After having themselves opened the floodgates to fill up with foreign workers and students, Quebec and Ottawa are suddenly putting on the brakes. The number of temporary immigrants, which also includes asylum seekers, has exploded since 2022. To the point where François Legault now wants to move 80,000 asylum seekers to other provinces. A look back at the origins of a crisis.
Let’s recap. Broadly, the temporary immigrant population is made up of three groups: foreign workers, international students, and asylum seekers. They are often temporary in name only. Many of them, in fact, have statuses that will allow them to never leave. Others come here intending to stay and will look for ways to extend their stay.
In Quebec, according to Statistics Canada, the largest group of temporary immigrants is that of workers: 46%. Asylum seekers occupy second place (28%), ahead of students (21%). However, it must be said that the number of asylum seekers is much higher in Quebec than elsewhere in Canada. Quebec, with 22% of the population, welcomes 41% of asylum seekers.
The increase in temporary immigration began in 2016, after Justin Trudeau came to power. But it was in 2022, in the aftermath of the pandemic, that it really exploded.
The increase was so sudden and so strong that Statistics Canada and the Quebec Institute of Statistics were unable to predict it.
There are of course reasons which explain this record increase in newcomers. The first is the labor shortage.
At the end of the pandemic, the federal government facilitated the entry of non-permanent residents thanks to the multiplication of measures which were not the subject of debate or planning:
- abolition of the limit imposed on seasonal industries for the recruitment of low-wage foreign workers;
- increase from 10% to 20% in the proportion of temporary workers authorized within a company;
- increased working hours for foreign students;
- 18-month extension of the duration of post-graduation work permits;
- creating new pathways to permanent residency for graduates and temporary workers;
- adoption of a public policy allowing foreign workers to study without a study permit;
- relaxation of criteria for spouses of work or study permit holders;
- as well as other measures.
Some of these openings were made at the request of Quebec. It was following pressure on Ottawa in 2021, for example, that the Legault government managed to increase the proportion of foreign workers within the same company from 10% to 20% in many sectors, including diet and health. Quebec then saw it as a major step forward in terms of temporary immigration.
“The main force behind temporary immigration is the considerable and incredible lobby of business associations,” believes economist Pierre Fortin. This lobby has had the ear of François Legault. »
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Pierre Fortin, economist
“You have to understand them,” he adds. These people are honest, they think that more temporary immigrants will improve economic growth. »
Yes, it’s true, more immigrants grow the economy, but it doesn’t necessarily make people richer. It depends on who you bring in and how many resources you need to use to maintain productivity.
Pierre Fortin, economist
In two years, in Quebec, the number of temporary residents has practically doubled, going from 301,000 to 588,000.
The number of asylum seekers jumped by 123% and the number of temporary foreign workers by 121%! During this time, the number of international students increased by 69%.
No one really noticed because in the immigration debates the spotlight was on permanent immigration. During this time, measures, often of a technical nature, were announced one by one, without having an overall vision. Nor did any government have targets on temporary immigration that would have enabled monitoring.
There was a loss of control, both at the federal and provincial levels.
Richard Marcoux, full professor in the sociology department of Laval University and director of the Demographic and Statistical Observatory of the Francophone Space
“And I have the impression that we are still improvising a little,” observes Professor Richard Marcoux.
PHOTO TAKEN FROM LAVAL UNIVERSITY WEBSITE
Richard Marcoux, full professor in the sociology department of Laval University and director of the Demographic and Statistical Observatory of the Francophone Space
While in Paris this week, Prime Minister François Legault said he wanted to take inspiration from France to create waiting areas where asylum seekers would be housed and fed while their cases are studied. These zones, believes Mr. Legault, would also allow Ottawa to better distribute the number of asylum seekers between the provinces.
“What we want is for there to be half of the [160 000] asylum seekers who are currently in Quebec who are transferred to other provinces, and this is the responsibility of the federal government. They can take inspiration from France,” François Legault said on Wednesday.
In Ottawa, this possible solution was received coldly. Federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller recognizes, however, that his government must act to reduce the excessive number of temporary immigrants in the country. In an interview with Radio-Canada last month, he even admitted to having delayed doing so. “Quite frankly, we took a little too long to slow down the machine,” he declared on the show’s microphone. Facts First.
Immigrants are not to blame. It was the two governments that opened the doors wide to them, without imposing a ceiling and without measuring the consequences: housing shortage, increase in rents and house prices, pressure on public services, etc.
As a result, more and more Quebecers and Canadians from other provinces now find that there are too many immigrants.
“Opinion on immigration has undergone a 180-degree turnaround over the past three or four years,” notes Pierre Fortin. We had 25 to 30% of our people who thought there were too many immigrants. There, it’s 60 to 65%. »