The government of François Legault wants to give itself legislative tools to limit the number of foreign students that Quebec welcomes annually. A bill to this effect must be tabled Thursday by Minister Jean-François Roberge.
The text of the law, which aims “mainly to improve the supervision relating to foreign students”, appeared on the legislative agenda Wednesday morning. The Minister of Immigration, Francisation and Integration has already planned a press conference around noon to present the main points to the media.
The government’s intentions in this matter are known. Prime Minister François Legault has already expressed on several occasions his desire to halve the number of temporary immigrants currently housed in Quebec. Last week, he made headlines by saying from Paris that 80,000 asylum seekers had to be “forced” to leave Quebec.
But that’s not all. The category of non-permanent residents also includes temporary workers and foreign students.
Quebec has already attempted to slightly reduce the size of the first category by declaring a six-month moratorium on the low-wage temporary foreign worker program in the Montreal region. With his bill, this time he is looking at the second.
On multiple occasions, Prime Minister Legault has publicly hinted at the major objectives of his colleague Roberge’s bill. When announcing the moratorium on temporary workers in August, his office indicated in a press release that it would “limit the number of requests made by foreign students based on several factors such as the type of establishment, the number of foreign students per establishment, region [et] the level of studies”.
“ [Il] will also aim to enable better monitoring of the situation of foreign students in the territory in order to support the implementation of limitations and targeted supervision,” we can read in the press release dated August 20.
According to provisional data from the Quebec government, more than 56,000 foreign students took courses in Quebec universities in 2023-2024. Almost one in three came from France. At the college level, the most recent statistics consulted by Duty — which concern the 2022-2023 school year — reported a total of more than 18,000 foreign students attending CEGEPs.
With Sarah R. Champagne