The last time a Quebec premier boasted of enjoying such a great balance of power against his Liberal counterpart in Ottawa — and that he did it with as much assurance as François Legault does has done since his re-election on Monday — it didn’t end well for him. Admittedly, Lucien Bouchard may have misjudged the nature of the mandate granted to him by Quebecers in the 1998 elections. The Parti Québécois then won 76 seats, but with only 42.87% of the popular vote, or 0.68 percentage less than the Liberal Party of Quebec. It was still a better score than the proportion of the vote (40.98%) obtained Monday by the Coalition avenir Québec.
It is unrealistic to believe that Justin Trudeau will feel more obliged to give in to the claims of the Quebec Prime Minister than Jean Chrétien judged him to be at the time when Mr. Bouchard was striving to create the “winning conditions” for sovereignty. Instead, Mr. Chrétien responded by having the referendum clarity act passed. Mr. Bouchard announced his resignation barely six months later.
At the first post-election meeting of Caquiste deputies on Thursday in Brossard, François Legault was formal. “If Quebecers want the Government of Quebec to have more powers in immigration, there is no one who will be able to resist that,” he said after Mr. Trudeau threw a cold shower on this request. , Wednesday, before putting on a layer the next day.
Mr. Trudeau almost mocked Mr. Legault by promising to help Quebec welcome even more immigrants than it already does with the current agreements between Ottawa and Quebec. He even insisted that Quebec already has all the “tools” it needs when it comes to immigration, while pointing out that the province can select up to 28% of all immigrants who arrive each year in Canada.
Fulfilling this quota would be equivalent to welcoming more than 120,000 permanent residents to Quebec in 2022, and even more in the following years. Mr. Legault promises instead to limit this number to 50,000 per year during his second term. He also wants Mr. Trudeau to cede control of federal programs for family reunification and temporary foreign workers to him. All this in order to better integrate newcomers into a Quebec nation otherwise threatened by the influx of non-French-speaking immigrants.
Why would Mr. Trudeau be inclined to accede to this request now more than before? After the comments on immigration made by Mr. Legault and his CAQ candidate Jean Boulet during the campaign, it would even be dangerous for him to comply with Quebec demands. In the rest of Canada, Mr. Legault’s speech on immigration is perceived as being inspired by the European far right, while Mr. Trudeau makes Canadian diversity the leitmotif of all his political action.
In the multicultural suburbs of Toronto and Vancouver, via those of Edmonton, Winnipeg and Ottawa, most voters are themselves of immigrant origin or children of immigrants. These people already see the Act respecting the secularism of the state as an attack on Canadian values. Mr. Trudeau would risk offending many of them by giving in to Quebec’s immigration demands.
Mr. Legault had also promised to make this issue a priority during the next federal election campaign in Quebec, proof that he does not expect his request for more powers over immigration to be granted anytime soon. . But it is not the approach of federal elections in 2024 or 2025 that will force Mr. Trudeau’s Liberals to become more conciliatory on the matter. On the contrary, of the 35 seats that the Liberals won in Quebec in the last election, in 2021, 24 are in Montreal, Laval or Outaouais. In other words, where the majority of Quebec voters with an immigrant background are found. Elsewhere in the province, the Liberals can count on a greater division of the vote between the Bloc Québécois and the Conservative Party of Canada and its new leader, Pierre Poilievre, to preserve most, if not all, of the 11 other seats they hold in Quebec.
As for the alleged consensus between the political parties in Quebec on the need to repatriate more powers in matters of immigration, it risks melting like snow in the sun as Mr. Legault will be forced to explain what he wishes to do with the additional powers he could obtain. The voters of Québec solidaire and the PLQ recognize themselves a lot more in the federal discourse on immigration than in that of the CAQ.
Do you think Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois and Dominique Anglade will want to alienate their own constituents by supporting Mr. Legault’s approach? The instrumentalization of immigration may have helped the latter win a second term, but the day after the vote, the emperor seems naked.