'Reasonable accommodation' in Québec: the limits of participation and dialogue

In: Race & class: a journal for black and third world liberation, Band 52, Heft 1, S. 85-96

Abstract

This article explores the Bouchard-Taylor Commission, a 2007—8 government consultation that was established in Québec to study interculturalism, secularism and national identity, in response to what had become known as the 'reasonable accommodation debates' on the extent to which minority and immigrant cultural practices could be accommodated. The focus of this exploration is on two aspects of the Commission: the citizens' forums that were a part of its deliberative process; and the ways in which it responded to the idea of crisis. Through an analysis of aspects of the Commission's final report, the ways in which the Commission was structured and the media representations of the Commission, this article argues that, despite the spirit of equality and fairness to which the commissioners were committed and the praise it received from some members of immigrant and minority groups, the Commission ended up reinforcing the racialised hierarchies and exclusions that it wanted to redress.