The tolerance of Canada and Quebec towards immigration was once again expressed in recent days during the presentation by the federal government and that of Quebec of their reception targets for the coming years.
Ottawa has set its objective at 500,000 new permanent residents – of which more than 50,000 should come to settle in Quebec, the CAQ announced at the same time – for 2025. A figure which, despite the aging demographics of the country and labor needs, will be maintained at this level in the following years, said Federal Minister of Immigration Marc Miller.
The data was expected. It has been dissected, even criticized, all under the amused – and sometimes distressed – eyes of several demographers and major specialists in migratory flows for whom the quantification of immigration is ultimately based on nothing more than the justification for the rejection of immigration. ‘other.
“Talking about reception capacity and tolerance threshold is above all consecrating the victory of populism on the question of immigration and that of the speeches of the National Front [le parti xénophobe et antisémite mis au monde en France par Jean-Marie Le Pen au début des années 1970], summarizes demographer Yves Charbit, professor emeritus at the University of Paris, at the other end of the videoconference. When it comes to immigration, reception or assimilation, all these questions of numbers mean absolutely nothing. They only maintain prejudices and fears, based on a pseudoscience which ultimately only legitimizes xenophobia. »
The demography researcher knows what he is talking about, he who, at the end of the 1960s, was among the first to work on the question of immigration tolerance thresholds in several large cities in France, a changing concept according to the places and time, he noted, not according to the number of new arrivals, but rather to the capacity of conservative political currents to make them visible, to better benefit politically from them, he explains in substance .
“Immigration from Algeria suddenly became a problem when Algeria gained its independence, whereas before, the question of assimilation of people who came from there was never raised,” he says . It was from this moment that we began to talk about a threshold of tolerance, with often odious and horrible rhetoric associating immigration with increased unemployment, for example”, even if the assertion could not be supported by facts, he adds.
This is because in times of economic or social crisis, “the immigrant becomes an easy scapegoat since very few people come to his defense,” explains François Crépeau, former United Nations special rapporteur for human rights of migrants, from 2011 to 2017, and professor of law at McGill University, where he has worked for years on issues of pluralism and immigration. “And the immigration threshold, by exploiting the rhetorical power of a symbolic figure, fuels the discourse of a political class which is never contradicted because the main stakeholders, the immigrants, have no say in the matter. »
The fear of “too much”
On RDI last week, Yves-François Blanchet, leader of the Bloc Québécois, said that “for everyone, 500,000 [nouveaux arrivants par an], it’s too much “. And to add: “ [Ottawa] is still in the numbers that would bring Canada to 100 million population by the end of the century. » Ottawa’s announcement of the targets also resonated among other politicians the fear of seeing this immigration fuel the ongoing housing crisis across the country and the importance of putting “our” house in order. before welcoming new people there.
“The image of the house is often used to justify immigration control,” says Mr. Crépeau. In the 1970s, Jean-Marie Le Pen spoke of closing the front door, while ensuring that “they” do not enter through the back door. But we never use the image of the city, which would nevertheless be the most accurate. All cities in the world have welcomed immigration without ever closing their doors. We forget it, but the biggest migration in recent history is the rural exodus. Cities have adapted to it. They planned to absorb this influx of people. They built housing, they managed these movements and above all demonstrated that immigration is one of the elements that makes a population grow and ensures its growth. It is the foundation of the vitality of a society, the vitality of its economy, its innovation, and ultimately its power in the world. »
Integration and growth
Germany has just provided an astonishing illustration of this last week by entering the top three of the largest economic powers on the planet in 2023. It displaces Japan from the podium to take its place alongside the United States. United States, in first place, and China, in second, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Germany found itself in the spotlight in 2015 and 2016 due to a spectacular wave of 2.5 million migrants, mainly from Syria, which former Chancellor Angela Merkel had allowed into the country. A measure which fueled the hateful and fearful speeches of the German and European right. At the end of 2022, 14.6% of the German population was of foreign origin, according to government statistics, which has maintained high reception targets since 2016 and opened its doors to more than a million Ukrainians in the process. of the outbreak of the Russian war of invasion.
“All societies are capable of absorbing immigration, without needing to quantify or quantify it,” says François Crépeau. The figure is the component of a political discourse, absolutely populist, which gives itself the appearance of science, but which above all contributes to dividing, to distorting reality and to preventing an enlightened debate on the question of ‘immigration. » A distortion used for electoral purposes, nothing more, according to him.
In 2007, the French economist El-Mouhoub Mouhoud, professor at Paris Dauphine University and specialist in globalization, wrote that the hope of understanding and properly dealing with immigration issues could only be compromised as long as ” the most improbable allegations” on the subject, made by opportunistic political currents, “were not debunked”.
“The problem today is that the most serious analyzes on migratory flows and immigration can no longer be heard,” says Yves Charbit. Worse, we went from a discourse on assimilation to one fueling the fear of a large replacement of the host populations by immigration, a purely xenophobic concept to which the French right, which hunts on the lands of the National Front [aujourd’hui devenu Rassemblement national], unfortunately gives more and more legitimacy. »
And added: “We have unfortunately entered an ideological system where leaders have resigned on questions of ethics, rigor and seriousness. The only way out of this is to shine a light on the underlying ideologies and manipulations that fuel the issue of immigration targets and thresholds and hope that courageous politicians and intellectuals end by denouncing this demagoguery rather than remaining silent. »