(Quebec) The government of François Legault has “again cheated the voters” by wanting to raise the immigration thresholds, maintains the PQ leader, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon.
“They knew, at the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ), during the elections that they intended to raise the thresholds. […] It’s really taking voters for election merchandise by telling them something that is clearly not true, ”he said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
Prime Minister Legault announced Thursday that his government would study two scenarios: maintain the thresholds at 50,000 immigrants per year or increase them to 60,000. The two options will be subject to consultations.
The PQ leader says it straight away, he will not agree with the conclusion of the consultation if it ever recommends raising the thresholds. He also believes that the dice are loaded.
According to him, the government has an “agenda” and wants to “set up a consultation that will allow them to validate the political orientation that they did not dare to reveal during the electoral campaign”.
A question of values?
Thursday at a press briefing, the Prime Minister was asked whether all the debates on immigration thresholds had not ultimately been useless. “No,” he blurted out.
“There is also all the integration – the subject is delicate – concerning the values of Quebec. It’s not just the language,” added the Prime Minister.
Mr. Legault assured that he had no intention of doing more in the matter, arguing that Law 21 on the secularism of the State was “a good balance”.
Nor does the PQ leader want to include the question of values in the current debate on immigration thresholds.
“The question of integration into Quebec society in terms of language, culture and employment is a criterion. But it’s not so much a question of values,” he said.
Asked about the fact that he was at the head of the party that had proposed the Charter of Quebec Values in 2013, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon replied: “It is not under my aegis. I will answer for the policies that I put forward as leader. »
“Rise of the Extremes”
Last January, when he was questioned about the Parti Québécois’ desire to lower the immigration thresholds to 35,000, the PQ leader indicated: “We are the only ones looking for a sustainable model, so that, precisely, we avoid what we see elsewhere in the world at the moment: the rise of extremes. »
Today, Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon does not think that raising the thresholds to 60,000, as proposed by the CAQ, would increase the risk of a rise in extremes. “No, I wouldn’t say that. »
He also returned to these comments at the time. “What I said was that if we wanted to keep a model that would stand out from what we see in Europe as the rise of extremes, we had better find a sustainable model. »
“And that was the PQ’s mission: to find an immigration model that is sustainable, particularly for French, for social services, and that distinguished us from other parties that did not seem to take into account the sustainability of the model on the plan for French, social services and housing,” he explained.
“We determined that at 35,000 we had a sustainable model,” he adds.
The PQ leader did not want to say whether a model with thresholds at 60,000 was sustainable or not.