It sometimes takes time for François Legault to see the light. When he founded the CAQ, he was resolutely in favor of oil exploitation. “It may be the chance or never to repay the debt we have,” he said. It took ten years for his government to decide to ban it.
His enlightenment may have been a little faster in the case of the third link, but he still dangled it for two election campaigns before acknowledging its incongruity.
After having presented immigration as a problem, worse, a mortal danger for the nation to which he reproached QS and the PLQ for being insensitive, he has just discovered that it could constitute a solution. This change in tone is certainly welcome, even if one can think that the pressures of companies in need of manpower are not foreign to it.
We can only rejoice to learn that Quebec will be able to welcome 60,000 immigrants each year who will have a sufficient knowledge of French even before setting foot there. And even nearly 70,000, if we count the beneficiaries of the Quebec Experience Program (PEQ).
Except that barely eight months ago, when the PQ proposed to impose this same obligation, Mr. Legault considered it impossible, given the qualifications sought by the labor market. Yet it was only a question of 35,000 people.
According to him, they should rather be francized after their arrival in Quebec, mainly in their workplace, but companies had no desire to transform themselves into language schools. By what miracle did a sufficient pool suddenly appear so that we could require the prior mastery of French from twice as many people, while satisfying the needs of the market?
It is true that the level of knowledge of French that we intend to require would not be very high and would vary depending on the job category. Level 7, the maximum required, is equivalent to what is expected of a student entering CEGEP.
Measures that could apply to temporary immigration, which is the elephant in the room, have been postponed. A piece that has all the appearance of a china shop, whose Statistics Canada figures on language have demonstrated the fragility.
The phenomenon is all the more worrying since temporary workers and foreign students now total nearly 350,000 people, who are not subject to any language requirements and whose number will increase.
A foreign student enrolled in a French-speaking CEGEP or university generally masters French or will do so quickly, but The duty recently reported on the numerous obstacles to francization encountered by those who arrive with a temporary worker’s permit and who often settle there for several years.
In particular, they are prohibited from reducing their working hours to devote themselves to learning French, and their employer is not required to contribute to this in one way or another. If they have enough energy left to take classes after their often exhausting day at work, they are not entitled to a financial allowance or access to subsidized childcare.
The consultation book made public Thursday in anticipation of the review of the planning of immigration thresholds for the years 2024-2027, at the end of August, barely touches on the question of the “reception capacity” of which M Legault has always said that you have to take into account when talking about immigration, whether it’s housing, education, health care, etc.
It simply notes that “determining Quebec’s reception and integration capacity is a balancing act and a quantitative and qualitative analysis of several elements”. In other words, we have no precise idea of the impact that an increase in the number of new arrivals would have on an already very insufficient housing stock and overburdened services.
Even admitting that it is possible to francize and offer adequate reception conditions to everyone, the thresholds envisaged will never be enough to prevent the acceleration of the reduction in the demographic and political weight of Quebec within the federation.
It would take twice as many immigrants as the proposed maximum to keep up with the rate of 500,000 per year forecast by the Trudeau government. Mr. Legault may have discovered the virtues of immigration, but it would be impossible to integrate so many of them.
Quebec will not be able to escape the law of numbers, which has always been implacable throughout history. One day or another, he will have to ask himself again the question of his political future. Of his very short future.