The number of non-permanent residents in Quebec may not be as high as was believed in recent months. These data, closely followed in recent months, have been revised downward by Statistics Canada, which is publishing its most recent demographic estimates on Wednesday.
The province had 588,000 temporary immigrants on 1er last July, including 163,000 asylum seekers. This number is lower than the previous estimate, which was 597,000 non-permanent residents as of 1er last April, due to a change in methodology. The federal authority then indicated that there were nearly 190,000 asylum seekers in the territory.
“A new variable is now used to determine the province or territory of residence of asylum seekers,” Statistics Canada wrote in the press release released Wednesday morning.
A person who files an asylum application in Quebec may, for example, change provinces later, or vice versa. Keeping track of these interprovincial movements is not always easy or perfect: between 25% and 33% of asylum seekers leave for other cities after having indicated an initial address in La Belle Province, according to certain data analyzed by The Duty last year.
Statistics Canada considers these new calculations to be “methodological improvements.” The data are still estimates, “are considered provisional and will be reviewed according to the usual process used by Statistics Canada for decades.”
These adjustments nevertheless come at a time when acrimonious debates are taking place between the government of François Legault and that of Justin Trudeau.
Differences
Federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller, for his part, is using figures from his department. The department estimated the number of asylum seekers in Quebec as of March 31 at 96,021, half as many as Statistics Canada.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada uses a narrower definition of asylum seekers, which does not include both those already approved and awaiting residency and those who have already left or been refused.
The difference is therefore due in particular to the fact that more than 30,000 applicants have already been approved by Ottawa: they are then considered “protected persons” in the eyes of the federal government, waiting to have a “place” as a permanent resident in Quebec. However, the province’s target for this category is 3,550 people per year, which means that a bottleneck has been created.
Statistics Canada also includes people whose applications were refused, abandoned or withdrawn, who would also number more than 30,000 in Quebec. These people remain counted until there is “a signal that these people have left or have become immigrants [résidentes permanentes] “, this body wrote previously to Duty.
“It is advisable to be cautious before comparing” these data, the agency writes in its press release.