Quebec is opening the immigration floodgates to make up for the delays caused by the closing of the borders. The government of François Legault intends to welcome almost 70,000 new arrivals in 2022, of which nearly 60% in the category of economic immigration.
Deputy Minister of Immigration Jean Boulet on Thursday tabled Quebec’s most recent Immigration Plan for the coming year (Nadine Girault is recovering from surgery). It confirms the government’s intentions to accommodate between 49,500 and 52,500 people.
The 18,000 immigrants that Quebec had to welcome to catch up with the backlog in 2020 have not arrived. Their files will therefore be added to the pile for 2022. “The travel restrictions having continued in 2021, the achievement of the targets provided for in the previous plan was difficult”, one can read in the document.
If François Legault has long expressed his intentions to increase the share of economic immigrants admitted annually, this figure will not change next year. The plan forecasts that 59% of new Quebec residents will come from this category, a lower percentage than expected this year.
Quebec plans to support approximately 6,000 refugees in 2022.
This is the first time since François Legault came to power that the initial targets have exceeded the 50,000 new arrivals mark. In its first year, the Caquista government had planned to host approximately 40,000 of them.
During the election campaign in 2018, Mr. Legault had long hit the nail on the head of immigration, promising to reduce the thresholds by 20% when he took office.
While it made this shift in its first year, the government has since raised the thresholds substantially. Race results: the average thresholds are 28% higher than those established in the last year of Philippe Couillard’s mandate.
Further details will follow.
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