Immigration in the region | Eating halal in Saint-Ubalde

“In Saint-Ubalde, the first few days, I felt like an alien!”

Mariem Ksaier, 30, arrived from Tunisia in June 2022 on a closed work permit for Patates Dolbec, the largest potato producer in eastern Canada. Position: Potato sorter. Her husband, Shawki Tallous, 39, had been employed by the Saint-Ubalde company since January 2020.

A detail that will not have escaped you: Mariem wears the veil. Which, we agree, is less common in the MRC of Portneuf than in Montreal.

But her initial feeling did not last long. “With work, things changed,” she said. “Today, people know me because of the veil.”

Mariem recounts her experience in the living room of her home in Saint-Ubalde, a fourplex that she and her husband bought in December, shortly after the birth of their first child. This village of 1,400 souls, a little over two hours from Montreal and an hour from Quebec City, has become their village and they find life pleasant there. And this, despite the disadvantages of living in a small town far from major centres, including the difficulty of finding the products they are used to, especially the halal meat required by their religious practice.

“I feel good in Saint-Ubalde,” says Shawki, his little boy snuggled against him.

Shawki had been dreaming of coming to Canada for a very long time. He even chose his field of study with his immigration project in mind. He is an agri-food engineer.

But all he found was a job as a farm hand in the state-of-the-art Patates Dolbec packing house, where potatoes are washed, sorted and packed. No matter. He jumped at the chance. “Given the difficult economic and social conditions in Tunisia, I had no choice, I had to leave,” he explains.

His experience illustrates one of the forgotten aspects of temporary immigration: the recognition of diplomas and skills. Many foreign workers are overqualified for the tasks they are assigned. And often, it is easier for them to enter Quebec by accepting positions below their qualifications.

The procedures to obtain his work permit lasted a year and four months. In January 2020, in the middle of winter and with the pandemic looming, Shawki landed in Montreal with three other Tunisian workers. Destination: Saint-Ubalde. “It was -25 ^o“That’s when I got out of the airport,” he said with a laugh.

In 2019, his employer bought a restaurant that was closing in the village to turn it into the Casa des travailleurs étrangeres, where he lived for two years.

But Shawki was lucky because Patates Dolbec allowed him to progress in the company.

Over the years, he has held various positions: sorter, quality inspector, machine operator, foreman, assistant supervisor, etc. “Now, I operate optical sorters to ensure automatic sorting of potatoes and to have the quantities and quality requested in connection with artificial intelligence,” he explains.

The hardest part for him was getting his wife, Mariem, to come here. His status as a farm worker did not allow him to be accompanied by his partner. He therefore had to convince his employer to recruit her by offering her a closed employment contract. Three of his four Tunisian colleagues did the same thing to get their wives here.

Mariem, who is an agronomist, arrived in Quebec in June 2022, almost three years after her husband. A few months later, she and Shawki obtained their permanent residency.

Let’s summarize. After dreaming of Canada since his adolescence, Shawki, barely four years after setting foot in Quebec, starting at the bottom of the ladder, established his family, obtained permanent residency, gave birth to a little Quebecer and found himself the owner of a fourplex whose tenants are… native Quebecers. This is certainly not a fairy tale, but an example of successful immigration.

A growing community

How many Tunisians live in the village?

“I can tell you that Tunisians are a success story in Saint-Ubalde!” says Shawki, who is a volunteer coach of the children’s soccer team at the local primary school.

Around 45% of the 175 employees of Patates Dolbec come from abroad: Mexico, Guatemala, Tunisia, Cuba… “We have workers of eight nationalities,” explains Josée Petitclerc, co-owner of the company with her husband, Stéphan Dolbec.

“We are certainly very happy when people settle down and bring their wives and children,” adds M.^me Petitclerc: We are in the region, we need workers. We need to fill our schools, we need people everywhere. They integrate really well, too. Many of them volunteer. They get involved in leisure activities. They participate. The villages are a warm welcome for these people.

Patates Dolbec also offers French lessons during working hours.

But this is not the only company in the region that recruits abroad. The majority of maple groves and dairy farms use this workforce from elsewhere. Temporary immigrants work in all the villages around Portneuf where there is agriculture.

The company’s recruitment strategy is to choose workers who will want to settle down for good.

“We want the money to stay in the community,” explains Esther Savard, who works in human resources at the company. “So, by having people who settle here with permanent residency, it allows the money to be reinvested here, and to retain our skills. There are people from certain countries that we knew would seek permanent residency to stay with us, while others, for different reasons, would want to do contracts and return to their country one day.”

As a result, the population of Saint-Ubalde is increasing. A 12-unit building has just been built. Another, with 8 units, will be built in September. The proportion of immigrants in the village has gone from 0% in 2016 to 0.7% in 2021. It is 1.6% in the Portneuf MRC.

Shawki and his wife, who are expecting a second child, are contributing to this growth. “This is a country of opportunities,” says the Tunisian. “I can count the disadvantages on the fingers of one hand. The rest are all advantages.”