Although the portrait of immigration has changed considerably in recent years with the influx of temporary immigrants, Minister Christine Fréchette will stick to the usual consultations on the thresholds for permanent immigration, a number that is around 50,000. in 2023.
Last week, the Minister of Immigration, Francisation and Integration rejected, during the study of the credits of her ministry, the proposal of the opposition to broaden the reflection to temporary workers and students. foreigners as well as to asylum seekers, which was suggested, in particular, by Québec solidaire MP Guillaume Cliche-Rivard, who, before his election in Saint-Henri–Sainte-Anne, was a lawyer specializing in the rights of immigrants.
However, these 50,000 landed immigrants constitute only a fraction of the foreigners who live in Quebec, who work there or who study there, while their temporary status represents for many of them the ideal way to settle in Quebec. permanently.
According to data released during the appropriations study, the number of permanent immigrants reached 68,000 in 2022, which was forecast in the immigration plan for the year. We find the 50,000 of the normal threshold to which is added a catch-up affecting 18,000 candidates due to the delays accumulated during the pandemic. However, temporary immigrants are three times more numerous than this exceptionally inflated figure and four times more than the threshold of 50,000 to which the CAQ government seems to want to cling.
Thus, there are 93,370 foreign students in Quebec and 73,195 temporary workers under the Federal International Mobility Program (PMI). A little more than 35,000 people, including several seasonal agricultural workers, take the path of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) supervised by Quebec. With nearly 60,000 asylum seekers, the milestone of 300,000 immigrants across all categories has been exceeded.
84% of foreign workers in the PMI settle in the Montreal region, and 40% of them do not speak French. They are recruited by companies with the sole endorsement of the federal government. We guess that those who do not speak French work in English in a labor market that accommodates them. Nothing to encourage the regionalization of immigration, nothing to prevent the erosion of the French fact in the metropolis.
Temporary foreign workers meet “one-time” or “conjunctural” needs, said Christine Fréchette. It’s a half-truth. Often, these so-called temporary workers hold permanent positions. Currently, together with foreign students, they form the main pool of candidates for immigration. And when a conjecture lasts 15 years, as is the case with the mass of baby boomers who will switch to the left, it is more of a basic trend.
That the minister decides to wear blinkers and neglect factors that increasingly condition the nature of so-called economic immigration, the one whose candidates are selected by Quebec, leaves you speechless. Of course, those who appear before a parliamentary committee will have the opportunity to go beyond the narrow framework defined by the consultations. But since the content of the “major reforms” promised by the Minister will be unveiled by the end of this session, some participants will doubtless have the impression, at the end of the summer, of speaking in a vacuum.
Similarly, the minister is silent on the broader powers that the Quebec state should exercise in the area of temporary foreign workers.
A form of pragmatic resignation seems to animate the minister, who intends to announce concrete measures to select more French-speaking or Francotropic candidates. The requirements of the Quebec Experience Program (PEQ), a fast track to obtaining a Quebec selection certificate, should be relaxed for French-speaking students. They are less likely to emigrate to Quebec since the CAQ government imposed restrictions on the program.
We must understand that the Legault government has abandoned the idea of holding a form of summit or states general on the issue of demography, the situation of French and immigration. Given the regularity with which the Caquists got into trouble on this subject, one can understand the reserve of the apparatchiks.
The Trudeau government is pursuing its bloated immigration policy, which is changing the social and linguistic profile of Canada, to the detriment of Quebec and French-speaking Canadians. Meanwhile, the Legault government is tightening the bolts.