From “Louisianization” to “a little suicidal”, the declarations – calculated or failed – of the leader of the Coalition avenir Québec, François Legault, on the risks of greater immigration have marked the spirits, to such an extent that more of a voter has forgotten why he is seeking a “strong mandate” next Monday.
May 29. Mr. Legault announces his campaign objective. “I ask, in the next elections, a strong mandate to go and negotiate this [le transfert, d’Ottawa à Québec, des “pouvoirs” de sélection des quelque 10 000 immigrants inscrits au programme de regroupement familial] with the federal government,” he argued at the end of the CAQ’s national convention in Drummondville. If nothing is done, “it could become a matter of time before we become a Louisiana,” he adds. Controversy erupts. His opponents accuse him of creating a crisis from scratch.
August 31. A CAQ strategist specifies the contours of the “strong mandate” coveted by Mr. Legault. The 65-year-old politician wants to see the CAQ get more votes – but not necessarily more seats – than in 2018, explains the councilor in the parking lot of a “sports brewery” in the suburbs of Montreal.
According to the statistical model of the Qc125 electoral projection site, the CAQ will end up with more or less 16 additional seats, but not necessarily one more vote.
September 11th. Mr. Legault does not wait until the day after the general election to water down his wine. It gives Ottawa the choice “either to give us the powers — that’s what we prefer — or to be more demanding in terms of knowledge of French” by ensuring that 80% of candidates for economic immigration he selects are fluent in French, he says.
But observers are focusing their attention on another part of the CAQ leader’s speech, according to which “national cohesion” could unravel if the immigration targets advocated by Québec solidaire (between 60,000 and 80,000 immigrants per year) and the Liberal Party of Quebec (70,000 immigrants per year) were followed.
At 34e campaign day, few voters make much of the abandonment of Mr. Legault’s campaign goal of winning more immigration powers from Ottawa. On the other hand, many keep in mind the statements he made on the risks for the vitality of the French language and Quebec values of an immigration superior to Quebec’s integration capacities.
On the eve of polling day, Québec solidaire co-spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois accused the CAQ leader of diverting attention from the housing crisis or even the climate crisis by repeating that the increase in immigration thresholds above 50,000 people per year would be “a bit suicidal” for the Quebec nation. “Suicide is killing yourself. Welcoming people to Quebec, does that lead to the death of the Quebec nation? asks Mr. Nadeau-Dubois in front of the “shriveled and fearful discourse” on the future of Quebec by Mr. Legault. But why does he choose to create a diversion by talking about immigration, and not something else? Mr. Nadeau-Dubois does not want to hazard an answer.
Political science professor at Laval University Valérie-Anne Mahéo is convinced that “Mr. Legault’s electoral strategy is to continue to speak to this clientele for whom the issue of immigration is important, for whom there is there may be too much immigration to Quebec”.
The caquistes “are in the process of consolidating their electoral base” and ensuring that it comes out to vote next Monday by means of speeches such as “we must be careful” or “we must be vigilant” in the face of the erosion of the Quebec identity.
To see François Legault “talk again and again” about immigration and diversity after reforming the immigration system, establishing a test of democratic values and Quebec values expressed by the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, having the Law on the secularism of the State (law 21), then the Law on the official and common language of Quebec, French (law 96) by the National Assembly shows that it wishes to remain the reference party for immigration -anxious. He does not want to give an inch to the Parti Québécois, which promises to welcome 35,000 immigrants a year, 15,000 less than the CAQ.
Moreover, the leader of the PQ, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, suspects Mr. Legault of having raised the possibility of holding a “sectoral” referendum on Quebec’s powers in immigration just to win the favor of PQ sympathizers.
“The CAQ has made a strong effort to gain control over this issue. [de l’immigration]more than the PQ, which has always cultivated a discourse in relation to language, in relation to integration, in relation to culture, in relation to values”, recalls the co-author of the book The new Quebec voter (PUM, 2022) Valérie-Anne Mahéo.
September 30. Journalists come across the CAQ candidate in Camille-Laurin, Richard Campeau. They question him about the withdrawal of solidarity Marie-Ève Rancourt. They question him on the scope of the remarks on immigration by his leader, François Legault. Word [«suicidaire » qu’il a employé cette semaine, c’est] strong all the same, you recognize it? one of them asks. ” If you want. Me, it bothers me more or less. Quite frankly, what I hear at the doors, people seem to agree with that—the native francophones, for example, you’re going to tell me. People said to me: ‘Yes, it’s a word…’” he replies tit for tat.
In an election campaign, the words repeated by a political leader have meaning and purpose.
With Florence Morin-Martel