AbstractNeo‐liberal ideology, increasingly adopted by both French‐speaking and English‐speaking communities in Québec, has effectively removed the topic of culture from the language debate. The rights of the individual, as an individual, are now paramount. Cultural values, by contrast, appear ethnocentric and backward‐looking, since they refer to the community rather than the individual and reaffirm the importance of history. Yet the primacy of cultural and historical factors can readily be demonstrated in contemporary developments in the province. School reform and language legislation are taken as examples. The paper argues that neo‐liberal ideology lessens the contact of the language debate with reality and is contrary to Canadian tradition, including the sovereignty of parliament. It also weakens the position of both French‐speaking and English‐speaking communities in Québec in the face of more powerful influences from outside the province and the country.