The unilingual English-speaking federal Minister of Immigration, Sean Fraser, published, just in time for Valentine’s Day, the Justin Trudeau government’s immigration plan for 2022-2024. This plan is to once again increase immigration volumes, which will increase from 184,606 people in 2020 to 431,000 new permanent residents in 2022 and 451,000 in 2024.
Ottawa wants to admit 1.33 million new permanent immigrants in just three years. This is an 80% increase over the immigration thresholds that prevailed before the Liberal Party of Canada took power in 2015. On a per capita basis, Canada is already one of the Westerners who welcome the most immigrants.
Temporary immigration
And these figures only apply to permanent immigrants, those who obtain permanent residence. At the same time as this constant and sustained increase in permanent immigration, we are witnessing a dizzying increase in temporary immigration, that is to say the number of people admitted to Canada with a temporary study or work permit. The number of foreign workers with temporary work permits rose from 66,600 in 2000 to 429,000 in 2018, an increase of 544% in 18 years. These temporary workers increasingly obtain their permanent residence over time (up to 50%). “Temporary” immigration is therefore often disguised permanent immigration. To these temporary workers must be added foreign students, whose number is increasing exponentially; in 2020, we had 530,540 foreign students in Canada. If we combine these two temporary categories, there was, at 1er January 2020, 1.3 million temporary immigrants to Canada.
To estimate the overall volume and impact of migration, one must add the permanents to the temporary ones. To the 431,000 permanent immigrants in 2022, we must therefore add approximately 1.3 million temporary immigrants, which gives the figure of 1.73 million immigrants for 2022, or approximately 4.7% of the total population of Canada.
Consequences for Quebec
The arrival of such a large number of immigrants in such a short time has several negative consequences for Quebec. Immigration is first and foremost the direct cause of the accelerated decline of French that we have been witnessing for 15 years. But it also has the effect of exacerbating the housing crisis, the increase in the volume of immigration being directly responsible for the unbridled rise in the price of real estate in Canada. The housing crisis, of course, hits the poorest first, which often includes newcomers.
But that does not seem to move the Liberal Party unduly.
By making temporary immigration the royal route to permanent residency since 2014, Ottawa unilaterally changed the immigration system and stripped Quebec of much of its immigration powers. Why ? Because Quebec has no power of selection over temporary immigration, which is numerically more and more important, and which is strictly the responsibility of Ottawa. The power of selection of immigrants has thus shifted, indirectly, from Quebec to Ottawa.
To this must be added the discrimination exercised by Ottawa against French-speaking immigrants who wish to settle in Quebec or study there in French. The federal Department of Immigration is actively sabotaging, voluntarily or not, Quebec’s efforts to attract Francophones.
A perfect trap
The first published figures from the 2021 census indicate that the relative weight of Quebec in Canada has dropped for an 11and census in a row, going from 28.9% in 1966 to 23% in 2021. With the rise in the thresholds, the drop in this weight will accelerate. To thwart it, Quebec would have to accept about 103,730 permanent immigrants per year from 2024, more than double the current thresholds, thresholds that are already leading to the collapse of French in the entire greater Montreal area.
For French Quebec, the question of immigration is therefore a perfect trap; tails, he loses; face, Canada wins. The future reserved for Quebec in Canada is demographic drowning.
In 2017, Statistics Canada published a study of demolinguistic projections, which announced a collapse in the demographic weight of Francophones in Quebec by 2036. According to these projections, the proportion of Francophones in Quebec would drop from 78.9% in 2011 to 69% in 2036, a fall of 9.9 points. This is an unprecedented collapse in the entire history of Quebec.
This projection of 69% was calculated with a “high immigration” scenario which roughly corresponded to 350,000 permanent immigrants per year in Canada. However, the increase in immigration levels to 451,000 means that the 69% figure, far from being a “floor”, is now a “ceiling”; the actual proportion of Francophones in Quebec in 2036 will most certainly be below this figure.
This will be true even if Quebec does not increase its current permanent immigrant threshold of 50,000 per year (note: Quebec does not have this power and must follow the federal thresholds according to the Canada-Quebec Agreement). Why ? Because Quebec has no control over interprovincial migration. The balance of this migration turned positive in 2020 for the first time since 1961. It is likely that the accelerated anglicization of the greater Montreal area means that many Canadians can now live there in English as if they were in Toronto, and at a lower cost. In Montreal, the French fact looks more and more like a historical residue destined to dissolve into the greater Canadian whole. Bill 96, which carefully avoids any structuring measure, will not change this state of affairs.
The overall picture that emerges is this: if Ottawa had a methodical, systematic plan to liquidate French Quebec once and for all, that plan would probably resemble what we see unfolding before our eyes.
The Quebec government will have to wake up. And quick.