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This paper presents a comparison between the two ways of managing immigration and diversity existing in Canada: multiculturalism (Canada-wide) and interculturalism (Quebec). While some authors (see Juteau, McAndrew and Pietrantonio 1998) argue that the two policies are more similar than different, others, like Gérard Bouchard (2011), argue that interculturalism is a rather unique model of managing diversity in Quebec. In this paper we aim to make a contribution to the debate by providing an analysis of the way both models understand immigrants' participation in their new society. Indeed, both models seem to consider participation as having a central role in the process of integrating newcomers. However, we will show that the reasons put forward by inter-culturalism and by multiculturalism to explain their interest in participation are very different. On the one hand, multiculturalism recognizes the importance of participation as a way of protecting individual identities, in line with the spirit of liberalism. On the other hand, for interculturalism, the issue of participation seems to be more fundamental: not only is participation one of the founding pillars of the policy, but it is also consistent with the political, legal and historical characteristics of the province of Quebec. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]