Immigrants | Does Quebec have “the necessary powers”?

The debate has been going on for months. Prime Minister François Legault is calling for all powers in immigration. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau retorts that Quebec has “all the necessary powers”. Who is right ?

Suzanne Colpron
The Press

The answer is not simple. To fully understand, you need to know that there are two groups of immigrants: permanent residents and non-permanent residents.

Let’s start with the permanents. They are grouped under three categories: economic immigration, family reunification and refugees.

Under an agreement signed with Ottawa in 1991, the Quebec government has 100% control of its economic immigration. He is the one who selects people according to his own criteria, including knowledge of French. It also selects refugees abroad. It is the only province that has so much power over immigration.

+ 50%

What is the proportion of economic immigrants out of all permanent newcomers?

The economic category represents, year after year, more than half of the immigrants admitted each year to Quebec (between 50 and 70%). The other two categories monopolize in roughly equal shares the rest of the places available within the annual threshold.

For family reunification, the federal government establishes the main criteria. But the government of Quebec has a say, because it determines whether the financial capacity of the person sponsoring the family member is respected.

“In absolute terms, compared to the entire population of Quebec, it is still very few people who are sponsored in Quebec,” points out Daye Diallo, senior economist at the Institut du Québec.

In 2019, the last normal year before the health crisis, Quebec received some 40,000 permanent immigrants, including 10,000 from family reunification.

“From 2016 to 2020, 50% of people sponsored in Quebec said they spoke French when they arrived,” says the economist.

Quebec sets the thresholds

It is also Quebec that determines its immigration thresholds.

The Legault government has set its reception capacity at 50,000 permanent immigrants this year. The Prime Minister said it would be “suicidal” for French Quebec to accept more. “As long as we have not stopped the decline of French, I think that for the Quebec nation which wants to protect French, it would be a little suicidal to go and increase” the immigration threshold, he declared. September 28.

In fact, the government could receive many more. According to the Canada-Quebec Accord, signed in 1991, Quebec can accommodate around 27% of all immigrants arriving in Canada, which corresponds to its demographic weight within the federation, plus a margin of 5%. This represents 116,100 people.

This year, Canada expects to admit 431,000 immigrants to the country. Quebec’s 50,000 threshold represents only 12% of this total.

“With regard to immigration, Quebec already has all the tools if it wants to have more French-speaking immigrants, if it wants to accept more immigrants,” Prime Minister Trudeau said in the House of Commons on 5 october.

The non-permanent

Now let’s talk about non-permanent residents. Their number has exploded over the past ten years. In 2021, there were 177,000 temporary permit holders in Quebec. Who are these people ? Foreign students and workers.

There are three programs: international students, international mobility and temporary foreign workers.

The most important is that of foreign students. Quebec has a say in the choice of students insofar as anyone who wishes to come and study here, before applying to the federal government for a study permit, must obtain a Quebec acceptance certificate for studies.

In 2021, nearly 91,000 people applied for a study permit in Quebec.

“The federal government cannot grant a study permit to a person who is not registered in an institution designated by the Quebec Ministry of Higher Education, and cannot grant a study permit to a person who does not have a Quebec Acceptance Certificate,” says Jean-Pierre Corbeil, associate professor in the sociology department at Université Laval.

The workers

The other two programs, which aim to fill labor shortages, target workers.

The international mobility program, which is growing very rapidly, is based on an agreement established between an employer and a potential candidate. In 2021, it had around 62,000 people.

The other program is the temporary foreign worker program.

In a very large number of cases, these workers obtain a Quebec Acceptance Certificate before applying for a permit from the federal government.

Many of these non-permanent residents, international students and temporary workers will eventually apply for permanent residence in Quebec.

Enough powers?

All in all, does Quebec have “all the necessary powers”?

“Perhaps Quebec is not doing all its homework,” replies Professor Jean-Pierre Corbeil.

“As regards family reunification and refugees, adds Professor Corbeil, there could be conditions aimed at facilitating the learning of French. »

Benoit Pelletier, professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa and authority in the field of constitutional law, adds that “this is not the time for Mr. Legault to discuss it with Ottawa”. “Relations are too strained,” he said. In my opinion, there would even be a risk of a tightening of the agreement if it had to be renegotiated. It becomes a matter of principle for Ottawa. »