The Minister of Heritage, Pablo Rodriguez, on Tuesday slammed “certain media and certain political parties” which, in Quebec, see immigration “as a threat”.
The Quebec lieutenant for the Trudeau government was in Montreal to announce $5.6 million in aid to Factry for a training initiative that will be offered to 375 French-speaking newcomers, especially in Quebec, but also in Ontario, Manitoba , Alberta and British Columbia.
Before representatives of Factry and various groups working in the field of immigration, Pablo Rodriguez declared that “what I see here is the future of Quebec, what I see here is the future of Canada. What I don’t see is a threat to Quebec. What I don’t see is a threat to Canada. »
Unacceptable attack
And that’s where he went on, without naming anyone, that there is “a part of the discourse on immigration that is pushed by certain media and certain political parties that I don’t like and that doesn’t correspond who we are as a society. I find it sad because it attacks thousands of people who have come here to contribute to our society. I find that basically unacceptable. »
The Minister went on to call for people to stop distinguishing between “we” and “you”, recalling that immigration is not just a series of statistics and percentages, but rather “the real world: once that they are here, they are from here, ”he said to the applause of those gathered for the announcement.
“When does an immigrant stop being an immigrant? »
“When does an immigrant stop being an immigrant? “, he continued, taking his own family as an example.
“I arrived here when I was eight years old. I didn’t speak a word of French. Just Spanish. No one in my family spoke French. Is this a threat to us, Quebec or Canadian society? I do not think so.
“This negative talk needs to stop because it hurts. You have children who say: what did I do to be singled out? What did my mom or dad do to be singled out? “, pleaded the minister.
Recognition of diplomas: “It doesn’t make sense”
Asked later about the difficulty for immigrants to obtain recognition of their diplomas, Pablo Rodriguez went on another outing, this time against all governments: “It doesn’t make sense. We have been talking about this for so long that we have changed government after government, all levels of government combined. »
Beyond the governments, the minister did not fail to scratch corporations and professional orders. “I think there is a kind of protectionism at the corporate level. I think there is a global desire to move forward with recognition when you look at society as a whole, but there are barriers that we have to break down because I find that unacceptable. . »
Again, he spoke about his personal history. “When my parents arrived here, both were university graduates. No recognized diploma. They cleaned the houses and they didn’t know how to clean! They both matched up. My father completed his doctorate at age 50 and both were professors at the University of Sherbrooke. »
The President and CEO of Factry, Marie Amiot, abounded in the same direction. “I know a lot of newcomers who are engineers, who work in warehouses, who are accountants who are going to do jobs,” she said.
Federal-Provincial Cooperation
Although it is usually the Government of Quebec that supports the integration of newcomers, Ms.me Amiot turned to the federal government for this training, which better met the criteria of the Trudeau government’s Skills to Succeed program. The training that will be offered aims to acquire skills based on collaboration, adaptability, communication, problem solving, creativity and innovation.
Quebec, underlines Mr.me Amiot, will not be offended, quite the contrary. “When we saw the impetus given by the federal government, we decided to create a program aimed at Francophone newcomers.
“I recently met the Minister (of the French language, Jean-François) Roberge to whom I spoke about the program which was extremely open. What I felt as an organization was a great desire to collaborate,” she said.
Pablo Rodriguez, for his part, specified that the initiative had been the subject of exchanges with Quebec, like several others. “There are several programs like this where there are preliminary discussions and these preliminary discussions between the two levels of government are necessary for these programs to go forward,” he said.