Quebec will have “no choice” to welcome more immigrants in the coming years, and it must therefore tackle “as hard as possible” the essential demands of immigrants who are already in the territory, declared Wednesday morning the interim leader of the Liberal Party of Quebec, Marc Tanguay.
“The threshold debate is a debate that is behind us,” he said upon his arrival at his party’s caucus, meeting for three days in Thetford Mines in anticipation of the parliamentary session which resumes on January 30 .
The PLQ promised during the election campaign to raise the permanent immigration thresholds to 70,000 per year, but the Liberals have since suggested that they could revise this target upwards or downwards. However, given the explosion in the number of temporary immigrants in Quebec – there were 528,000 present in the territory as of 1er October – the debate on permanent immigration thresholds no longer has its place, they now judge.
Immigration is “the challenge that faces us,” said Chief Tanguay. “In Quebec, we will need more in the coming years. There, for the moment, we have 500,000 temporary workers and we are not meeting their essential requests. This needs to be resolved as quickly as possible. »
“No choice” to welcome more
In his opinion, “we will have no choice” to welcome more immigrants to Quebec, “for our economy.” Until then, “we must work on the 500,000 who are in Quebec, and we must ensure that we meet the needs,” he added, specifying that francization “is a potato” and that the housing supply is insufficient.
According to Marc Tanguay, Prime Minister François Legault uttered the “biggest lie of the modern era in Quebec” by affirming that it was necessary to take fewer immigrants into Quebec, but “take care of them”.
“The responsibility of the Government of Quebec is to work on the capacity to integrate [les immigrants]. 1.6 million additional workers are needed for the coming years [d’ici 2030]. We have to work on that,” he insisted.
The Liberal leader has stated on several occasions that the half-million temporary immigrants present in Quebec are workers. “The 500,000 are working this morning, we need them. These are women and men who, today, have stood up and who work in the private sector, in the public sector, who provide essential services to our economy,” he said in particular.
In fact, of the 528,000 non-permanent residents present in Quebec, 43% are workers. This percentage rises to 51% if we take into account immigrants who have a study permit and a work permit.
A minister for SMEs
The Liberals also asked the Legault government to bring back the position of minister responsible for Small and Medium Enterprises. Lucie Lecours was appointed to this role in March 2021. She has since been replaced by Christopher Skeete as Minister Delegate for the Economy.
Since the Minister of the Economy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, “only has eyes for attempts to have big deals », the Prime Minister must ensure that an elected official takes care of SMEs “morning, noon, evening”.
“This is the hell that François Legault managed to achieve. Hell for entrepreneurs in Quebec. So we ask [un ministre responsable des PME] now that we know he said there will be no cabinet reshuffle [d’ici juin] “, declared the interim chief.