition launched in March 2018 by a collective of citizens and organizations to ask the City of Montreal to hold a public consultation on the issues of racial profiling in the Montreal police force and systemic discrimination in employment (OCPM, 2020), an anti-discrimination commissioner, Bochra Manai, was elected in January 2021 after Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante, having taken the measure of the phenomenon permeating the municipal apparatus (Radio-Canada.ca, 2020a), had “no choice but to recognize systemic racism. There was a need for action” (4. Charles). However, some respondents commented on the lack of room for maneuver on the part of the Commissioner, whose initiatives are more in the realm of “awareness-raising” rather than “sanctioning”, as would be desired by militant anti-racist citizens for whom “it is not enough” (4. Charles).

Nevertheless, in a context where the Quebec government does not recognize systemic racism, notably for electoral reasons and due to the “highly sensitive” nature of the subject (4. Charles), this recognition by the mayor of Montreal, formalized by the unique creation of an Office of the Commissioner, remains overwhelmingly approved. On the other hand, interculturalism, the integration model discussed at length during the survey, is perceived as not very inclusive, making the population groups concerned ever more vulnerable.

4. A System Within a Larger System: Community Organizations in the Face of the Integration Discourse in Quebec

As mentioned above, the main aim of this research is to evaluate, according to the logic of systems thinking, the intercultural actions undertaken by community organizations within a local municipal and a broader provincial system. Faced with two levels of governance in terms of pluralism, and given their different, sometimes divergent, objectives, community organizations may find it difficult to draw up precise action plans that must, above all, meet the needs of an increasingly vulnerable migrant public. A few speakers also stressed the sensitive and overly ideological nature of Quebec interculturalism, which they do not wish to comment on:

There is this whole game of politics, and I do not want to get into it.

(5. Sophie)

4.1. Interculturalism as Quebec’s Model of Integration

Canada is one of the first states to have placed a major emphasis on the development of cultural pluralism, the integration of newcomers, and the equality of cultures by adopting an official multiculturalism policy in 1971, which has since become part of the “current conception of Canadian identity” (Kymlicka, 2021). The country has chosen to set out central and clearly defined principles to grant “egalitarian” and differentiated treatment to its citizens of diverse origins (Mathieu, 2017) within an officially bilingual framework. It is this principle that fundamentally differentiates Canadian multiculturalism from Quebec interculturalism, which sets out the principle of integration and the recognition of a Francophone cultural majority (Bouchard, 2012).

Faced with the challenges posed by ethnocultural diversity, particularly in the Montreal community environment of the 1960s, Quebec adopted a unique integration model that gradually reconciled pluralist principles with nationalist concerns (Couture & St-Louis, 2022): interculturalism. But from the mid-2000s onwards, this hitherto relatively consensual model became politicized in a context of great social tension marked by several crises, such as the reasonable accommodation crisis (2007–2008) and the crisis associated with the proposed Charter of Quebec Values (2013–2014). The interactionist intercultural philosophy that prevailed in the 1960s has gradually been recuperated by political elites to shape an interculturalism that supports, in particular, the preservation of the historic core of the French-speaking majority as asserted by Bouchard and Taylor in their 2008 Report of the Consultation Commission on Accommodation Practices Related to Cultural Differences (Bouchard & Taylor, 2008).

However, this recovery has led to a certain political vacuum, given the countless debates that continue today on the definition of Quebec interculturalism and its degree of openness to pluralism. Faced with this vacuum, with a conception of integration that is supposedly different in Canada, and with a municipal approach that is careful not to associate itself with either of these two models, many community workers lack reference points in the field.

For a long time, the Quebec government has insisted on developing a common public culture to bring Quebecers of all origins closer together. However, this project remains strongly associated with nationalist, even independentist, aims, which were perceived by some respondents as not very inclusive. In our research, nationalism and the defense of the French language were often closely associated. The model promoted by the provincial government is based on the idea that the language of the majority constitutes a foundation for effective integration. Following the adoption in May 2022 of the Act respecting the official and common language of Quebec, French (Bill 96), aimed at reinforcing the status of the French language in the province, the affirmation of French as a referent of identity is also seen as a form of imposition by the majority according to our respondents.

The sensitive issue of the relationship with immigrants, in particular, was raised time and again. According to Carlos, one of our respondents, François Legault was reelected in October 2022 as Premier of Quebec “on the basis that immigrants are a threat to society” (1. Carlos). Political interculturalism is thus evaluated by respondents as a model of integration that is a priori open to cultural diversity, but in reality constantly blames and reinforces the stigmatization of immigrants:

Instead of seeing interculturalism as an asset, as a great contribution to our society, we have diminished it, and this has an impact on the identity of immigrants and visible minorities. But what is my identity? It is a crack, a fracture in my identity structure. Am I a Québécois? Am I really going to be a Québécois, or am I always going to have to pack my suitcase to go back to my country?

(6. Guy-Wadih)

These perceptions are in line with a widespread conception in community organizations that interculturalism tends to maintain a deliberate balance of power between a historical cultural majority and minorities, particularly those of immigrant origin, who would threaten its nationalist project. This ethnocentric vision induces processes of differentiation and social exclusion, processes sometimes experienced by the stakeholders themselves who pointed out the Legault government’s denial of systemic racism in Quebec institutions:

You know, for a long time, there was a denial about systemic racism there. I know that with the CAQ, François Legault had said that there was no systemic racism in Quebec. I think there really is denial about that. I think the government really wants to ease its conscience by making efforts but always maintaining a kind of status quo. It is like the white man in Quebec who has most of the resources and then makes the decisions.

(7. Caroline)

According to the respondents, the political refusal to acknowledge the existence of systemic racism reflects a deeper social malaise. For some practitioners, the whole sensitive issue of everyday racism, which has become invisible, also arises in the context of community-based intercultural intervention:

There is also a question of system, earlier, we were talking about systemic racism, but there is racism in everyday society that is not.... You know, the definition of racism can change from one person to the next. I have the impression that racism in Quebec is less and less visible to a white person. But it is still there, and that is because I think we really try to be careful. Sometimes, I want to do something. But if someone from a visible minority says, “No, that is offensive”, like... I tend to back off. It is all good will. But you try to be careful because... It is easy to make a faux pas.

(8. Greta)

Preventing structural obstacles and changing pluralistic discourse, whether popular, media or political, are undoubtedly the main challenges facing community organizations and professionals in a society where, according to them, prejudice is tenacious and where “the current racist discourse speaks first and foremost in terms of ‘evidence’; evidence made up of stereotypes and implicit biases” (Idir & Ekobena, 2019). The stakes remain high for many racialized respondents, who express recurrent difficulties in identifying with Quebec society.

4.2. The Integration Discourse in Quebec: Identity Issues and Challenges

In assessing Quebec’s integration model, respondents also expressed their views on what the host community should be. As it has often been denounced during our survey, Quebec’s interculturalism neglects to take into account the structural factors of exclusion and is only interested in the cultural and identity dimensions of integration. There is a glaring discrepancy between a normative and ideological discourse based on the values of the host society and the increasingly precarious socio-economic situation of certain groups, such as new arrivals and racialized minorities (Le Moing, 2014).

For the community workers interviewed, the urgency, therefore, lies in the concrete exercise of minorities’ social and economic rights, such as the right to dignified employment and equitable remuneration (Labelle, 2001), as well as the fight against systemic discrimination, which is rife in all sectors of employability.

In the private sector, situations of deskilling have been reported. Faced with the non-recognition of their diplomas by several professional orders, immigrants selected by Quebec for their advanced qualifications “become aware of a certain number of obstacles” linked in particular to a fragile command of the French language and have to “begin a process of reorientation to look for a food job” (9. Clara):

People who come with a certain professional knowledge should be given the chance... But often in immigration policy, I would say that there are obstacles for those who arrive. Yet, they are specialists in different fields. A lot of human resources are wasted.

(10. Maïka)

Often from racialized groups, skilled immigrants can be victims of racial profiling within certain corporations. In its follow-up report on the application of the Equal Access to Employment Act published in 2020, the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse (CDPDJ) indicated that, for all discrimination complaints handled on the grounds of ethnic or national origin, the labor market ranked first. In particular, the CDPDJ recommended that all sectoral workforce committees strengthen their commitment to real equality in employment and the fight against discrimination (CDPDJ, 2021), hence the major role of community organizations in raising awareness among organizations:

You see, the people most at a loss when it comes to intervention or intercultural issues are corporations, for example, who have no idea what to do. That is why I find it so interesting to put them in touch with the community, because the community has the strength to explain the phenomenon they are experiencing, and also to share tools and ways of doing things.

(11. Sarah)

These awareness-raising and training activities offered by community organizations are indispensable resources for organizations whose teams are now largely made up of people from diverse backgrounds, and who may be faced with situations of incomprehension or conflict. Situations of systemic exclusion can also be observed in jobs in Quebec’s public services:

Quebec society has a lot to do. Even in the public service, you recruit people for positions at the bottom of the ladder. Yet these are people destined for management positions.

(6. Guy-Wadih)

While the workforce of most public organizations has yet to achieve equality in employment (Radio-Canada.ca, 2020b), speakers also stressed the need to train civil servants, because, according to one of our respondents who wanted to be identified by the name of her organization, “as long as service providers are not made aware of difference, they will not be able to welcome it” (12. Corapprochement).

Many respondents intend to counter institutional resistance to fully embracing diversity through awareness-raising and training. The discourse of political inclusion that does not translate into action, coupled with a “media discourse that exists on immigrants, which is xenophobic in Quebec” (2. Hélène), and biased perceptions of otherness or popular “myths” fed by “misinformation” and “the fear of losing something” (1. Carlos) are all obstacles that community workers wish to tackle. “Negative clichés about neighborhood young people” (13. Tohu) or prejudices about immigration in general lead to “problems of understanding, interpretation and perception” (12. Corapprochement), where people “camp out in radical postures” (14. Les oiseaux colorés). Awareness-raising in private and public organizations and popular education can defuse misunderstandings in a society where immigration is often perceived as a “monolith” and where certain categories of immigration are “demonized, like asylum seekers” (14. Les oiseaux colorés):

We need to take action with the authorities, we need to take action with elected representatives, and we need to take action with citizens. We need to act on all fronts. It is not easy, but it can be done in a single line. I see it as a ladder that you take horizontally and then go, go, go! Then, each step of the ladder will include a sector or a department or something different. But you have got to get going, you have got to keep moving.

(12. Corapprochement)

Only by making individuals and institutions aware of diversity can dialogue be re-established. While it may not be possible to reverse the power relations that are part of a complex systemic operation, the popular education and training components of intercultural intervention can help to change the social perceptions of the different Other. In addition, using an awareness-raising and support approach that starts “from the individual towards the collective” (14. CDFIA), some organizations aim to bring about a social transformation that will ultimately enable minorities to occupy more space within the host society, in a more peaceful manner. It is only at the price of full social and economic participation in this society that the conditions for belonging to the community can be met.

It is precisely the question of the collective sense of belonging that remains sensitive for respondents, especially given the current political context and ideological polarization around identity issues for Quebec’s cultural majority:

I think there are a lot of people who no longer recognize themselves in the Quebec referent. The relationship of identification, of calling oneself a Québécois, when you see the way these issues of pluralism are handled, whether it is issues of systemic racism, or the stubborn refusal to recognize anything apart from the Aboriginal question.

(15. Karim)

When asked about his organization’s future prospects and wishes, a stakeholder with an immigrant background spontaneously raises the crucial issue of belonging to Quebec society:

I would like to find a solution or find effective ways to work on the question of identity (...) And where it is hard to say, is that yes, I assume I am a Québécois. I am a Québécois because I live in Quebec, because I pay my taxes in Quebec (…) But where it is hard for the person, in my case, is that I will never be a Québécois, because everyone asks you that question.

(16. Chronos)

This process of systematic differentiation is also experienced by this long-time Quebec resident:

I keep hearing, “Where do you come from?” and then, “Are not you a Québécoise?” I am sorry. I have been a Québécoise for 25 years now!

(11. Corapprochement)

Depending on their personal backgrounds, immigrant, racialized, and Canadian-born community workers who took part in our research do not express the same needs for recognition and identification. But one common element guides their thinking and practices: the denunciation of a balance of power in a Quebec context where “there is always this Them against Us” (4. Charles), despite a desire to “assume oneself” and “claim an identity as a Quebec citizen” (16. Chronos).

5. Conclusions

Our analysis mainly reveals how integration and intercultural practices conducted by community organizations operate quite autonomously within a local municipal system but also want to differentiate themselves from a broader provincial system. Even if some synergies can exist between such systems, especially regarding the shared principles of recognition of diversity, social cohesion, and condemnation of any discriminatory practices, the vast majority of these respondents have pointed out their contradictions. They mainly denounce a closed-minded discourse on the part of provincial authorities that contrasts with the desire of the City of Montreal and community organizations to redefine better living together, and this in a context where the current government maintains a certain ambiguity regarding the recognition of ethnocultural and religious diversity.

By their committed nature, the testimonials of these professionals also reveal the complexity of the sense of belonging that some racialized and/or immigrant community workers have developed for Quebec society over time. They also question the sensitive, often conflicting relationship between the majority and the minority groups, as well as the debate over the national question.

Whether they affect migrant populations or the community workers themselves who took part in our research, the mechanisms of differentiation and discourses of exclusion denounced by our respondents hinder the social and civic integration targeted by community organizations. At a municipal level, these discourses are hardly palpable. On the contrary, by adopting an intercultural strategy, Montreal has been able to activate several significant levers to improve citizen rapprochement and, above all, combat the racism and discrimination present in many of the city’s institutions. For stakeholders, the mayor’s recognition of this phenomenon is an encouraging first step, despite the fact that Montreal’s intercultural action as a whole is perceived as lacking vigor on the social transformation front.

While Quebec interculturalism and its interactionist approach could have won more votes, respondents denounced at length the political recuperation of a philosophy that gave rise, in the 1960s, to numerous intercultural initiatives within the Montreal community milieu. Today, according to the participants, interculturalism has become the identity standard-bearer of a cultural majority nostalgic for its past and is associated with a narrow nationalist discourse that is not very open to diversity, and suspicious of minorities that would compromise a social project to which they are not invited. Finally, can Quebec nationalism be updated “outside any essentialist posture on identity and the conservatism it entails”? (Sadjo Barry, 2023). In the face of such resistance, the path of awareness-raising and popular education by community workers seems to be a solution, although the power relations induced by structural exclusion are still powerful, according to the participants. Under these conditions, full identification with Quebec society remains compromised for a number of community workers whose cultural backgrounds resemble those of the public they support, even though they have been living in Quebec for a long time and are heavily involved in the life of the city.

In a context where issues of interculturality and the reception of migrants are giving rise to debates and growing tensions, this study thus intends to offer avenues of reflection for more inclusive and equitable policies and practices. Municipal governments seek to respond to local needs, particularly in the reception and integration of newcomers and immigrant communities. These actors need information and strategies to better coordinate their efforts and maximize their impact. They need evidence and policy recommendations to guide their policies and programs. This study could provide an enlightening analysis, policy evaluation levers, and recommendations to support municipal decision-makers in their efforts to create inclusive and welcoming communities.