(Quebec) A few days before the convention of the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) in Sherbrooke, François Legault is relaunching his demands to obtain more powers from Ottawa in matters of immigration, particularly with regard to temporary foreign workers.
The Prime Minister announced Tuesday that the Minister of Immigration, Christine Fréchette, will unveil in the coming days new criteria aimed at requiring a certain level of French from all economic immigrants. Mr. Legault had already promised that 100% of this category of immigrants, which falls under Quebec, would be Francophone or Francotropic by 2026. Last November, he specified that 80% of them knew French at the time current.
While Quebec has capped the annual threshold of economic newcomers at 50,000, the number of temporary foreign nationals is higher. As of December 31, the province had 108,410 temporary foreign workers (35,215 under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program and 73,195 under the International Mobility Program), as well as 93,370 foreign students on its territory.
François Legault recognizes that there are “a lot of temporary workers” and that he is looking at what the government can do with them “to protect French in Quebec”. First, the Prime Minister asked to look at foreign students so that “the vast majority come to study in French, therefore in our French-speaking CEGEPs and universities”.
Temporary foreign nationals who later want to become permanent immigrants will also have to meet the new criteria for knowledge of French.
“The urgency” to protect French
For François Legault, “the urgency, in the short term, is to protect French in Quebec”. A year ago, during his party’s pre-election convention, the Prime Minister argued that Quebec risked becoming “a Louisiana” if Ottawa did not give him full powers in immigration. He asked for “a strong mandate to negotiate this with the federal government”. Ottawa has always refused to accede to his demands on this subject.
For the Caquiste congress this weekend, where the Prime Minister will undergo a vote of confidence whose outcome does not cause much suspense, the party is no longer talking about recovering full powers in immigration. A resolution submitted by the political committee is limited to claiming a single power in this area: “control of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP)”.
In a press scrum on Tuesday, Mr. Legault clarified that his government still demanded full powers over immigration, but that it must “act in the short term with the powers that[il] a”, then “act gradually with the federal government” with its new demands.
The “Initiative of the Century” denounced
The National Assembly unanimously also denounced, on Tuesday, the idea put forward by the “Initiative of the Century” group, which aims to bring Canada’s population to 100 million by 2100. According to a motion presented by the Liberals and which was supported by all parties, such a project would have “deleterious effects” by “marginalizing French” in the country and reducing the demographic weight of Quebec within the Canadian federation.
“This initiative is not viable for the future of the Quebec nation,” the motion states, adding that Ottawa must establish “immigration thresholds based on the reception capacity of Quebec and Canada likely to maintain the weight of French and Quebec within Canada”.
There is no question that Quebec will see such growth in immigration over the next few years.
François Legault, Premier of Quebec, on the “Initiative of the Century”
And in any case, “it is Quebec that must decide alone on the number of permanent immigrants over the next few years,” added François Legault during the press briefing.
Over the next few months, the government will review its multi-year immigration plan for 2024 to 2027. Immigration Minister Christine Fréchette told the Salon Bleu that her teams were evaluating the the province’s carrying capacity in order to establish the new thresholds.
Independently of the project supported by the “Initiative of the Century”, the Trudeau government has set itself the objective of welcoming 500,000 immigrants per year to Canada by 2025. The PQ leader, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, affirmed Tuesday that “the French language and Quebec culture are definitely threatened” by Ottawa’s permanent immigrant thresholds.
Québec solidaire has embarked on a vibrant plea for immigration. The party believes that the Legault government must include temporary immigrants in its thinking since their growing number shows that Quebec needs them.
On the side of the Liberal Party, MP Monsef Derraji believes that the Prime Minister hides for “ideological reasons” the reality of temporary immigration because it is “politically profitable” for him to speak only of permanent immigration, whose threshold was limited to 50,000 by his government.
With the collaboration of Charles Lecavalier, The Press
Other themes at the CAQ congress
The CAQ convention will also highlight the theme of energy development. In the proposal book, the political commission asks activists to support the idea of “advocating the construction of new hydroelectric power stations to achieve the electrification of Quebec”. Panelists will also make a presentation on energy. On May 15, the Minister of Economy, Innovation and Energy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, will hold a consultation on “the supervision and development of clean energies” with a view to tabling his bill scheduled for autumn. The government also plans to appoint the new boss of Hydro-Quebec between the end of May and mid-June.
Tommy Chouinard, The Press