We like temporary foreign workers when they come to fill our labor shortage at low wages. We love them a little less when, in addition to being exposed to the risk of modern slavery, says a UN special rapporteur, they have the misfortune of being too exhausted to take French lessons or are refused access to francization by their employer.
By announcing new requirements for temporary foreign workers in order to slow the decline of French, Quebec promises that this will be a thing of the past. From now on, people subject to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), with the exception of agricultural workers, will have to demonstrate a certain knowledge of French to renew their work permit.
Although it was announced with great fanfare, this new measure planned by the Legault government will in reality affect very few people. We are talking about approximately 35,000 PTET workers out of the approximately 470,000 temporary immigrants in Quebec (foreign students, asylum seekers, Ukrainian nationals, etc.).
Does this mean that it is a useless measure? No.
If we care about the future of the French language in Quebec, any initiative improving access to francization for people who settle down here is in itself a good idea. Provided of course that the government keeps its promises.
Requiring migrant workers to have a certain knowledge of French is fine. But we still need to offer them the necessary conditions to get there. We must also demand that they be treated as full human beings rather than as disposable workers who, in addition to having to solve our labor shortage problems, are now responsible for countering the decline of French.
For the moment, the conditions necessary for the Frenchization of these migrants are far from being met. Contrary to a widespread myth, it is not because they lack willpower or refuse to integrate that they struggle to learn French.
“When you want, you can”, it’s easy to say. But when you are a migrant with precarious status who is required by an employer to work crazy hours to relieve your labor shortage, you can want very hard while having no power.
This is what Stéphanie Arsenault, professor of social work at Laval University, observed in a study carried out last year with temporary workers who were learning or trying to learn French in Quebec.
“One of the things that poses a major problem is the power that employers have to make it possible or not for their employees to take part-time francization courses. The employees were completely at their mercy. »
If they are lucky enough to have an employer who welcomes the Frenchization of its employees, that will make things easier. But it is unfortunately not uncommon to see TFWP employers who, after having invested significant sums to bring in workers from abroad, consider that these employees are in some way their property and that they have the right to exercise control over their comings and goings. In some cases, they don’t want anything to do with “their” employee learning French. Because knowledge of the language is a tool for knowing your rights, improving your professional situation and leaving a job with untenable conditions. And time spent learning is time not spent working.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESS
Christine Fréchette, Minister of Immigration, Francisation and Integration
If the Minister of Immigration, Francisation and Integration, Christine Fréchette, intends to require employers to offer francization courses in the workplace during normal working hours, the details of the program are not yet available. known. Will there be a subsidy offered to the employer to cover employee salaries during hours spent learning French – as recommended in the study co-signed by Stéphanie Arsenault1 ? Will the employer have to pay for francization hours as if they were working hours?
“We are not at this level of precision. This is part of the operating procedures which have not yet been defined. The work is in progress,” M told me.me Frechette.
The success of the initiative will depend on these details which are not details. Requiring employers to adjust normal working hours to include French classes may be a good idea. But if this financially penalizes the worker whose working hours would necessarily be reduced, it becomes a bad idea. Same thing if the number of hours devoted to learning French is insufficient or if the lessons are of poor quality. We would only be adding one more obstacle to a course which is not lacking in them.
It is also important to remember that of all the obstacles that temporary foreign workers must face, those linked to learning French are far from being the worst.
Right here in Quebec, as elsewhere in Canada, closed work permits (which tie temporary foreign workers to a single employer) open the door to forms of modern slavery, according to a recent report by Tomoya Obokata, UN law expert. international and human rights2.
Although the minister has already expressed concern about rights violations associated with closed work permits and tasked the Labor Market Partners Commission with proposing alternatives, there is not a single word to this subject in the new immigration plan.
I understand that this is first and foremost a problem that will have to be resolved by the federal government. But in the same way that the Legault government calls on Ottawa to take into account the French fact in the management of other federal programs, it would still have been good to hear it say loud and clear that in addition to requiring that its workers temporary workers are Frenchized, it requires that they be above all free. The best Frenchized modern slaves in America, no thank you…
1. The study “The obstacle course of temporary residents in employment in Quebec”, by Stéphanie Arsenault, Alessandra Bonci and Samantha Giroux, is published in the collection French in decline – Rethinking the Quebec Francophonie (Del Busso Éditeur) which will be published on November 13.