Recognizing that nearly 300,000 non-permanent immigrants were on Quebec soil at the end of 2022, Immigration Minister Christine Fréchette, however, refuses to include the issue of temporary immigrants in her consultation on targets this fall.
Hugging Mme Fréchette on the subject during the study of the credits of his department, the supportive deputy for Saint-Henri–Saint-Anne, Guillaume Cliche-Rivard, summoned the government to address the subject during its consultations on the targets of Immigration 2024-2027. “We have no consultation on temporary workers, I ask you for a commitment so that we can do an orderly planning settled together and that we know where we are going. To only do the exercise on the permanents is to miss the debate, ”he said.
Liberal MP for Nelligan, Monsef Derraji, went further, arguing that the majority of temporary workers settle in the Montreal area. “We can’t say that we can just take permanent staff into account in multi-year planning,” he said.
According to documents made public as part of the study of appropriations, there were approximately 290,000 temporary immigrants in Quebec territory as of December 31, 2022, mainly foreign students and temporary workers.
Minister Fréchette, for her part, retorted that this type of immigration reflects the specific need of businesses and considers it important that they maintain this “agility” to “find the talents they need”. “Temporary immigration is [aussi] the effect of the success of our educational institutions,” she added. “For us, it’s automatically part of the elements, because we refer to it, but in terms of the orientations as such, the multi-year planning concerns permanent immigration. »
Deploring that temporary foreign workers are held hostage because of “closed” permits that tie them to a particular job provider, MP Monsef Derraji tried to get the Minister to commit to eliminating these documents that sometimes lead to abuse by employers. Christine Fréchette replied that this is an issue she is already discussing with her federal counterpart, Sean Fraser. She also recalled that her government wishes to repatriate the powers of the programs concerning temporary workers managed by Ottawa.
More French-speaking immigrants
Despite the sometimes high dropout rates in certain regions, the Minister of Immigration was also pleased with the progress in the perseverance of immigrants in francization throughout Quebec.
Preferring to see things on the positive side, Christine Fréchette says she observes retention rates of 78.8% for full-time students and 84.6% for part-time students. “It is frankly a great success. […] We have considerably increased the number of people taking francization courses.”
During the study of the credits, MNA Derraji pointed out to him that nearly half of the immigrants in francization drop out in certain administrative regions, in particular in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, where this rate reaches 43%. In Montreal, it is nearly 25%. “It’s not a failure at all, we were starting from scratch. We rebuilt so much in 2018,” replied Minister Fréchette. According to ministry documents, the dropout rate is lower among part-time students, about 15% for all of Quebec.
Pressed to explain why some immigrants drop out of francization, she noted that, in a context of full employment, many may be tempted by the job market. “When you take francization courses, you can quickly be asked to join companies or work more hours if you already have a job,” she said.
As for temporary immigrants, the Minister specified that the majority of them (60%) speak French and that, over the past year, there has been an increase of more than 30% in temporary foreign workers who have took French lessons. “It’s colossal,” she said.
However, although the allowances now extend to thousands of temporary agricultural workers, barely 431 of them have registered for francization. Minister Fréchette said she wanted to increase this score. “Francization is a constant work, there will always be efforts to make learning French easier and more accessible. It intends to rely on new tools, including Francisation Québec, a one-stop service that will be launched on 1er June and which will bring together the entire range of francization services.
Not closed to regularization
In addition, questioned as to whether her ministry was going to follow suit at the federal level, which is working on a program to regularize people without status, Christine Fréchette said she was not closing the door. “But you have to see more of the intentions to decide whether to commit to it or not,” she stressed.
The Minister also affirmed that it was “still too early to decide” on this question. “It is important for us to know the nature of the orientations [du fédéral]. We want to be consulted on this public policy. »