MONTREAL — Rosalie Pelchat is typical of the younger generation of Quebecers here. She switches effortlessly from French to English. She spends hours each day surfing Facebook or watching Netflix in the language of Shakespeare.

And, like many of her generation, she is uninterested in fighting for an independent Quebec.

“We don’t feel the same insecurity about language as our parents’ generation did,” Ms. Pelchat, a 17-year-old science student, said in the cafeteria at Collège de Maisonneuve, a Francophone college. “We are better off economically in Canada and open to the world. Talk of independence is a total turnoff.”

As Quebecers prepare to go to the polls on Oct. 1 in provincial elections, the polarizing issue of whether the province should secede from Canada has been sidelined for the first time in decades. It underscores how the culture wars of the past have shifted in this Francophone province where language and culture are deeply bound up with identity.

Instead of focusing on Quebec’s independence, the campaign has been dominated by talk of education, health care and, especially, immigration. The center-right party is trying to appeal to Quebecers by proposing that the province’s autonomy be preserved by limiting immigration and imposing a “values test” and a “French language test” on newcomers.