André Pratte: Quebec political parties are competing for the worst immigration policy

Week 2 of the Quebec election campaign was dominated by the immigration issue: how many newcomers should the province welcome each year? Premier François Legault’s answer was telling: his models are Switzerland and the Scandinavian states, which he described as “extraordinarily wealthy, dynamic countries.” The problem is that if it excessively limits immigration, Quebec risks becoming a small, relatively poor nation.

Throughout Quebec’s history, immigration has been a sensitive topic. Before 1960, foreigners were seen as a threat to the province’s Catholicism. Since the Quiet Revolution, Quebecers have been concerned about the French language’s future. The latest census data released by Statistics Canada in August appear to confirm that because a significant number of immigrants to Quebec adopt English as their second language, the proportion of French speakers in the province is slowly decreasing.

One solution, according to the separatist Parti Québécois, is to reduce the number of newcomers to 35,000 a year, compared to the target of 50,000 set by the Legault government. Other parties and the business community are proposing higher numbers, in order to resolve the serious labour shortages that are hampering the province’s economic growth. The gap between those two extreme positions allows the premier to portray himself as the upholder of the middle ground.

Legault says that 50,000 newcomers each year is the limit allowed by Quebec’s “capacité d’accueil,” its capacity to integrate immigrants into the province’s culture. However, “capacité d’accueil” has never been defined, let alone measured. Therefore, 50,000 is an arbitrary number.All this is happening while the federal government is increasing its own immigration targets: 431,645 permanent residents in 2022, 447,055 in 2023 and 451,000 in 2024.

Some are advocating that Canada welcome 500,000 immigrants a year, in order to attain a total population of 100 million by 2100. According to a report published by a group called the Century Initiative, “A larger population is key for the economic prosperity that makes possible what we value, from high-quality health care and education to income security programs, cultural vibrancy and a healthy environment.” If this is true for Canada, why is it not true for Quebec?

The reason is that English Canada is confident that it can absorb millions of newcomers without endangering its core culture — indeed, diversity is part of that culture. In Quebec, a similar confidence does not exist. Here, immigration policy is torn between the economic need for additional workers and the risk that thousands of foreigners will integrate in English rather than in French.

Yet French will also be threatened if Quebec’s population stagnates. A solution to the dilemma would be to dramatically improve the services and incentives that attract immigrants to the majority culture in Quebec. The provincial government has instead chosen to go in another direction, resorting to legislative means (bills 21 and 96) to impose the Québécois culture on newcomers. Besides its harmful effects on Quebecers’ fundamental rights, such a policy may very well backfire.

If François Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec is re-elected and Quebec’s yearly target remains at 50,000, the province will become home to just one in nine new Canadians. Considering Quebec’s low birthrate and rapid population aging, the demographic weight of the province in the federation will continue to fall. In 1971, Quebec accounted for 28 per cent of the Canadian population; Statistics Canada projects the percentage will have slipped to 20 per cent by 2041.

The political consequences of this change are huge, but Legault refuses to face them. He prefers to suggest that more immigration will breed “extremism,” “violence” and “bickering,” which is an outrageous assertion.

Due to population aging, Quebec’s economic growth will slow down over the medium term, and Quebecers’ quality of life will be negatively impacted. Unless Quebecers start having more babies, which is unlikely, the only fix is a dynamic, ambitious immigration and integration policy. That is what politicians should be talking about in this campaign, instead of competing for the lowest immigration target.

Source: André Pratte: Quebec political parties are competing for the worst immigration policy