Eight years in Montreal and no prospect of staying. Yuma Arias speaks French, studied four years at one of the country’s most prestigious arts schools and has worked tirelessly since graduating. But all that is worthless in Quebec’s immigration system.
Almost all the avenues of access to settle permanently are blocked for artists like her, who are nevertheless an integral part of Quebec’s cultural vitality, notes her immigration consultant. And with the new restrictions on French, the situation will get worse, believes Éric Langlois, the general director of the National Circus School (ENC).
“I spent my adult life here. It’s a very important part of my life, between the ages of 20 and 30,” says M.me Arias in an interview entirely in French.
She does not qualify under the two main economic immigration programs and has no guarantee of obtaining another temporary work permit, which would not lead to permanent status.
On the one hand, her ENC diploma is not admissible, even though she devoted four years of her life to it, from 2017 to 2020. She is therefore immediately disqualified from the Quebec Experience Program.
The Director General of the Circus School, Éric Langlois, says he is well aware of this “major challenge” for graduates. The “École’s Diploma of Studies” (DEE) was created because many candidates from abroad or other Canadian provinces “did not qualify for the DEC [diplôme d’études collégiales] “, he explains. They did not have the “academic background” or the knowledge to succeed in the 14 general college education courses in French, English and philosophy.
The school says it has always warned its students that this diploma does not lead to permanent residency. Yuma Arias, who did not speak French when he arrived, did not understand the issue. For the past six years, foreign students have also been directed towards a DEC in English, even if “life at the school is in French,” he assures.
The educational institution is keen on recruiting outside Quebec because students from elsewhere “arrive much better prepared” for circus arts, thanks in particular to a more solid network of preparatory schools. “We would be depriving ourselves of immense talent” as well as “the emulation of other students,” says Mr. Langlois, who is keen to maintain the very high level of the cohorts of graduates.
Mme Arias says she has no hard feelings about the degree. “I went through a lot of emotions, but I think maybe I wouldn’t have had all this experience if the degree didn’t exist.” She believes she wouldn’t have been able to audition if French had been a requirement when she arrived.
Self-employment as a pitfall
“I’m more disappointed that I can’t find a way to get permanent residency. I mean, even if I don’t have the right degree, I’ve been here legally for eight years, I work, I pay my taxes: how can I not find a way?” she lists quietly.
On the other hand, Yuma Arias has indeed worked since graduating. But she spent those four years as a self-employed worker, taking on contracts for shows, as has become the norm in the circus world.
So she doesn’t get enough “points” as a skilled worker either, and she can’t apply for the Quebec Experience Program for temporary workers. Contracts aren’t continuous jobs, although her discipline requires constant and regular training. “She doesn’t have employee status,” notes Steven Johnston, her regulated immigration consultant.
But even if she passed the elimination threshold of the points grid developed by Quebec, her file would have no chance of being selected for permanent residence. “Once in the Arrima pool, she would not be competitive enough, she would never be selected,” explains Mr. Johnston, who represents several clients in the artistic community. “There is really nothing adapted [en immigration] for them in Quebec,” he summarizes.
There is also a program for self-employed workers, but you need to have $100,000 in the bank. So that’s not a possibility for Yuma Arias, even with two contracts signed for next year.
In the rest of Canada, the self-employed immigration program, on the other hand, directly targets artists and high-level athletes, but it is on hold at the moment. And Mme Arias has no plans to move outside his host province.
Not an exception
She has already seen several of her colleagues or former study companions suffer the same immigration failures. Her boyfriend, who was not even able to obtain a work permit after his graduation, unlike her. A friend who arrived from Colombia at the same time as her, who worked for several years for the Cirque du Soleil, but who has just left the country due to lack of papers. Another colleague obtained a final temporary work permit, before being refused permanent residency.
A virtuoso of her own body, she is both an artist and an athlete, with an extraordinary sensitivity and technique, noted in her environment. Yuma Arias first came from Mexico in 2016 to try her luck at the School’s highly selective auditions. Once her application was accepted and her journey started, she feared at every step that her family would not have the means to allow her to continue.
Arriving without knowledge of French or English, she plunged into a program that was as mentally and physically demanding, all without family or friends. And in winter. “I found it very hard the first year, it affected me a lot.” However, she quickly became attached to this community and spent several years without visiting her home country.
“I still had hope, it remained for a long time,” says the young woman, who consulted several lawyers and government services before realizing the truth. “I paid for a consultation with a lawyer who told me it would be better for me to work in a bakery,” she confides.
Quebec cultural influence
But it’s the circus she wants to feed, not mouths. Since finishing her studies, she has notably taken part in the show Until we die by Brigitte Poupart, which went on tour to Lyon. She is part of a collective that won the ENC’s 40th anniversary grant to create a show that is now on tour and will go to Spain in September. She is also part of the acrobatic theatre show Battles programmed in French at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa in 2025.
“These are all artists who are part of our cultural influence and who fall through the cracks, if I may use the expression,” says Mr. Johnston, referring to the various cases he has heard of.
The director general of the ENC, Éric Langlois, also deplores these difficulties for the graduates of his institution. He also states that he is not at the end of his troubles in his efforts to ensure that students from elsewhere can settle in the province, because of the new requirements of Bill 14.
Recent amendments to Law 101 (Charter of the French Language) now impose the uniform French test on all college students, with the obligation to take three courses in their program in French.
The medium-term impact on student recruitment “is a huge issue for us,” says Mr. Langlois. “We’re committed to this and we’ve set up all the courses,” but without being able to predict the success rate of the test in three years, he worries. The path for circus artists is already quite “anxiety-provoking,” and this requirement could discourage many.
This “barrier” could reduce their “attractive force,” he believes. These potential future citizens would nevertheless contribute to this cultural environment that the government seeks to protect, observes the administrator.
And it is all the more paradoxical since the crossbreeding, this external cultural contribution, is part of the very DNA of this art. “The circus is the tour around the world, the itinerancy, the contact between peoples. It has nomadic roots and it is important to have this diversity in the pools of artists,” he says.
French, he clearly speaks out in favor of its protection. “But the circus is also culture. A culture without words that is part of ours and our pride,” he concludes.