Temporary immigrants who want to settle in Quebec for good will have to learn French, otherwise they will have to “return home,” said Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon.
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The Superminister of the Economy and Energy agrees with his colleague Christine Fréchette that Quebec must aim for entirely Francophone immigration. “100% agree with that!”, He confided on Wednesday, in a press scrum at the National Assembly.
Mr. Fitzgibbon recognizes, however, that the workforce in certain high-tech sectors is more difficult to fill from Francophone pools. This is the case of the expertise for the production of active cathode materials, which are used in lithium batteries intended for the electric vehicle market.
“The cathodes, they come from China, they come from Japan or they come from Korea. SO [quand] they come here, they don’t speak French. But there are some who will want to stay here, they will learn French and will be permanent afterwards. And those who don’t want to, they will return home!” he insisted.
Its leader, however, showed himself “concerned” on Tuesday by the meteoric rise in the number of temporary immigrants. Prime Minister François Legault is even considering requiring them to have French skills.
The most recent data from Statistics Canada indicate that Quebec welcomed 346,000 temporary immigrants to its territory as of 1er January, even though the CAQ has frozen the permanent immigration threshold at 50,000 again this year.
The Legault government has already announced that it will impose French skills on all economic immigrants who want to obtain their permanent residence.