On the eve of a summit meeting with his counterpart Justin Trudeau, François Legault is not beating around the bush: he wants to repatriate all immigration powers. Otherwise, he will “evaluate his options”.
Minister Legault opened his game on Thursday when questioned during question period by the leader of the Parti Québécois (PQ), Paul St-Pierre Plamondon. “Can the Prime Minister confirm to us that he will make the formal request to Justin Trudeau during his meeting tomorrow? » asked the PQ elected official. “The short answer is yes,” replied Mr. Legault.
“That will be one of my demands, to repatriate all powers over immigration. What I am also going to ask him is that we reduce the number of temporary immigrants and then asylum seekers,” he added.
Relaunched by Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon, the head of government maintained that a complete refusal from Ottawa would not be acceptable. “ [Dans l’éventualité d’un non], we will evaluate our options. There are options that present themselves. We are already in the process of evaluating them,” said the Prime Minister, without specifying his thoughts.
The meeting between prime ministers is their first face-to-face meeting since December 2022. It occurs in a context where the Legault government has been demanding for weeks a better distribution of asylum seekers across Canada, as well as the reimbursement of amounts used to welcome them to Quebec since 2021.
Further details will follow.
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