For a year now, our Prime Minister has been imploring Ottawa to reduce the number of temporary immigrants on Quebec territory by 50%. There are asylum seekers, whose relocation he requests. But there are also too many temporary workers, especially among low-wage earners, he tells us.
I am quicker than average to press the “1 800 LA-FAUTE-À-OTTAWA” button on my phone. Certainly, the Trudeau gang has mounted a herd of unicorns to swell the population of its post-national country. But respect for the facts leads to a disturbing observation: the Legault government has put its foot down.
Let’s follow the timeline.
Before 2018. Quebec manages the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, the PTET. But Ottawa has created a new, more flexible component, the International Mobility Program, the PMI. This is contrary to the spirit of the Canada-Quebec agreement on immigration. Quebec does not flinch.
October 2018. The Coalition Avenir Québec was elected by promising to reduce the number of permanent immigrants. The question of temporary workers is not addressed, even if the number of entries into Quebec using the PMI has increased in four years from 38,000 to 58,000, therefore more per year than the number of permanent workers.
End of 2021-beginning of 2022. The number of low-wage temporary foreign workers admitted under the Quebec PTET has already doubled, rising to 4,800 in 2021. But under the federal PMI, we are at 74,000.
March 2022. The Minister of Immigration, Jean Boulet, asked the economist Pierre Fortin and the demographer Marc Termote to each produce a report on the strong growth of all temporary immigrants in Quebec.
1er April 2022. Minister Boulet announces that he has requested — and obtained — from the federal government a significant expansion of the number of trades that will now be open to the hiring of temporary workers under the TFWP. According to its press release, “65 new professions will be added to the List of professions eligible for simplified treatment, which has always included only specialized professions”. He is also happy to announce that, thanks to PMI+, the arrival of temporary immigrants will be even easier. The CAQ therefore announces an almost completely open bar for low-wage temporary foreign workers.
May 2022. Marc Termote’s report points to the significant takeoff of inflows due to the PMI and notes “the perverse effects of this temporary “plaster”, namely that it too often contributes to keeping alive sectors and companies with low productivity, condemned for the long term. end to disappearance. Pierre Fortin’s report concludes that there is a “loss of control” of Quebec’s immigration policy, demonstrates that the labor shortage cannot be resolved by immigration and, like Termote, points out dangers regarding the anglicization of Montreal.
End of May 2022. Despite receiving these reports, Quebec maintains the entry into force of the extension of the PTET and the PMI to low-wage earners.
End of 2022. The number of low-wage workers entered thanks to the PTET modified by the CAQ is multiplied by five, rising to 23,000 in 2022. The number of those entered thanks to the PMI reaches 80,000. Quebec has the power to tighten the PTET criteria without seek approval from Ottawa; he doesn’t do it.
November 21, 2023. Minister Christine Fréchette announces the launch of a digital platform so that “the procedures of employers who wish to recruit foreign workers to respond to the labor shortage [soient] accelerated”. This is a “significant improvement that will provide greater flexibility and increased efficiency,” it says.
End of 2023. The number of low earners in the PTET increased to 25,500. The number of people who arrived thanks to the PMI is close to 108,000 people.
March 21, 2024. The federal Minister of Immigration announces that he will act to reduce the number of temporary workers in Canada from 6.2% of the current population to 5% of the population in three years. Since Canada’s population is growing at least 2% per year, this could mean an increase in the number of temporary workers. Measures announced in August and September have a minimal (and unquantified) impact on the number of current and future permits.
June 2024. François Legault is asking the federal government for a 50% reduction in “temporary immigration” controlled by Ottawa in Quebec.
August 20, 2024. The Legault government announces a six-month moratorium on new applications and renewals of low-wage temporary PTET workers on the island of Montreal.
Here is what we can criticize the Legault government and its successive Immigration Ministers:
- not having understood upon their arrival, at the end of 2018, the major impact of the PMI and not having demanded the repatriation of this program;
- having aggravated the problem in spring 2022 by broadening Quebec’s entry criteria for temporary foreign workers and even expanding the scope and effectiveness of the federal program;
- having in no way modified the Quebec selection criteria after having obtained, in May 2022, alarming reports on the impact of temporary workers, even though a major growth in the number of foreign workers was taking place before them;
- having waited two years before acting on the program they managed and before asking the federal government to act on its own.
François Legault had promised to better manage immigration and to achieve this within the federal framework. It is clear that, far from having succeeded in “taking less”, his government actively exacerbated the situation for several years, before sheepishly realizing the mess it had helped to plunge Quebec into.