Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that immigration targets will be gradually raised, reaching 500,000 immigrants by 2025. In order to maintain its demographic weight within Canada, Quebec should aim for 100,000 immigrants or more annually. François Legault, arguing Quebec’s ability to integrate, first and foremost in terms of defending French, instead sets the limit not to be exceeded at 50,000 immigrants per year… adding a few days later than if he were to s To deal with immigrants already fluent in French, he could consider raising this figure.
Some go further. A group of business people and ex-politicians from Toronto (mainly) gathered within the Century Initiative / Initiative du siècle1 is actively promoting a target of up to one million immigrants per year. The goal would be for Canada to reach a population of 100 million inhabitants in 2100. In this context, Toronto would be destined to accommodate 33.5 million inhabitants, Montreal, 12.2 million.
Know where we are starting from
The small table opposite presents the demographic forecasts that seem the most probable according to recent trends. It is not without interest to point out that between 2020 and 2100, according to the Initiative of the Century, almost 100% of the population growth forecast for Canada and Quebec will in any case come from international immigration.
It is in the light of these figures that the proposal to increase the Canadian population to 100 million must be evaluated.
The Power Argument
Century Initiative’s main argument is that at 100 million people, Canada could compete with the “powers” of the world.
The noun “power” would be defined by both demography and economy: the more populous a country, the more powerful it would be economically, which would lead to a rise in the standard of living of its inhabitants. Is this equation valid?
Despite their small populations, Switzerland, Denmark and Norway enjoy some of the highest standards of living on the planet. In addition, the UN predicts that China will lose 400 million inhabitants by 2100 (-28%) and Japan, 44 million (-34%). Should we deduce from this that the standard of living of the inhabitants of these countries is set to collapse? Conversely and finally, this same UN, still on the horizon of 2100, announces for the Republic of Congo an increase from 90 to 379 million in the number of its inhabitants (+ 321%), from 206 to 794 million in Nigeria (+ 285%) : you have to know nothing about these countries to consider that their current situation is enviable and that their future looks bright.
In my view, this power argument is nonsense.
Where would all these additional Quebecers come from?
To maintain its demographic weight in a Canada of 100 million inhabitants, Quebec should aim for between 20 and 25 million inhabitants in 2100. Preserving its distinctive personality would require encouraging immigration from French-speaking countries. In this respect, let us first consider the case of Europe.
Until the 1970s, this continent poured its demographic overflow onto North America. However, there is little to hope for in the future. This is particularly true for France, Belgium and Switzerland, the only European countries theoretically able to provide French-speaking immigration. Were it not for the birth rates of their historical populations, so low that the meager population growth they will experience by 2100 will be based on immigration. In short, they all find themselves in a situation similar to ours.
It is clear, as shown in the following table, that the continent best able to provide large demographic contingents by 2100 is Africa. Including, concerning us, strong contingents mastering the French language.
The challenge for Quebec
Canada is undeniably a destination of choice for immigrants from Eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa. Should Ottawa choose to pursue the path of multiculturalism, pushed to its extreme by the Initiative of the Century, or even further, it would have no difficulty in convincing as many people as desired to come and build their future there.
In Quebec, the question is different. We have chosen interculturalism, based on our ability to integrate newcomers in order to preserve the societal characteristics that are most dear to us, first and foremost the French fact.
Given, on the one hand, the low birth rate of the historical population of Quebec2on the other hand from the programmed disappearance within a few decades of its most populous cohort, that of the baby-boomers, said historical population will number around 4 million individuals in the year 2100. This means that in whatever the case, the demographic future of Quebec rests on immigration.
Around 10 million inhabitants by 2100, it will certainly be difficult but all the same possible to preserve our model of society based on the French fact.
Somewhere between 20 and 25 million, let us mourn it immediately:
– either Quebec will then, like the rest of Canada, have become a multicultural society whose common language will be English;
– or French will continue to be the common language there, but Quebec will in some way have become an extension of Africa.
1 Document, For a bigger, bolder Canada85 pages, available on the website of this organization
2. The synthetic fertility index (ISF) there is 1.58 (ISQ, 2021), already far from the 2.10 required to maintain the size of the population. It should be added that the TFR of historical populations, both Francophone and Anglophone, is significantly below this figure, since births to a mother born abroad account for 26.6% of the total (ISQ, 2019), a rate significantly higher than the 14.8% represented by immigrants and non-residents in the population of Quebec (Statistics Canada, 2016 census).