Quebec’s proposed charter of values has brought the debate over multiculturalism to the fore. In Genuine Multiculturalism: The Tragedy and Comedy of Diversity (McGill-Queen’s University Press), Cecil Foster makes an unusual brief against Canada’s approach to accommodating immigrants, arguing that it reinforces predominantly male and Eurocentric structures of power. Instead of backing either French or English nationalism as an alternative to multiculturalism—as the Parti Québécois and others do—Foster sides with often-forgotten segments of the Canadian population. Indigenous peoples and immigrants, he says, have a more inclusive conception of a just society, one that the rest of Canada could learn from. It’s a compelling case, though Foster presents it in an occasionally clunky and overwrought style. This is an important book, one that politicians in this province, and across the country, should read. 

—Laurent Bastien Corbeil 

Serafim and Claire (House of Anansi), Mark Lavorato’s ...