Sommet du Vivre ensemble

Gatineau looks at integrating newcomers

On April 20, Gatineau held an all-day conference on living together, how to live a common life with newcomers among us. While one may think that having a city hold such a conference  might  be a token commitment, such is certainly not the case for Gatineau.

The city began with a celebration of black history in February, followed by a celebration of International Women’s Day in March. May will be dedicated to Asian heritage and June with a recognition of world refugee day and national Aboriginal day. August will see a celebration of cultural diversity and in October there will be a seminar on intercultural relations.

Panels of experts filled the morning schedule. Among the participants was Jack Jedwab, a professor at both the University of Quebec in Montreal and McGill. Jedwab has studied widely on minority relations and attitudes toward minorities in Quebec.

We attended a couple of roundtables (“World Cafés”) on how to promote positive interactions with newcomers and what individuals can do to assist in fruitful living together. At one table, Anne-Marie Chagnon threw out the concept of “jumelage,” pairing up with a newcomer or newcomer family. This idea was made more concrete at another table, where Aissetou Koné spoke of such an arrangement as being helpful in dealing with situations that are new and strange. Coming from Mali, she had no idea about snow suits. Accueil-Parrainage Outaouais is an organization that distributed their pamphlet at the conference, and jumelage is among the services they offer.

Fernanda Gutirrez, a Mexican immigrant active with the Association des femmes immigrants, commented on a cultural difference between Mexicans and Quebeckers. Here there is much more of a separation between personal life and work life.

One very simple way of promoting living together is summed up in one word—smile, said Hayet Laggoune, who comes from Algeria. She thought a moment and added another word—bonjour. 

In combating prejudice, sociologists have favoured working together on some common task. The same should apply equally to “living together.” For example, neighbours might put their efforts together to build a skating rink for the children or to lobby the city for a stop sign or street light.

With all that can be said positively about the day, we note some incorrect information that shows a spotlight on a serious regional shortcoming. In the booklet “Gatineau, c’est dans mon objectif!” people are referred to a service not available locally, 211, described as information on community, social, governmental, and health services.

211 did have a local sputtering start a while back, but it is long gone. While the service exists widely in North America and even across the river in Ottawa, politicians and organizations have failed to make this important social utility available here. When are they prepared to make this claim a reality here? For the time being, some help is available from Ottawa’s 211, which can be reached from here at 613-761-9076. Health and social problems are also addressed by calling 811, which has a general rather than local focus.