It is deplorable to see François Legault currently acting to advance his ideas on immigration. Although they are legitimate, they should not take the current form. His freeze on the temporary foreign worker program for the Island of Montreal scheduled for September 3 serves as a smokescreen to hide his chronic inability to take political responsibility.
If he wants to be a sovereignist, François Legault should say so clearly rather than having fun continually making threats to the federal government under the pretext that he has the entire population of Quebec behind him. Which is not always true and which marginalizes not only immigrant workers, but also all Quebecers who do not adhere to his half-measure policies.
Obviously, for François Legault, resorting to this freeze is a golden opportunity to promote his populist nationalism. However, when a people takes responsibility for themselves, foreign workers pose no problem and are seen as an important aid to the local economy.
But in Quebec, and particularly in Montreal, much more than the simple question of housing, there is always the question of what François Legault calls “the protection of the French language.” As if it were normal for a language to constantly need to be protected in order to exist…
Isn’t this a chronic problem, Mr. Legault? When will you finally understand that we are operating in a federation that has control over two-thirds of immigration policies? As a former sovereignist, you should understand that.
You don’t play with the lives of 3,500 low-wage immigrants with impunity on the pretext that they were sent to Montreal by the federal government and that not only do they not speak French, but they also don’t want to learn it. It will be understood that in the case of immigrants from the Montreal region, where English largely dominates in the economic domain, they clearly prefer to integrate into the Anglo-Canadian culture of their new country, Canada…
The levers
When Quebec has all the levers on immigration, it will be able to set its demands even before these immigrants arrive. But for now, this is not the case and, whether we like it or not, it has to deal with it!
It must be said that it is not the French-speaking population of Montreal that favours the francisation of its immigrants. Quite the contrary, as soon as it has the opportunity to address them in English, it does so with great pleasure. Which, let us admit, creates confusion among these immigrant workers, who do not really know why a government would require them to speak French. And let us ask the question: on what principles should they be dependent on virtues that we have never assumed ourselves?
Our political context, subject to two governments that never agree on anything, is not normal. It is time for François Legault and his henchmen to think about it rather than relying on the will of the people to push through stillborn policies in a federal context.
This government should get down to the task of formalizing and permanently ensuring Quebec’s political autonomy in the Canadian Constitution. Because as presented by the Legault government, this six-month freeze intended to close the door to immigrants from the island of Montreal is unacceptable, both on a human and economic level. It is nothing other than the expression of the chronic identity problem that has been eating away at Quebec since the 1995 sovereignty referendum.
And it is clear that as long as the constitutional file is not reopened, the true status of the Quebec nation will remain undefined. Still stuck between its federalist ambitions and its sovereignist ambitions, shouldn’t the Legault government connect one way or another? Isn’t constantly saying no to Ottawa for everything and nothing a sign of political futility?