Posted at 12:00 p.m.
The article published in response to this question by journalist Suzanne Colpron is both honest and well-researched. However, two important pieces of information are missing.
The first affects temporary immigrants, ie foreign students and workers recruited by universities, colleges and businesses to meet their needs. These candidates for temporary immigration escape the selection grid applied from the outset by Quebec to its permanent immigrants. But Quebec is not without recourse for all that. Under section 42 of the McDougall-Gagnon-Tremblay Agreement, he has a right of veto over the entry of these foreign immigrants into Quebec territory. Because, as Professor Jean-Pierre Corbeil rightly asserts, quoted by Mrme Colpron: “The federal government cannot grant a study permit to a person who is not registered in an institution designated by the Quebec Ministry of Higher Education, and cannot grant a study permit to a person who does not have a Quebec Acceptance Certificate. »
Instead of allowing universities, colleges and businesses to select these temporary immigrants solely on the basis of their corporate needs, the Government of Quebec could add its own collective criteria affecting the learning of the French language by imposing on its temporary immigrants the obligation to enroll their children in French school, an obligation that Bill 101 imposes on permanent immigrants. It could also impose a French test on students applying for permanent residence or cap, if necessary, the number of students enrolled in English-language colleges and universities in Quebec. It would suffice for it to agree within the Concertation Committee set out in the Canada-Quebec Accord.
The second information omitted concerns the transfer payments that the federal government pays to Quebec to: 1) ensure the francization of immigrants admitted to the province; 2) financially encourage the province to recruit a proportion of the Canadian migratory flow deemed necessary to preserve its demographic weight within the Canadian federation.
These transfer payments, which exceed $650 million for the current year, are modulated according to two factors:
1) the more the number of immigrants to be francized in Quebec increases, the more the transfer increases;
2) the closer Quebec approaches the threshold of approximately 25% of the Canadian migratory flow, the more the transfer is generous. Of these two types of indexation, Quebec has only benefited from the first, because the migratory thresholds that it has set for itself year after year since 1991 have never reached 20% of the Canadian migratory flow.
The McDougall-Gagnon-Tremblay Agreement was signed in the wake of the Meech Lake Accord, and in this agreement, the Mulroney government sought to help Quebec francize its immigrants and preserve its demographic weight within of the Canadian federation. I doubt that such an agreement would be as generous if Quebec asked to renegotiate it with the current federal authorities. Fortunately for Quebec, the McDougall-Gagnon-Tremblay Agreement is solidly locked. It can only be opened if the two parties agree in advance on how to close it.