François Legault may want to make obtaining increased powers for Quebec in immigration a priority for his second term, his federal counterpart does not seem very open to the idea. Justin Trudeau speaks instead of increasing the arrival of newcomers to Quebec, rather than freezing it at the current threshold, as Prime Minister Legault promised to do during the election campaign.
The Canadian Prime Minister called François Legault on Monday evening to congratulate him on his re-election as head of the Quebec government. “We talked about the protection of French. And as you know, we are there to protect French in Quebec and everywhere across the country, ”said the federal Prime Minister, upon his arrival at the weekly meeting of the Liberal caucus.
Mr. Legault made the protection of French one of the central themes of his election campaign and argued that, to achieve this, Quebec had to repatriate more powers in immigration to better control the arrival of immigrants who master the language of Molière. The leader of the Coalition avenir Québec also wants to maintain the number of newcomers to Quebec at 50,000 per year.
“On immigration, there are a lot of things that can be done,” commented Mr. Trudeau about his Quebec partner. “We know that immigration is a source of wealth and growth for Quebec. We will continue to be there to ensure that there is more immigration to Quebec. And we are very happy to work with Prime Minister Legault. »
The day before, the Quebec lieutenant of Mr. Trudeau, the minister Pablo Rodriguez, also seemed to cut short the requests for increased powers in immigration. “Quebec currently has all the tools in hand to choose the vast majority of its immigrants,” he ruled on Tuesday. “Quebec has the necessary tools — and it’s important that it be able to do so — to protect French. And we will always be side by side with Quebec when it comes to defending French,” he added.
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