Conservative government’s immigration formula could result in lower immigration, Tory MP says

2024/04/16 Leave a comment

Some insights into their thinking, including comments wanting “real, reasonable objective metrics” related to housing, healthcare and jobs and “I don’t want my government determining which values it supports and which it doesn’t.” But of course, the previous conservative government didn’t move the needle either on foreign credential recognition:

The Conservative party’s plan to tie immigration numbers to available jobs and homes could result in a lower immigration target, an MP says.

Conservative immigration critic Tom Kmiec said a Conservative government wouldn’t set an arbitrary number, but rather one that takes into account what the country can sustainably accommodate. This could end up lowering immigration, he said.

“Whatever it comes out to, that will be the number,” Kmiec said on The Andrew Lawton Show. “If it’s lower, it’s lower. If it’s higher, it’s higher.”

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre previously said in an interview that immigration had to be tied to key economic numbers reflecting the labour and housing markets.

Kmiec said that under a Conservative government, those calculations wouldn’t just involve permanent immigration but also temporary resident immigration.

“The problem isn’t the permanent residency ones, those PR numbers are often quoted by individuals. In Canada, about 45% to 55% of those, depending on the year, are people who are actually physically in Canada already,” said Kmiec.

“They are just changing their status from studying, from working here on a temporary work permit and they’re becoming permanent residents of Canada, hopefully, on the pathway to becoming citizens and joining the Canadian family.”

Kmiec said it’s “ridiculous” that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has only recently concluded that Canada’s immigration levels have far outpaced what the country can absorb.

“I guess he doesn’t read any of the briefing notes or documents that come up his way,” Kmiec said.

The Calgary MP pointed out how it was Trudeau himself who appointed the various immigration ministers responsible for the country’s explosive population growth. 

“When he reshuffled his own cabinet, you had this bizarre situation where the previous immigration minister could not let go of his department. He was saying that ‘things are a mess,’ that’s a direct quote and the new minister said ‘things are out of control.’ They’ve been fighting it out in public between the senior immigration minister and the junior immigration minister,” said Kmiec.

“Now the prime minister has weighed in and accused his government of basically failing on the job and that they’re not competent obviously, except he’s the one who appointed everybody. He’s been in charge for almost nine years now and they broke the immigration system. It’s nice of him to recognize that he broke it,” he added. 

When asked if the immigration calculation should be restricted to just economic indicators, instead of factoring in things like Canadian values as well, Kmiec said he was wary of introducing new things that “are not fixed.”

“I don’t want my government determining which values it supports and which it doesn’t and the reason I don’t like it is that for the last nine years, that’s been the Liberal government of Canada,” said Kmiec. 

“I believe things like healthcare, housing jobs, all Canadians can get behind that and be like, ‘yeah, those are real, reasonable objective metrics.’ There’s no subjectivity to them, you either have those services or you don’t.”

According to Kmiec, the immigration debate should be about whether the inputs are correct or not, instead of the number itself, saying, “if you want more immigration, build more housing.” 

It’s a question of changing policies to get more houses built and for cheaper. The same logic should apply to Canada’s healthcare system. 

Kmiec feels policies that don’t allow skilled workers like doctors and nurses who come to work in Canada are the reason for our strained healthcare system. 

“We have over 20,000 internationally trained doctors who cannot practice their profession,” he said. “Same thing for nurses. The country of origin lost a nurse and we didn’t gain a nurse.”

Source: Conservative government’s immigration formula could result in lower immigration, Tory MP says

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Ottawa focuses on French-speaking economic immigrants – and often bypasses stronger candidates

2024/04/16 Leave a comment

The federal government is prioritizing French-speaking economic immigrants, a shift that has often seen higher-ranking applicants bypassed in the selection process, according to a Globe and Mail analysis of figures published by the Immigration Department.

Since it overhauled the Express Entry system for skilled immigration last year, Ottawa has invited 19,700 people to apply for permanent residency based on their French skills, easily more than in other new categories for selection. The government has also extended 36,150 invites to the broad pool of candidates, whose selection is based solely on points rather than specific attributes.

To pick these French speakers, the government is effectively reaching deeper into the pool of immigration candidates, which means the cutoff score for entry is frequently much lower in this category than in others. These individuals have lower expected earnings in Canada than people with higher scores.

“What’s the objective here? If it’s about economic growth, then this is not a smart policy,” said Mikal Skuterud, an economics professor at the University of Waterloo. “But clearly, that’s not what this is about. They’re using economic-class programs to achieve different objectives.”

…“It is definitely going to affect our ability to select the top talent,” said Parisa Mahboubi, a senior policy analyst at the C.D. Howe Institute….

….Anne Michèle Meggs, a former director of planning and accountability at Quebec’s Immigration Ministry, said it was unlikely Ottawa was selecting French speakers to curry favour with certain communities ahead of the next federal election. “There are not a lot of votes to find among francophones outside Quebec,” she said….

Source: Ottawa focuses on French-speaking economic immigrants – and often bypasses stronger candidates

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Why is this nurse working at a Toronto insurance firm? Ontario’s battle to get foreign-trained nurses into the field

2024/04/16 Leave a comment

Useful analysis and report:

…The report by World Education Services (WES) Canada, a non-profit organization that assesses foreign credentials, surveyed 758 internationally educated nurses not currently working as nurses in Ontario, and found that half had not begun the province’s registration process to practise, even if they wanted to. 

The respondents cited financial barriers as the top factor affecting their ability to become registered. (Registration costs, exams and testing fees can total $3,000 at the low end.) The need to show evidence of recent nursing practice, a lack of clarity around the registration process and the time it takes to get registered also played a role.

The report also said data gaps make it “nearly impossible” to track how many internationally educated nurses are in Canada, how many intend to or are trying to qualify, and how many are practising. 

“No one can tell us how many internationally educated nurses are actually out there who could potentially be working,” said Joan Atlin, strategy, policy and research director at WES Canada. “There’s still a significantly underutilized population of nurses in the province who are still falling outside of the supports.”

The pandemic has forced health officials to confront the underutilization of skills brought by immigrants meant to fill labour needs, said Atlin, who has been engaged in foreign credential issues for two decades.

The province is well aware of the issues in the report and has worked with the College of Nurses of Ontario, which regulates the profession, to help internationally educated nurses become registered. 

In 2022, the Health Ministry introduced changes, including covering the cost of exams and registration with the college, and made it easier to meet language proficiency requirements. 

Just last month, the province made permanent a program that places these nurses under an employer’s supervision to gain work experience. The college says that as of the end of March 2024, it had matched 4,230 applicants with employers, enabling 3,324 nurses to register. 

“It has created that opportunity for health-care employers to hire those who have already applied for licensure and allow nurses to meet the practice and language proficiency requirement, by actually working and having their employer attest to their ability to work in English,” said Atlin.

In total, the college says as of April 1, it had registered more than 7,500 international applicants, with 5,215 new internationally educated nurses registered in 2022 alone. …

Source: Why is this nurse working at a Toronto insurance firm? Ontario’s battle to get foreign-trained nurses into the field

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Quebec employers group worried ‘politicized’ immigration debate will hurt jobs

2024/04/16 Leave a comment

Legitimate worry, if debate becomes xenophobic rather than the impact of housing, healthcare, infrastructure:

The latest spat between Quebec and Ottawa over immigration is based on politics and not the reality of the labour market, says the head of a major employers group.

“In some ways, it’s deplorable,” said Karl Blackburn, president and CEO of the Conseil du patronat du Québec.

His comments come as Quebec Premier François Legault is threatening to hold a “referendum” on immigration if the federal government doesn’t take rapid action to stem the rising number of temporary immigrants, which include foreign workers, international students and refugee claimants.

“The majority of Quebecers think that 560,000 temporary immigrants is too much,” Legault said last week. “It’s hurting our health-care system. We don’t have enough teachers, we don’t have enough housing.”

Provincial Immigration Minister Christine Fréchette said the province’s demands include stronger French-language requirements in immigration programs managed by the federal government and a reduction in the number of asylum seekers and temporary workers.

While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rejected the province’s bid for full control over immigration — currently a shared responsibility — Legault said in March that his federal counterpart had showed openness to some of the province’s demands, and agreed with him on the need to reduce temporary immigrants.

Blackburn, however, disagrees that there are too many temporary workers, who he said are “working in our businesses producing goods and services.” Their numbers, he added, reflect the needs of the labour market and of an aging society.

He said he supports the Legault government’s call to reduce the number of asylum seekers in the province because Quebec has received a disproportionate share in recent years. But he denounced the federal government’s “improvised” decision to suddenly reimpose visas on some Mexican nationals earlier this year, a measure Quebec had pushed for as a way of reducing asylum claims.

He said that’s already having “direct effects” on businesses by restricting their ability to bring in workers. Any subsequent measures to reduce the number of temporary workers will further hurt Quebec’s economy as well as consumers who will no longer have access to the same goods and services, he said.

“It’s as if our governments knowingly agreed to cause companies to lose contracts for reasons of political partisanship and not based on economic growth, which is nonsensical in a way,” Blackburn said.

Politicians are unfairly blaming immigrants for shortages of housing, daycare spaces and teachers, when the real problem is government failure to invest in those areas, he added.

The long-running debate between Quebec and Ottawa has flared in recent months. Earlier this year, the premier wrote to Trudeau about the influx of asylum seekers entering Quebec, which has welcomed more than 65,000 of the 144,000 would-be refugees who came to Canada last year.

Quebec has demanded Ottawa reimburse the province $1 billion — the amount Quebec says it has cost to care for asylum seekers over the last three years.

Federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said this week that no country would ever give up total control over immigration. But he said he and his provincial counterpart are having good discussions and agree on many matters, including limiting visas to Mexicans and protecting French.

While Legault has blamed the federal government for the “exploding” number of newcomers, the director of a research institute and co-author of a recent study on temporary immigrants says both Ottawa and Quebec have brought in measures in recent years to facilitate their arrival.

Emna Braham says the surge in temporary immigrants is due to a combination of factors, including a tight labour market, post-secondary institutions recruiting internationally, and programs by both Ottawa and Quebec to allow companies to bring in more workers.

She said numbers have now climbed higher than either level of government expected, likely because temporary immigration is administered through a series of programs that are separate from one another.

“We had a set of measures that could be justified individually, but there was no reflection on what the impact will be of all these cumulative measures on the flow of immigrants that Quebec and Canada accept,” she said in a phone interview.

Both Braham and Blackburn point out that the high number of temporary workers in Quebec is also a result of the province’s decision to cap the number of new permanent residents it accepts each year to around 50,000, creating a bottleneck of people awaiting permanent status.

“If the government of Quebec had set its thresholds at the level they should be to meet the needs of the labour market, we wouldn’t be in this situation where (there) is a significant increase in temporary workers,” Blackburn said.

Braham said the moment is right for provinces and the federal government to develop a coordinated approach to immigration, and to ensure a system is put in place to ensure both long- and short-term needs are met.

Source: Quebec employers group worried ‘politicized’ immigration debate will hurt jobs

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Alberta’s population growth is breaking records, but signs of strain are showing

2024/04/16 Leave a comment

Of note, affordability issue in Alberta:

…But what is happening right now in Alberta is different than in the past, said Mark Parsons, chief economist for ATB Financial.

“Alberta’s is a relatively strong economy, so the fast rate of job growth is contributing to the influx of people coming into the province, no question,” Mr. Parsons said.

“What’s different this time is that affordability is playing an important role – particularly housing affordability.”

Experts say Canada’s housing crisis, and the affordability of the Alberta real estate market compared with places such as Toronto and Vancouver, is one of the reasons the province has been the destination for so many U-Hauls and moving trucks.

In fact, housing affordability was one of the carrots the Alberta government dangled with its “Alberta is Calling” ad campaign, which ran in the spring of 2023 in Southern Ontario and Atlantic Canada. The campaign urged Canadians who can’t afford a home where they live to consider moving to Alberta, with its comparatively high salaries and lower real estate prices.

While the campaign was a smashing success from a marketing perspective, Alberta’s population boom has downsides. The sharp uptick in residents has helped drive economic growth, supporting retail and restaurant sales in the province and leading to a flurry of construction activity, but it has also made Alberta’s famously affordable real estate less affordable.

“In 2022, it felt like everyone was saying, ’Alberta’s on sale, this is great, this is amazing,’” said Calgary real estate agent Dawn Herron Maser.

“But now people who are from here are starting to feel like, ’Is it really that much on sale any more? Because we’re here in Alberta and we’re struggling. We’re struggling to buy our homes here.’”

In Calgary, the benchmark home price in March was $597,600, nearly 11 per cent higher than the previous year, according to the Calgary Real Estate Board. Anecdotes abound of wild bidding wars between buyers willing to waive all conditions and offer tens of thousands more than the asking price, a phenomenon that has become prevalent in hot markets such as Toronto and Vancouver.

Calgary and Edmonton also saw the sharpest acceleration in rent prices among major Canadian cities in 2023. In Calgary specifically, the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment in 2023 jumped 14.3 per cent, the highest year-over-year growth in the country and the sharpest single-year rise in rent growth the city has seen since 2007, data from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. show.

Adam Legge, president of the Business Council of Alberta, said new homes are simply not being built fast enough to keep up with the province’s growth. And there are other signs of strain showing as well. New arrivals to Alberta are struggling to find family doctors, and unprecedented school enrolment growth has led to overcrowded classrooms.

There is also a shortage of construction workers, welders and all of the other skilled tradespeople needed to build everything from houses to schools to roads as quickly as possible.

“We just aren’t seeing a sufficient inflow of new Albertans, either interprovincially or internationally, coming with those kinds of skills and credentials,” Mr. Legge said.

While the pace of population growth in Alberta is expected to moderate this year and in 2025, ATB Financial predicts it will still be strong compared with most other parts of Canada and developed economies around the world.

In the long term, sustained growth is likely. The province’s economy is diversifying, creating opportunities for workers in non-oil and gas-related fields such as technology and aviation, and the proximity of the Rocky Mountains and some of Canada’s best-loved national parks continues to be a draw for tourists.

The Alberta government’s own projections call for the province’s population to hit six million people as early as 2039.

“We really need to start looking at Alberta, and the West in general, in a different way,” said Mr. Ernst, with the Centre for Newcomers, adding that both provincial and federal governments need to prepare for the growth that is coming by investing in housing, infrastructure, programs and education.

“We’ve got to really think critically about the allocation of resources in this country – really understanding where people are moving, where people are setting up, where some of the population pressures are.”

Mr. Legge agreed, adding it’s vital that Alberta prepare for its future by addressing areas that are already under strain because of the province’s rapid growth.

“The message ’Alberta is Calling’ is clearly working, which is a great thing in the sense of growth for the province and the people who are bringing their skills and talents and passions and entrepreneurship here,” he said.

“We’ve just got to make sure that we don’t become victims of our own success, and tackle some of the challenges that are already putting strain on our quality of life.”

Source: Alberta’s population growth is breaking records, but signs of strain are showing

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Ottawa accused of failing to crack down on unethical immigration consultants

2024/04/15 Leave a comment

Yet another policy fail?

….Earl Blaney, a licensed immigration consultant from London, Ont., said “mass volumes of immigration applications are submitted overseas by unauthorized immigration representatives,” adding that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is well aware of the situation.

In 2019, through an omnibus budget bill, the government gave itself the authority to create a regime of penalties, including fines, to deal with violations by anyone providing advice to people making immigration and citizenship applications.

IRCC, in a parliamentary reply three weeks ago to Senator Don Plett, the Conservative leader in the Senate, said the department had not yet imposed any fines on consultants because “the compliance regime for immigration and citizenship consultants is not yet in force” and “the regulatory authorities to do so do not yet exist.”

Paul Chiang, the parliamentary secretary to Immigration Minister Marc Miller, said in the reply that there had been delays in implementing the regime, partly owing to the pandemic.

The department is currently working with the Department of Justice to draft the regulations, and the regime is expected to be in place between this fall and the winter of 2025, he said.

Mr. Plett accused the government of “incompetence” and said he plans to raise the delay in the Senate next week.

….But Conservative immigration critic Tom Kmiec said consultants “practising outside the country cannot be reasonably monitored by their college,” which is a problem.

Source: Ottawa accused of failing to crack down on unethical immigration consultants

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Globe editorial: Substitutions and deletions, please: The absolutes of the culture wars are divisive and exhausting

2024/04/15 Leave a comment

Good editorial:

….So let’s stop playing those roles, or shoving others into them. Enough with the tyranny of orthodoxy and treating any disagreement as instant evidence of bad faith.

Your brain and your window on the world aren’t a no-substitutions-allowed meal kit. It’s a grocery store where you can pick up and discard what works for you. If someone doesn’t like the looks of what’s in your shopping cart, that doesn’t make you an awful cook – or a terrible human being. It just means they want something different for dinner tonight.

The underlying irony is that most of us don’t even want to play this game.

When Angus Reid asked people to pick the word they most associate with the culture wars, a clear majority of Canadians picked two words: “divisive” and “exhausting.”

Now there’s something all of us can agree on.

Source: Substitutions and deletions, please: The absolutes of the culture wars are divisive and exhausting

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Jamie Sarkonak: Zealous DEI commissars threaten integrity of Canada’s medical profession

2024/04/15 Leave a comment

Captures the perspective and views of what a possible Conservative government thinks about DEI and what they might do with respect to employment equity:

…The next place DEI intends to colonize is the foundational set of themes that underpin physician training in Canada, the CanMEDS framework. Last revised in 2015, CanMEDS is up for renewal in 2025. The most radical change? DEI.

Doctors involved in the revision are proposing to make progressive-left values standard in physician training, including anti-racism, social justice, cultural humility, decolonization and intersectionality — all concepts coined by progressive, redistributive racialists who tend to despise western culture.

Health equity experts are all-in on this stuff, so expect the “experts say” coverage to be overwhelmingly positive. A preview is offered by Kannin Osei-Tutu, a medical professor at U of C, who recently hailed the upcoming CanMEDS revision as an “unprecedented opportunity” for transformation.

“Transformative change in medical education and practice demands explicit integration of anti-oppressive competencies,” he wrote in last month’s issue of the Canadian Medical Journal of Health (which only ever seems to publish one side of this great debate).

“Progress hinges on cultivating a critical mass of physicians committed to this change, thus paving the way for more equitable and just health care.”

Wondering where all this goes? Look to New Zealand, a fellow British colony that has taken to reconciling with extreme self-flagellatory policies. In 2023, some of the island nation’s hospitals began prioritizing Indigenous Māori and Pacific patients on elective surgery wait lists on the basis of race.

“It’s ethically challenging to treat anyone based on race, it’s their medical condition that must establish the urgency of the treatment,” one anonymous doctor told the New Zealand Herald.

Plenty more like-minded doctors exist in Canada, but they are drowned out by heavy-handed administrations that insist on turning their profession into another stage of ideological performance. Their best recourse? Their provincial ministers of health and post-secondary education, who are uniquely empowered to turn things around.

Source: Jamie Sarkonak: Zealous DEI commissars threaten integrity of Canada’s medical profession

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Le français québécois, pas pire qu’un autre

2024/04/15 Leave a comment

More on the controversy over tests from France vs Quebec (although not the most important issue, understand the sensitives):

Et rebelote : des internautes se moquent du parler québécois. Depuis mardi, sur X et sur TikTok, une vidéo du jeune Joël Legendre chantant à l’émission Soirée canadienne à la fin des années 1970 a été commentée par des centaines de personnes. La chanson qu’il interprète est tantôt appelée M’en revenant de Sainte-Hélène ou J’ai vu le loup, le renard, le lièvre. L’enfant d’alors mène de sa voix une foule animée, agissant comme un choeur en écho, qui bat des mains la mesure.

Dans les commentaires, certaines personnes défendent la langue bien de chez nous, pendant que d’autres la dénigrent sans gêne, allant jusqu’à nier que l’on parle vraiment français en ce coin d’Amérique du Nord. « Ma femme francophone (accent parisien parfait) rit chaque fois que les Québécois ouvrent la bouche. Ce n’est pas du français ! » écrit par exemple en anglais un utilisateur de X.

Ces réactions n’étonnent pas les linguistes à qui Le Devoir a parlé.

Si ce genre de diffusion en ligne fait rapidement boule de neige ici, c’est d’abord parce que les Québécois ont l’épiderme sensible sur la question linguistique. On a fait du progrès par rapport à notre insécurité linguistique, mais ce n’est pas fini, dit la linguiste Julie Auger. Elle cite comme exemple des personnes pour qui adopter les expressions propres aux Français est le gage d’une langue « plus correcte », quitte à embrasser leurs tics de langage. Un lecteur du Devoir suggérait notamment l’an dernier de remplacer le mot « faque » par « du coup » — ce qu’elle a trouvé « très ironique », se souvient-elle, puisque l’expression est moquée en France.

Quant à ceux qui voudraient ridiculiser la langue d’ici, leurs messages démontrent une idée préconçue et figée du français, disent ces linguistes qui s’affairent à la déconstruire.

« Pourquoi ne pas porter un autre regard sur la langue et en célébrer la diversité et l’adaptabilité ? » demande d’emblée celle qui est aussi professeure titulaire à l’Université de Montréal. « Je ne sais pas pourquoi les humains tiennent à se diviser en catégories et à dévaloriser les autres. »

Variations sur un même thème

Déjà, le français hexagonal, qu’on prend souvent pour le « bon français », est récent. « On a parlé français ici, en Nouvelle-France, avant que la France dans son entièreté parle français. » À l’époque de la colonie française, au XVIIe siècle, ce n’est qu’autour de Paris et chez la noblesse qu’on parle le français, alors que le bourguignon domine en Bourgogne et le picard à Lille, donne-t-elle en exemple.

Il n’y a donc pas de langue unitaire et immuable, au contraire. « Ce qui est considéré comme le “bon français” varie énormément dans l’Histoire. […] On peut ne pas aimer tous les changements de la langue, mais si elle ne change pas, elle meurt », dit la spécialiste. Elle a d’ailleurs participé à un ouvrage collectif intitulé Le français va très bien, merci, qui cherchait à renverser cette vision voulant que le français se meure à cause d’Internet ou de l’influence de l’anglais.

« On revient toujours à cette question. On n’aurait pas le droit de parler une variété de français qui est différent et qui reflète notre histoire ? » analyse quant à lui Wim Remysen, professeur de linguistique à l’Université de Sherbrooke. Ce sont de « vieux discours dépassés » qui font complètement abstraction du phénomène de variation d’une langue, variations qui existent dans toutes les langues à travers le monde. « On ne demanderait pas à un Américain de parler le même anglais qu’un Britannique, ce n’est pas compliqué ! » ajoute-t-il.

Déjà, au XIXe siècle, il y a eu ce genre de débat autour du French Canadian patois, note-t-il. C’est toujours cette idée qu’il y a quelque chose qui ne va pas avec le français parlé au Québec qui ressurgit, une idée qui a souvent servi à affaiblir ou à minimiser les revendications pour faire valoir nos droits linguistiques, note M. Remysen. « On a tort de vouloir stigmatiser ces particularités. Au contraire, c’est quelque chose qui fait partie de qui nous sommes. »

La langue française ferait particulièrement la belle part aux puristes, selon ces deux professeurs. « Dans le cas du français, c’est un discours particulièrement dominant parce qu’il a toujours eu une hypercentralisation de la norme », dit M. Remysen. Dans le cas de l’anglais et de l’espagnol, les anciennes colonies sont devenues plus importantes que la métropole, et « ce poids démographique a facilité un certain affranchissement ».

Une question de registres

Au moment même où le premier ministre français, Gabriel Attal, est en visite officielle au Québec et sort sa rhétorique d’apparat, les deux experts appellent aussi à cesser de comparer « des pommes avec des oranges ».

Le réflexe de croire que « les Français ont plus de vocabulaire » vient souvent du fait que l’on compare les différents registres. « On pense au français des Têtes à claques, mais il faut aussi penser au français de Céline Galipeau. On a tendance à réduire […], mais le français québécois, c’est aussi cet éventail de formes », dit Mme Auger. « Il y a toujours eu une langue familière, la langue de tous les jours, et une langue standard. C’est notamment le rôle de l’école d’amener les enfants à maîtriser le mieux possible cette variété qui donne accès à toutes les professions. »

Il est bon de pouvoir communiquer avec les francophones ailleurs en francophonie et d’avoir accès à la littérature ; l’important est donc aussi de savoir passer d’un registre à l’autre en fonction de ses besoins et de la situation, note la linguiste.

Des internautes comme Stéphane Venne ne sont pas d’accord, et ils comptent bien le faire savoir. Il a partagé son point de vue sur les réseaux sociaux en tant que « simple citoyen », mais aussi en tant qu’auteur-compositeur qui a fait de la langue son matériau artistique. Il appelait ainsi à distinguer l’accent, la « dimension acoustique », de celle de la « compétence langagière », qui comprendrait la syntaxe, le vocabulaire et l’élocution.

Pour lui, les critiques à l’égard d’un accent — qu’il soit marseillais, normand, parisien ou québécois — sont « tout à fait ridicules ». Ce qui est « plus fondamental » est la maîtrise de la langue elle-même, poursuit-il au téléphone avec Le Devoir. « Si vous avez 60 mots à votre vocabulaire et qu’une autre collectivité en a 600, il y a un déficit », croit-il. Les Québécois parlent donc mal, selon lui ? « On n’a pas des siècles de culture et d’éducation. On est une jeune collectivité française qui a de l’avenir », se défend l’artiste. « La capacité des gens ordinaires en France, le sport du langage qu’ils maîtrisent, est de loin supérieure », affirme-t-il néanmoins.

Aucune étude ne montre cependant que la variation entre la langue familière et la langue soignée soit plus grande au Québec qu’en France. « On est plutôt dans le domaine des clichés et des stéréotypes », conclut M. Remysen, qui invite à célébrer notre langue variée.

Source: Le français québécois, pas pire qu’un autre

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Canadian Immigration Tracker: February 2024 Update

2024/04/15 Leave a comment

Overall monthly decreases in most programs.

The percentage of temporary residents fell to a more normal 57 percent (average for 2023 was 50 percent).

Asylum claimants increased slightly and since September 2023 are averaging about 16,000 per month. Impact of Mexican visa requirement should be seen in next month’s data although visitor visa data now showing visas issued to Mexicans (only 7 in February).

March web data shows no increase in study permit interests from February while applications increased slightly. Permits decreased however and expect next few months will show full impact of caps.

Citizenship program continues to naturalize an average of 35,000 persons since May 2023, between 80-90 percent in virtual ceremonies.

Slide 3 has the overall numbers and change

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