C’est une grande contradiction du gouvernement Legault. Et il tentera de corriger le tir dans les prochaines semaines.
À moins d’un revirement de dernière minute, il proposera trois scénarios de baisse du seuil d’immigration permanente pour les prochaines années. Ces scénarios fixeront le seuil sous les 50 000 nouveaux arrivants par année à compter de 2026, année électorale. On pourrait donc avoisiner les 35 000 promis par le Parti québécois dans son plan présenté l’automne dernier. Les scénarios seront soumis à une consultation ce printemps pour être adoptés d’ici juin.
Le ministre de l’Immigration, Jean-François Roberge, a préparé le terrain à cette réduction en imposant l’automne dernier un moratoire sur deux importants programmes d’immigration permanente : le Programme régulier des travailleurs qualifiés (PRTQ) et le Programme de l’expérience québécoise destiné aux diplômés (PEQ-Diplômés). Québec n’accepte plus de nouvelles demandes depuis. Le moratoire est en vigueur jusqu’en juin.
Cette décision n’a toutefois pas une incidence à très court terme. À preuve, le gouvernement prévoit tout de même jusqu’à 67 000 nouveaux arrivants cette année, frôlant le record de 2022.
Sans le moratoire, le Québec était en voie d’en accueillir environ 70 000. Pourquoi ? En bonne partie parce qu’il y a eu explosion des demandes de la part des diplômés via le PEQ, à la suite d’une décision prise en 2023.
Christine Fréchette, alors ministre de l’Immigration, avait décidé que les personnes sélectionnées dans le cadre de ce programme seraient admises « en continu », sans aucun plafond. Québec a pour ainsi dire ouvert les vannes, plaidant que le PEQ était réservé surtout aux étudiants ayant obtenu un diplôme dans un programme donné en français.
Le premier ministre François Legault n’est donc pas parvenu à respecter sa promesse électorale : maintenir un seuil de 50 000. Dépasser ce seuil est « suicidaire » pour la nation québécoise, plaidait-il pourtant en campagne électorale en 2022. Il avait eu la même difficulté dans ce dossier durant son premier mandat, alors qu’il avait promis un maximum de 40 000 nouveaux arrivants par année.
Dans les faits, Québec a réduit le seuil d’immigration seulement au début de son premier mandat. Il l’a abaissé à 40 000 nouveaux arrivants en 2019. Si on met de côté la pandémie, qui a évidemment freiné l’immigration en 2020, le seuil a augmenté à au moins 50 000 par année depuis 2021 avec un sommet de 68 700 en 2022.
Au-delà du nombre, l’important est aussi de connaître le profil des immigrants que l’on accepte. Sur ce plan, le gouvernement Legault récoltera-t-il les fruits attendus de ses décisions ? Il y a deux ans, il a rehaussé les exigences en matière de français pour l’ensemble des immigrants permanents. Les indications entre les mains du gouvernement laissent croire que 80 % des nouveaux arrivants qui seront admis cette année auront une connaissance du français. Ce serait 10 points de plus qu’en 2024 et les années précédentes. À suivre.
Angle mort
À quoi bon débattre d’un seuil pour réduire l’immigration permanente si l’immigration temporaire continue d’augmenter ? C’était l’angle mort du dossier jusqu’ici, et Québec va corriger le tir là aussi.
Pour la toute première fois, la « planification pluriannuelle » du gouvernement Legault tiendra compte de cette immigration temporaire.
Le nombre de résidents non permanents a plus que doublé depuis 2021 pour dépasser les 600 000. Parmi eux figurent les demandeurs d’asile, dont le nombre a triplé au cours de la même période. Le Québec compte 40 % des demandeurs d’asile du pays.
Cette immigration temporaire met sous pression les services publics, martèle le gouvernement. François Legault en fait d’ailleurs la cause sous-jacente de la crise du logement et de la pénurie d’enseignants. Et la semaine dernière en Chambre, il a même établi un lien avec la crise de l’itinérance à Montréal.
Le gouvernement a commencé à agir pour réduire cette part de l’immigration. Il a décidé de limiter le nombre d’étudiants étrangers. Il a suspendu le Programme des travailleurs étrangers temporaires pour certains emplois dans l’île de Montréal, une mesure qui est reconduite jusqu’à la fin de novembre et qui sera étendue à Laval en mars.
Surtout, le premier ministre fait pression sur Ottawa, qui contrôle une partie de l’immigration temporaire et qui a pris certaines mesures pour la réduire dans les derniers mois.
M. Legault veut que le fédéral aille plus loin et, notamment, qu’il réduise de moitié le nombre de demandeurs d’asile installés au Québec. Quitte à les déplacer de force dans d’autres provinces, a-t-il suggéré l’automne dernier, une proposition qui a soulevé la controverse.
Le gouvernement a soupesé d’autres options afin de pousser 80 000 demandeurs d’asile à quitter le Québec pour une autre province. Par exemple, payer une indemnité aux demandeurs en échange de leur départ et réduire les services offerts par l’État, comme le chèque d’aide sociale.
Il faut s’attendre à ce que François Legault tente d’augmenter la pression sur les partis politiques fédéraux alors que des élections approchent. Mais il a fait chou blanc jusqu’ici avec sa principale demande de rapatrier les pleins pouvoirs en immigration.
This is a great contradiction of the Legault government. And he will try to correct the shot in the coming weeks.
Unless there is a last-minute turnaround, it will propose three scenarios for lowering the permanent immigration threshold for the next few years. These scenarios will set the threshold below 50,000 newcomers per year starting in 2026, the election year. We could therefore be close to the 35,000 promised by the Quebec Party in its plan presented last fall. The scenarios will be submitted for consultation this spring to be adopted by June.
The Minister of Immigration, Jean-François Roberge, prepared the ground for this reduction by imposing a moratorium last fall on two important permanent immigration programs: the Regular Skilled Worker Program (PRTQ) and the Quebec Experience Program for Graduates (PEQ-Diplômés). Quebec has not accepted new requests since then. The moratorium is in effect until June.
However, this decision does not have a very short-term impact. As proof, the government still expects up to 67,000 newcomers this year, close to the record of 2022.
Without the moratorium, Quebec was on its way to welcoming about 70,000. Why? In large part because there has been an explosion of requests from graduates via the PEQ, following a decision taken in 2023.
Christine Fréchette, then Minister of Immigration, had decided that the people selected under this program would be admitted “continuously”, without any ceiling. Quebec City has almost opened the floodgates, arguing that the PEQ was reserved mainly for students who obtained a diploma in a given program in French.
Prime Minister François Legault therefore failed to meet his electoral promise: to maintain a threshold of 50,000. Exceeding this threshold is “suicidal” for the Quebec nation, he pleaded in the election campaign in 2022. He had had the same difficulty in this case during his first term, when he had promised a maximum of 40,000 newcomers per year.
In fact, Quebec only reduced the immigration threshold at the beginning of its first term. He lowered it to 40,000 newcomers in 2019. If we put aside the pandemic, which obviously slowed down immigration in 2020, the threshold has increased to at least 50,000 per year since 2021 with a peak of 68,700 in 2022.
Beyond the number, the important thing is also to know the profile of the immigrants we accept. On this level, will the Legault government reap the expected fruits of its decisions? Two years ago, he raised French requirements for all permanent immigrants. The indications in the hands of the government suggest that 80% of the newcomers who will be admitted this year will have a knowledge of French. That would be 10 points more than in 2024 and previous years. To be continued.
Blind spot
What is the point of discussing a threshold to reduce permanent immigration if temporary immigration continues to increase? It was the blind spot of the file so far, and Quebec will correct the shot there too.
For the very first time, the Legault government’s “multi-year planning” will take this temporary immigration into account.
The number of non-permanent residents has more than doubled since 2021 to exceed 600,000. These include asylum seekers, the number of whom has tripled over the same period. Quebec has 40% of the country’s asylum seekers.
This temporary immigration puts pressure on public services, the government hammers. François Legault makes it the underlying cause of the housing crisis and the shortage of teachers. And last week in the Chamber, he even established a link with the homelessness crisis in Montreal.
The government has begun to act to reduce this share of immigration. He decided to limit the number of foreign students. It suspended the Temporary Foreign Worker Program for certain jobs on the island of Montreal, a measure that is renewed until the end of November and will be extended to Laval in March.
Above all, the Prime Minister is putting pressure on Ottawa, which controls some of the temporary immigration and has taken certain measures to reduce it in recent months.
Mr. Legault wants the federal government to go further and, in particular, to halve the number of asylum seekers living in Quebec. Even if it means forcibly moving them to other provinces, he suggested last fall, a proposal that raised controversy.
The government has weighed other options to push 80,000 asylum seekers to leave Quebec for another province. For example, paying compensation to applicants in exchange for their departure and reducing services offered by the state, such as social assistance cheques.
It is to be expected that François Legault will try to increase the pressure on federal political parties as elections approach. But he has done white cabbage so far with his main request to repatriate full powers to immigration.
Cue all the oligarchs and other questionable individuals, but disturbingly appropriate for the Trump administration (most business and citizenship immigration programs make limited if any contribution to local economies and employment).
To use Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick’s description of the EB-5, this replacement will likely generate even more “nonsense, make-believe and fraud:”
The U.S. is going to “sell” gold cards for $5 million, Trump announced in the Oval Office Tuesday.
“We’re going to be putting a price on that card of about $5 million and that’s going to give you [permanent resident] Green Card privileges, plus it’s going to be a route to citizenship,” the president said. He branded it as “somewhat like a Green Card, but at a higher level of sophistication.”
“Wealthy people will be coming into our country by buying this card,” he continued. “They’ll be wealthy and they’ll be successful and they’ll be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people. And we think it’s going to be extremely successful and never been done before.”
Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick clarified the Trump administration plans to terminate a somewhat similar EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program and “replace it with the Trump gold card.”
The EB-5 program allows investors to apply for permanent residence in the U.S. if they “make the necessary investment in a commercial enterprise in the United States” and plan to create or preserve 10 permanent full-time jobs.
The EB-5 program was “full of nonsense, make-believe and fraud,” Lutnick continued. “It was a way to get a green card that was low priced.”
Once vetted, gold card holders “can invest in America and we can use that money to reduce our deficit,” he added.
The president predicted that the gold card will bring in “very high level people” who create jobs. With these cards, “you’re getting big taxpayers, big job producers, and we’ll be able to sell maybe a million of these cards, maybe more than that,” Trump said.
The Kushner family was sharply criticized eight years ago after the sister of Jared Kushner, then senior White House adviser to his father-in-laws Donald Trump, traveled to Beijing to tempt wealthy Chinese with an EB-5 Green Card with an investment in one of the Kushner family’s real estate projects — an offer that a former White House ethics lawyer under George. W. Bush called “corruption, pure and simple.”
The new citizenship pathway comes as the Trump administration cracks down on immigration into the U.S. The president even issued an executive order to end birthright citizenship. An appeals court last week rejected the Trump administration’s request to pause a lower court judge’s order halting the president’s executive order.
A more strategic approach to international students and rebalancing in favour of universities and college programs where there is high labour force needs:
…In the short term, we should prioritize international university students over their college counterparts, since they pay higher tuition. Algonquin College in Ottawa lists international tuition and book costs at $16,000 to $22,000, which is much less than across town at Carleton University, where international tuition ranges from $34,000 to $53,000. To be clear, these are both fine academic institutions that are important parts of the Canadian educational system. However, an international student at Carleton contributes more to Canadian national income through tuition revenue than does their counterpart at Algonquin.
Also, university students have higher average earnings upon graduation than college students and are more likely to meet the admission criteria under the Skilled Worker immigration program after graduation. And unlike college students, university students are more likely to be involved in academic research, which helps with our productivity challenges, and they are more likely to be the leaders of technology spin-off companies.
Should we have international students at colleges? Yes, but at lower numbers than in the recent past and concentrated in key fields. Students doing programs in the building trades should be prioritized given the need to expand our housing stock. International students in health care programs should also be prioritized, as this will help us to expand our strained health sector.
Will increasing international students create another population surge? Not necessarily. One sensible first step would be to quickly wind down the lower wage part of our Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
Each temporary foreign worker’s impact on housing and health care is similar to that of an international university student. Replacing temporary foreign workers with international university students in the same communities would lead to a boost in tuition revenue and improve our pool of highly skilled potential immigrants, but without affecting the demand for local housing and health care. This makes even more sense ahead of a possible tariff-driven recession where unemployed auto workers may wish they had access to jobs held by temporary foreign workers….
Canada’s immigration department may soon need to factor in climate change when deciding whether to deport some asylum seekers to their home countries, an internal government document suggests.
The analysis on “climate mobility” by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada says that the federal government may not be able to deport people to regions hit hard by floods, drought or rising sea levels.
The 2024 internal IRCC document, obtained through an access to information request, says “Canada does not have a formal position or strategy on how to address the complex nexus between climate events and mobility.”
It notes that climate events are not currently a ground for protection under the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees or Canada’s system of determining asylum cases.
But it says that refugee claims may be affected by a “watershed” 2020 decision by the United Nations Human Rights Committee that concluded climate change may trigger obligations not to deport some people….
Ongoing pivot. Takes some political courage to deliver these remarks in Brampton, given its large Indo-Canadian population, but the issues of exploitation of Indian students, by colleges, consultants and others are clear:
Immigration Minister Marc Miller accused Canadian universities of sourcing too many students from India, and said he expects a better “diversity” of international students in future.
He also said Canada needs to return to relying on “quality” over “quantity” of immigrants. “I think we do need to make sure that the Canadian brand does focus on excellence, on quality, and less quantity,” he said.
The comments were delivered at a media roundtable in Brampton, Ont., one of the Canadian cities most impacted by an unprecedented spike in immigration overseen by the Trudeau government since 2021. Miller was hosted by Brampton Centre MP Shafqat Ali.
In just the last three years, Canada’s population has grown by 2.9 million — an average influx of 81,000 new people every month. Many of those have come in on temporary visas; as per a November report by Statistics Canada, there are now three million non-permanent residents in Canada.
Brampton has experienced this immigration wave more acutely than anyone else, with immigration making it the country’s fastest growing big city. In just a single year between 2021 and 2022, the city’s population jumped by a record 89,077.
This has also made Brampton the home of Canada’s fastest-growing rents. And it’s made the city a focal point for a new phenomenon of job fairs being utterly overwhelmed by applicants. In one example from 2023, a mid-sized Brampton grocery store advertising open positions attracted a line-up of several hundred applicants snaking around the block.
In October, Miller introduced a package of reforms to “pause population growth,” including stricter quotas on both permanent and non-permanent immigration.
Miller opened the Brampton event by saying that he expected “hopes will be dashed” as many of Canada’s millions of temporary residents see their visas expire without having secured permanent residency.
“It’s going to be a rough ride; part of cleaning up this challenge that we see will mean that people’s hopes will be dashed to some extent,” said the minister, adding that “no one was guaranteed automatic permanent residency.”
He also said, “The solution is not to give visas to absolutely everyone simply because they don’t want to leave.”
Miller also maintained that none of the massive increase in immigration was his government’s fault, placing the blame instead on colleges, provincial governments and other “bad actors” who sponsored outsized numbers of international migrants, sometimes under fraudulent grounds.
Although he allowed that there “probably should have been better oversight, but that’s water under the bridge.”
Miller also accused schools of relying too heavily on students from India – who at times have comprised up to half of all international students in the country.
“I would say universities and colleges have been going to one or two source countries, and constantly going back to the well on that — we expect diversity of students,” he said.
The minister said he’d asked universities and colleges to “put a little more effort into the price of acquisition.”
“You have to be able to invest more in the talent you’re bringing here, and that includes going to more countries,” he said.
The event was held just as Miller’s office published information showing that in 2024 alone, 50,000 people entered Canada on study permits and then never showed up to class.
Canada has also been seeing rising rates of students claiming asylum in an apparent bid to stave off deportation. In just the first nine months of 2024, 14,000 people who entered Canada on student permits claimed asylum.
“It doesn’t make sense that you come here, spend a year, and that if you didn’t have the conditions in your home country to cause you to be an asylum seeker on day one … that you should be entitled to (the asylum) process,” he said, adding that any exceptions are “rare.”
The current waiting list just to have an asylum claim reviewed is up to three years — during which time the claimant can stay in Canada and even secure work permits and government benefits. Miller said that if Parliament wasn’t currently prorogued, he would introduce a bill to ensure that student asylum claims were dealt with in a “more efficient” fashion.
The Feb. 8 roundtable occurred just a few days after Canada was given a reprieve from tariffs threatened by the United States over the issue of border security.
Miller mentioned that Canada receives far more illegal border-crossers from the U.S. than vice versa, but said that the Americans had a point in that security along their northern border keeps intercepting foreign nationals who “have come through airports at Montreal and Pearson (Toronto).”
“That’s not right, we need to have proper control over the issuance of our visas,” said Miller.
…There has to be a sensible Canadian space between Trumpist mass deportations and closed borders on one hand, and on the other the current reality of a set of policies and institutions that make Canadian governments unable to control who enters the country.
Luckily, there seems to be an awkward political consensus around this. Both the federal Conservatives and the major Liberal leadership candidates appear to be united (though they might not admit it) around a common set of aspirations: a return to a focus on permanent, citizenship-focused immigration of intact families and a reduction of temporary migration to a minimum; immigration targets tied to economic conditions and population-growth needs; a refugee policy driven by genuine humanitarian need and not by irregular border crossings or opportunism.
Those goals won’t easily be attained with mere tinkering of the sort that governments this century have engaged in. Rather, they require a set of systemwide reforms. After interviewing a dozen former immigration officials and experts, I found a strong consensus on the changes that would make the system work:…
Immigrants or refugees do not have a higher tendency to commit crime and there is no correlation between the proportion of immigrants in a given district and the local crime rate, according to a new analysis of the latest German crime statistics carried out by the renowned ifo institute.
The Munich-based institute correlated the latest national crime stats from 2018 to 2023 with location-specific data in the new study to show why the fact that immigrants are overrepresented in crime statistics had nothing to do with where they came from.
Migrants tend to settle in urban areas, where there is more population density, more nightlife, and more people in public spaces at all hours of the day. That means the general crime rate is higher, and crime suspects are just as likely to be German as of foreign background. In other words, districts with higher levels of “immigrant” crime also have higher crime rates among Germans.
“These places increase the risk of becoming perpetrators for residents, regardless of nationality, due to the infrastructure, economic situation, police presence or population density,” the study said.
The researchers pointed to other reasons why immigrants tend to be overrepresented in crime figures: Immigrants are generally younger and more often male than the German population — but those, according to the researchers, were less important contributing factors.
Studies contradict the populist narrative
The supposed propensity of immigrants to commit crimes has become the dominant narrative in the current German election campaign. In a recent Bundestag debate on restricting immigration, Friedrich Merz, chancellor candidate for the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), spoke of “daily occurring gang rapes in the asylum seeker milieu.”
Those words echoed the narrative now routinely propagated by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). In early February, the AfD’s Beatrix von Storch told German public broadcaster ARD, “We have two gang rapes a day, we have ten normal rapes a day and we have had 131 violent crimes a day on average over the last six years — by immigrants, primarily Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis.”
“We have skyrocketing crime statistics. We have skyrocketing crime among foreigners, youth crime, migrant violence,” AfD co-leader and chancellor candidate Alice Weidel said in 2024. “Rapes are high, knife crimes are high, 15,000 in the last year.”
The numbers were found to be false by media outlets’ fact-checking teams.
Much-reported attacks by people of immigrant background in Munich, Aschaffenburg, and Magdeburg have fueled this popular narrative, but statistical studies draw a very different picture.
“Even for violent crimes such as homicide or sexual assault, the study shows no statistical correlation with an increasing share of foreigners or refugees,” the ifo researchers said.
Good general set of questions that apply to Canada and Quebec alike from former senior Quebec immigration official:
Il y en a certains qui aiment poser la question « pourquoi de l’immigration? » Comme nous avons pourtant souligné dans la chronique précédente, la migration humaine existe depuis le début des temps; elle est normale et inévitable. L’important est de bien la gérer pour s’assurer qu’elle demeure une force positive.
La vraie question donc est « De l’immigration pour quoi? » « Quelles sont nos attentes relatives à notre gestion de l’immigration? »
C’est la question la plus importante et la plus complexe à résoudre lors des consultations à venir ce printemps au Québec sur la planification pluriannuelle d’immigration. Les objectifs de cette planification seront très spécifiques au Québec compte tenu de sa situation géopolitique, linguistique et culturelle.
Convenons d’abord que l’immigration n’est pas la seule réponse aux défis québécois, ni la seule cause de ceux-ci. Elle constitue un élément qui peut aider à régler certains problèmes actuels, mais qui peut aussi les exacerber. D’où l’importance de bien la gérer et de trouver l’équilibre nécessaire.
La planification de l’immigration au Québec comprend traditionnellement deux types d’objectifs, des objectifs sociétaux et ceux du nombre et du rythme des arrivées1.
Objectifs sociétaux complexes
Les objectifs sociétaux incluent les enjeux, tels que la démographie, la langue française, l’économie et le marché du travail, les considérations humanitaires et familiales. Ces objectifs font appel aux caractéristiques ou aux critères de sélection des personnes qui arrivent (âge, langue, expérience de travail, domaine de formation, région de destination) ainsi qu’à la proportion de l’immigration permanente qui sera accordée à chaque catégorie — économique, humanitaire et familiale.
La démographie, par exemple, comprend plusieurs volets – le vieillissement de la population, le taux de fécondité et même les déplacements internes et externes.
Quels sont nos objectifs sur le plan de la démographie? Voulons-nous augmenter la taille de la population du Québec, la maintenir à peu près telle quelle, ou sommes-nous à l’aise avec une baisse de la population? Quelle priorité faut-il donner à l’enjeu du poids démographique du Québec au sein du Canada? Quelle structure des âges visons-nous? Quelle est l’importance de la rétention des personnes immigrantes et de la répartition de la population sur le territoire?
Les réponses à ces questions détermineront notamment l’importance de l’âge et de jeunes familles parmi les critères de sélection, ainsi que la connaissance du français. La connaissance du français et la présence de jeunes enfants sont deux facteurs qui jouent sur le taux de rétention des personnes qui arrivent.
De plus, les enfants d’âge scolaire contribuent à la pérennité de la langue française grâce à l’obligation de fréquenter des écoles françaises. Il est également à noter qu’il y a plus d’enfants de moins de 15 ans parmi les admissions de la catégorie familiale.
En ce qui concerne les objectifs économiques, comme notés dans l’Énoncé en matière d’immigration et d’intégration adopté en 1991 à la suite de la signature de l’Accord Canada-Québec, ils « permettent de concilier à la fois les motivations de l’immigrant et les intérêts de la collectivité québécoise. En effet, l’immigrant veut pour sa part améliorer son sort et celui de ses descendants; la société d’accueil, quant à elle, veut faire appel au potentiel de l’immigrant en fonction de ses besoins. »
Pour y arriver, d’une part, les économistes prônent la sélection des personnes hautement qualifiées qui travailleront dans les industries de pointe et qui pourront s’adapter à l’évolution des exigences du marché du travail. Les critères de sélection importants sont donc l’expérience de travail et la formation recherchées.
Ces personnes apportent de l’innovation et contribuent au développement et, avec des salaires plus élevés, elles paient plus d’impôts, contribuant ainsi au filet social qui sert à l’ensemble de la population.
D’autre part, le patronat signale que ces personnes sont souvent surqualifiées pour plusieurs des secteurs qui sont en pénurie de main-d’œuvre actuellement, particulièrement en région. Il ne faut pas oublier cependant que les personnes peu éduquées à bas salaire, immigrantes ou nées au Québec, ont besoin de soutien pour améliorer leur sort. L’intégration socioéconomique réussie est plus longue.
Quelles sont les priorités économiques au Québec qui détermineront le rôle que jouera l’immigration et les critères de sélection à favoriser? Quelle est la proportion à donner à la catégorie économique de l’immigration en équilibre avec les catégories familiales et humanitaires?
Enfin, en matière de langue, les bassins de recrutement à l’étranger des personnes qui utilisent déjà le français sont assez limités. Quels arbitrages sommes-nous prêts à faire entre les objectifs démographiques, économiques et linguistiques?
La capacité d’accueil
Avant d’établir les objectifs en ce qui concerne le nombre et le rythme des arrivées, il est crucial non seulement de clarifier les objectifs démographiques, mais également d’identifier et de mesurer les facteurs constituant la capacité d’accueil, et ce, idéalement par région administrative.
La plupart des composantes de la capacité d’accueil touchent la vie quotidienne de l’ensemble de la population et déterminent la qualité de vie tant des personnes arrivant de l’étranger que celle des personnes déjà établies.
Donnons quelques exemples : la disponibilité de logements abordables, les places dans les écoles et les garderies, l’accès à un médecin de famille, le temps d’attente dans les cliniques de première ligne et les hôpitaux ou pour une consultation avec un psychologue, la disponibilité des transports en commun, les services d’insertion en emploi, le taux de chômage, l’utilisation du français au travail et en public.
La capacité d’accueil inclut également l’accès aux services spécifiques au milieu d’immigration, tels les services de francisation, d’accueil et d’intégration socioculturelle.
La plupart de ces facteurs n’ont jamais fait partie du calcul des seuils de l’immigration permanente, encore moins de l’immigration temporaire dont la planification a été inexistante jusqu’à cette année.
Dans chaque cas, il faudrait déterminer quels indicateurs sont les plus pertinents à mesurer et quel seuil permet de dire qu’on est capable d’accueillir un certain nombre de nouvelles personnes.
Par exemple, en ce qui concerne la disponibilité du logement, il y aurait des indicateurs comme le taux d’inoccupation des logements en location, le prix moyen des loyers en fonction du salaire moyen des personnes immigrantes nouvellement arrivées, les mises en chantier. Chaque secteur de service public a déjà ses indicateurs pour mesurer le niveau de fonctionnement optimal.
Pour y arriver, une idée serait de créer une unité d’expertise à l’Institut de la statistique du Québec chargée d’élaborer une mesure de la capacité d’accueil, alimentée par les données administratives des divers ministères et organismes, ainsi que les données socioéconomiques, qui serait suivie en continu. Idéalement, les coûts associés à ces diverses composantes seraient également estimés et suivis.
La planification des niveaux et du rythme des admissions au Québec, et même par région, serait basée sur ces données. Les mesures à prendre, par exemple en matière de construction de logements ou de places en garderie, pour pouvoir accueillir convenablement les personnes nouvellement arrivées, seraient claires, ainsi que les coûts afférents.
Un tel chantier de recherche prendrait plusieurs mois à opérationnaliser et d’autres formules sont sûrement envisageables. L’important est de fixer les seuils d’immigration sur la base des données probantes et de retirer cet aspect de la planification de l’arène partisane.
Une planification de l’immigration basée sur les objectifs sociaux qui font consensus et sur des données probantes relatives à la capacité d’accueil serait un modèle inédit dans le monde. Elle aurait aussi le grand avantage de rassurer notre société que nous sommes bien capables d’accueillir des gens de partout pour bâtir le Québec de demain ensemble.
Anne Michèle Meggs is a former director of planning and accountability at the Ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration, and former director of research and evaluationat l’Office québécois de la langue française.
There are some who like to ask the question “why immigration? As we pointed out in the previous column, human migration has existed since the beginning of time; it is normal and inevitable. The important thing is to manage it well to ensure that it remains a positive force.
The real question then is “Immigration for what? “What are our expectations for our immigration management? ”
This is the most important and complex question to be resolved during the upcoming consultations this spring in Quebec on multi-year immigration planning. The objectives of this planning will be very specific to Quebec given its geopolitical, linguistic and cultural situation.
Let us first acree that immigration is not the only answer to Quebec’s challenges, nor the only cause of them. It is an element that can help solve some current problems, but that can also exacerbate them. Hence the importance of managing it well and finding the necessary balance.
Immigration planning in Quebec traditionally includes two types of objectives, societal objectives and those of the number and pace of arrivals1.
Complex societal objectives
Societal objectives include issues, such as demographics, the French language, the economy and the labour market, and humanitarian and family considerations. These objectives rely on the characteristics or selection criteria of arriving persons (age, language, work experience, field of training, region of destination) as well as the proportion of permanent immigration that will be granted to each category — economic, humanitarian and family.
Demography, for example, includes several aspects – population aging, fertility rate and even internal and external displacements.
What are our demographic goals? Do we want to increase the size of Quebec’s population, keep it pretty much as it is, or are we comfortable with a decline in the population? What priority should be given to the issue of Quebec’s demographic weight within Canada? What age structure are we aiming for? What is the importance of the detention of immigrants and the distribution of the population in the territory?
The answers to these questions will determine in particular the importance of age and young families among the selection criteria, as well as knowledge of French. Knowledge of French and the presence of young children are two factors that play a role in the retention rate of people who arrive.
In addition, school-age children contribute to the sustainability of the French language through the obligation to attend French schools. It should also be noted that there are more children under the age of 15 among the admissions of the family category.
With regard to the economic objectives, as noted in the Statement on Immigration and Integration adopted in 1991 following the signing of the Canada-Quebec Agreement, they “make it possible to reconcile both the motivations of the immigrant and the interests of the Quebec community. Indeed, the immigrant wants to improve his fate and that of his descendants; the host society, for its part, wants to appeal to the potential of the immigrant according to his needs. ”
To achieve this, on the one hand, economists advocate the selection of highly qualified people who will work in advanced industries and who will be able to adapt to changing labor market requirements. The important selection criteria are therefore the work experience and training sought.
These people bring innovation and contribute to development and, with higher wages, they pay more taxes, thus contributing to the social net that serves the entire population.
On the other hand, employers point out that these people are often overqualified for many of the sectors that are currently in labor shortages, particularly in the regions. We must not forget, however, that people with little educated and low pay, immigrants or those born in Quebec, need support to improve their fate. Successful socio-economic integration takes longer.
What are the economic priorities in Quebec that will determine the role that immigration will play and the selection criteria to be favored? What is the proportion to be given to the economic category of immigration in balance with the family and humanitarian categories?
Finally, in terms of language, the recruitment pools abroad of people who already use French are quite limited. What arbitrations are we prepared to make between demographic, economic and linguistic objectives?
The reception capacity
Before establishing objectives with regard to the number and pace of arrivals, it is crucial not only to clarify the demographic objectives, but also to identify and measure the factors that make up the reception capacity, ideally by administrative region.
Most of the components of the reception capacity affect the daily life of the entire population and determine the quality of life of both people arriving from abroad and those already established.
Let’s give some examples: the availability of affordable housing, places in schools and daycare centers, access to a family doctor, waiting time in front-line clinics and hospitals or for a consultation with a psychologist, the availability of public transport, job placement services, the unemployment rate, the use of French at work and in public.
The reception capacity also includes access to specific services for the immigration environment, such as francization, reception and sociocultural integration services.
Most of these factors have never been part of the permanent immigration threshold calculation, let alone temporary immigration, the planning of which was non-existent until this year.
In each case, it would be necessary to determine which indicators are most relevant to measure and which threshold allows us to say that we are able to welcome a certain number of new people.
For example, with regard to the availability of housing, there would be indicators such as the vacancy rate of rental housing, the average price of rents based on the average salary of newly arrived immigrants, construction starts. Each public service sector already has its indicators to measure the optimal level of operation.
To achieve this, one idea would be to create an expertise unit at the Institut de la statistique du Québec responsible for developing a measurement of reception capacity, fed by administrative data from the various ministries and organizations, as well as socio-economic data, which would be monitored continuously. Ideally, the costs associated with these various components would also be estimated and monitored.
The planning of levels and pace of admissions in Quebec, and even by region, would be based on this data. The measures to be taken, for example in the construction of housing or daycare places, to be able to properly accommodate newly arrived people, would be clear, as well as the related costs.
Such a research project would take several months to operationalize and other formulas are surely possible. The important thing is to set immigration thresholds on the basis of evidence and to remove this aspect from the planning of the party arena.
Immigration planning based on consensual social objectives and evidence of reception capacity would be an unprecedented model in the world. It would also have the great advantage of reassuring our society that we are capable of welcoming people from everywhere to build tomorrow’s Quebec together.
Anne Michèle Meggs is a former director of planning and accountability at the Ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration, and former director of research and evaluation at the Office québécois de la langue française.
While one can always make the case for more, harder to justify when the government implements reductions to permanent and temporary migrants.
Would also be helpful if the article made reference to the 2018 IRCC evaluation of the settlement program and the degree to which recommendations were implemented.
Still surprising that IRCC does not update settlement services data on open data (it is available upon request but should be updated on a monthly basis like other data sets:
…By reducing funding available for English-language classes, the federal government is denying thousands of people their fundamental right to education. The current budget cuts will inevitably contribute to growing social stratification and increase the challenges faced by the already overwhelmed immigration and educational sectors.
A recent statement by TESL Ontario, the certification body for educators who teach English as another language in Ontario, urges the Canadian government to consider impacts on language teachers who face precarious employment and low pay, a concern shared by unions across the public sector.
Language learning programs are foundational to ensuring sustainable settlement in Canada. A truly sustainable development strategy would see the continued funding of English-language programs as essential to ensuring the continued economic and societal well-being of all people living in Canada.
Not unexpected but may be hard to prove in court. But ongoing issue in lack of transparency on progress or not of applications:
Eleven families from Gaza are taking the Canadian government to court for prolonging their “exposure to life-threatening and inhumane conditions” by delaying application processing under a program meant to offer relief from the Israeli-Hamas conflict.
The measure provides a temporary haven for Palestinians directly affected by the war in Gaza who have ties to family members here who are Canadian citizens or permanent residents and are willing to support them.
Canadian anchor relatives are required to submit a web form to the Immigration Department with supporting documentation on behalf of their family members in Gaza. Officials then review the forms and documents before providing each applicant in Gaza a unique reference code to begin the visa application process.
All of the litigants’ Canadian relatives say they submitted web forms with the proper documentation within a month of the program’s opening. To date, none have the codes, nor do they have a refusal for incompleteness, or any justification for the delay.
The program, which had been expanded from the initial intake of 1,000 applications to 5,000, ends April 22 or when all spots are filled. As of Jan. 4, immigration officials said 4,782 applications were accepted into processing.
“They were afraid that they would lose their opportunity,” said lawyer Damey Lee, who represents the group along with colleagues Hana Marku and Debbie Rachlis.
“They are just frustrated and wholly disappointed in the Canadian government for not even providing them an explanation as to where their family members are in the process and why it has taken a year to issue codes.”
According to affidavits submitted to the court, the applicants — all with identities withheld under a court order to protect their safety — have experienced attacks first hand, witnessing airstrikes and bombings, sometimes with “no warning.”…
Multicultural Meanderings 