We are in the process of “adjusting” the “minorization” of the French language in Quebec with the sharp increase in temporary immigration, maintains the Parti Québécois (PQ) the day after the publication of striking data by Statistics Canada.
The Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ) for its part evokes a “red flag”, while Québec solidaire (QS) asks to regularize the status of these temporary workers to make them permanent residents.
We learned on Wednesday that the number of temporary immigrants jumped by nearly 50% in Quebec in one year, going from 322,000 to 471,000, between July 2022 and July 2023.
In response, the CAQ government admitted its surprise and called on the federal government to “raise awareness” about Quebec’s reception capacity.
“It’s special that we are making such an important adjustment,” said Immigration Minister Christine Fréchette during question period Thursday morning.
“Awareness? No, it’s going to take something more energetic than that,” denounced PQ MP Pascal Bérubé, in a press scrum Thursday morning.
“I say that we are adjusting our minoritization, particularly linguistically,” he continued, wanting to use “less catastrophic words” than the “Louisianization” mentioned by François Legault during the electoral campaign last year. .
He thus recalled the declarations of the CAQ leader, according to which it would be suicidal to raise the annual threshold beyond 50,000 new arrivals.
Accommodation capacity
Quebec does not have the capacity to welcome 471,000 temporary immigrants, whether in terms of housing, places in schools or services to the population, argued Mr. Bérubé.
He deplored that while there is talk of welcoming 50,000 to 60,000 permanent immigrants per year in the consultations in the National Assembly, the federal government has admitted a much higher number of temporary immigrants to Quebec territory.
The Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ) speaks of a “red flag” on Quebec’s reception capacity.
“It’s extremely worrying,” commented the interim Liberal leader, Marc Tanguay, in the press scrum.
“The whole speech is truncated” in the debate on immigration, believes the parliamentary leader of Québec solidaire (QS), Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois.
“Of course it’s too much [d’immigration temporaire]but we cannot just say that it is too much,” he said, asking that we regularize the status of temporary immigrants to make them permanent immigrants.