Currently a governmental commission is commencing this week in Canada, on the growing racism faced in Quebec by immigrants. In Quebec a series of government-initiated public hearings on cultural differences and immigrant integration has commenced this week.

Immigrants in Quebec have faced a growing political storm throughout the past year, as a Provincial debate on what is referred to as 'reasonable accommodation' has attracted international headlines.

A series of public hearings will occur throughout the coming months in Quebec, as part of the state commission lead by two Quebec academics who are not new immigrants. These government initiated take place within the context of growing racism toward new immigrants in Quebec, a pattern of racism directly targeting the Arab / Muslim community.

"Using the term accommodation simply put really, sort of implies to me a hierarchy of identities, where by, the identity the one that has been framed in the mainstream media as the so-called Quebcoies national identity," explains Bettache within the interview.

Debate on immigration in Quebec reached extremes in the past year, when the rural town of Herouxville passed a resolution which demanded that "new arrivals, abandon the way of life from their countries of origin, as it cannot be recreated" in Quebec. Civil liberties groups throughout Canada slammed the resolution as racist.

* Information on No One is Illegal Montreal.

* Radio Tadamon! is produced by the Tadamon! collective in Montreal, a social justice group focusing on building solidarity with movements for social / economic justice in the Middle East and Montreal, while also working within Diaspora communities in Canada.