Prime Minister Justin Trudeau persists and signs. He wants Quebec to receive more immigrants, thus maintaining a frontal confrontation with the vision of the Quebec government.
“Quebec has long had the capacity to increase its immigration thresholds. I know that every time I speak to business owners in Montreal or in the regions, they emphasize how important it is to counter the labor shortage, “said Mr. Trudeau on Wednesday arriving at the Liberal caucus meeting.
The Prime Minister added that “immigration done the right way” is an adequate response to this situation. “We will always be there to help Mr. Legault if he wants to create more economic growth in Quebec,” he added.
The federal Liberal government unveiled plans on Tuesday for a massive increase in the number of newcomers, aiming to see 500,000 immigrants arrive each year by 2025, as Ottawa seeks to address a severe labor shortage. works across the country.
No question, says Legault
The news was not well received by Quebec, which reiterated that the threshold of 50,000 immigrants is necessary “in order to respect [la] reception, francization and integration capacity” of the province and which called for more powers in immigration in order to protect French.
Upon his arrival at the Council of Ministers on Wednesday morning, Prime Minister François Legault reiterated that Quebec is already struggling to respect its reception capacity.
“Already at 400,000 there was a problem, so at 500,000 even more. I understand that there is a lack of manpower, but the fact remains that already at 50,000, that gives barely 10% of the 500,000, it is difficult to stop the decline of French. »
A few hours later, the new Minister of Immigration, Francisation and Integration, Christine Fréchette, appeared before the media to say that it is Quebec that sets the number of permanent immigrants that he receives annually, “and that will not change, regardless of the number of immigrants who arrive elsewhere in Canada”.
The threshold determined by Quebec is “based on our ability to support people in francization,” she argued. The minister, however, avoided saying whether this threshold could be increased if the province could welcome more French-speaking immigrants, considering “that we are not there yet”.
The Liberal opposition in the National Assembly wants Quebec to welcome around 70,000 immigrants. Its employment spokesperson, Madwa-Nika Cadet, nevertheless affirmed during a press scrum that “it is up to Quebec to set its own immigration thresholds according to the needs of the labor market”.
Quebec under pressure to raise the thresholds?
On Tuesday, the federal political lieutenant for Quebec, Pablo Rodriguez, avoided saying whether he considers that raising the pan-Canadian threshold in this way puts pressure on Quebec to accept more immigrants if it does not want not see its demographic weight decline. He simply said that “this is an opportunity for Quebec”.
Questioned on this same point Wednesday morning, the Minister of Immigration, Sean Fraser, replied that he had based his decision on immigration targets in a pan-Canadian interest.
“It is essential for me to make the decision which is [bonne] for the whole country. In my opinion, it is essential to welcome many newcomers to improve the labor shortage [et] demographic issues,” he said.
Called to explain how the federal government was going to ensure that the arrival of many newcomers would not amplify the housing crisis that is raging across the country, Mr. Fraser affirmed that Ottawa is taking an “approach thoughtful”.
The immigration plan unveiled the day before includes provisions for newcomers to be directed to communities that have the “capacity” to receive them, he said.
Minister Fraser also explained that skilled immigrants could help build housing. “We have new flexibilities with our express entry system [qui vont] start in 2023 and allow us to bring workers here to meet the needs of the sectors that have the greatest needs,” he said.
Mr. Rodriguez repeated that Quebec “already has the powers, if it wants to, to significantly increase the number of immigrants it receives who are 100% French-speaking”.
Political weight
As for political weight, he recalled that his government tabled a bill to maintain the number of seats for Quebec in the House of Commons at 78. However, this only curbs the decrease in the representation of the province, which was going to lose a seat, but does not prevent it from being proportionally less present since seats will be added elsewhere in the country.
On Tuesday, the Conseil du patronat du Québec was delighted that the federal government, with its new targets, ” [reconnaisse] that we must make more room for immigration in the coming years in the context of the scarcity of labour”.
“Quebec must consider this avenue more to tackle the labor shortage,” said its vice-president of workforce development policies, Denis Hamel, in a written statement.
According to population estimates as of July 1, 2022, produced by Statistics Canada, 22.3% of Canadians live in Quebec. Thus, to maintain its demographic weight, Quebec should welcome nearly 112,000 of these 500,000 immigrants.