Gatineau immigration group defends controversial guide

Guide tells immigrants that obnoxious cooking smells, being late, religious proselytizing are frowned upon in Gatineau society, while violence against women and children and bribery of public officials are not acceptable
A group that offers settlement services to immigrants in Gatineau says the city’s controversial new guide for immigrants is useful and should be translated into many languages.

Carmelo Marchese, who offers settlement services to immigrants with Accueil-Parrainage Outaouais, said the document must be understood in the context that it was intended.

“They did that document to help immigrants establish themselves in the region,” he said. “If there are some paragraphs that could be interpreted as offensive, it is probably because you take it out of context. That’s my view as an immigrant.”

The guide, published by the city in October, contains 16 points detailing cultural norms to help immigrants settle in Gatineau.

Violence cannot be tolerated for reasons including “ancestral rights,” “safeguarding honour,” or “culture or religion,” the guide says. It also tells immigrants that women have equal rights and children cannot be treated with physical and sexual abuse, forcible confinement, neglect, forced labor, humiliation, willful malnutrition, the refusal of health care, or refusal of access to recognized educational services.

“There is a possibility that some immigrants in their country of origin, corporal punishment is still something applied to children. In that sense, to inform newcomers that that is something that we don’t tolerate in Canada is not that bad,” said Marchese. “I think 99 per cent of immigrants, they would be aware because in their country of origin corporal punishment is not allowed, but it is possible that in some region of the world they still use corporal punishment.”

The only wrong-headed part of the guide is the section that warns immigrants about bothering others with strong cooking smells, said Marchese.

“You are free to cook whatever you want at home,” he said. “I did not think that part is pertinent.”

The rest of the guide is useful for immigrants, he said, adding that he wishes it could be translated into other languages for non-Francophone immigrants.

However, others have been critical of the document—arguing that it is based on wrong assumptions about immigrants and that it “infantilizes” them.

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