Le PLQ et QS dénoncent un programme de régularisation discriminatoire

2020/08/19 Leave a comment

Appropriate criticism over the narrowness of the program;

Le Parti libéral du Québec et Québec solidairejugent trop sévères les conditions d’admission au Programme spécial visant à faciliter l’octroi de la résidence permanente aux demandeurs d’asile qui, au plus fort de la crise sanitaire, suaient sang et eau dans les résidences pour personnes âgées assaillies par la COVID-19.

« On circonscrit l’accès à la mesure à un secteur [la santé], et à l’intérieur du secteur, même si tout le monde a eu un risque [de contracter le coronavirus], on circonscrit encore plus… Ça, ça ne serait pas discriminatoire ? » a demandé l’élu libéral Gaétan Barrette en commission parlementaire lundi.

Le Programme spécial des demandeurs d’asile en période de COVID-19 (PSDAPC) s’adresse aux « anges gardiens » qui étaient « sur la ligne de front » à prodiguer des « soins directs à la population pendant la pandémie », a expliqué la ministre de l’Immigration, Nadine Girault. « Ceux qui ont pris le plus de risque », a-t-elle résumé.

Le PLQ et QS se sont tour à tour désolés de voir les autres travailleurs du secteur de la santé — les préposés à l’entretien des résidences pour aînés frappés de plein fouet par le coronavirus, par exemple — laissés en plan par le PSDAPC. Un « vrai, vrai, vrai geste d’humanité » serait de « remercier […] tous les gens qui ont pris un risque ». « Que je sois préposé à l’entretien ménager ou gardien de sécurité, quand le virus je l’attrape, puis que je meure, c’est moi qui suis mort, c’est ma famille qui pâtit. C’est ça un risque », a souligné M. Barrette.

On circonscrit l’accès à la mesure à un secteur [la santé], et à l’intérieur du secteur, même si tout le monde a eu un risque [de contracter le coronavirus], on circonscrit encore plus…

— Gaétan Barrette

« On a envoyé au combat […] une armée de gens sans arme », a-t-il ajouté, tout en rappelant l’absence d’équipements de protection individuelle en quantité suffisante dans les milieux de vie pour personnes âgées après l’arrivée de la COVID-19 en sol québécois.

L’ex-ministre de la Santé soupçonne le gouvernement caquiste d’avoir « mis un frein » à la volonté du gouvernement fédéral de régulariser les employés du réseau de la santé en situation de précarité afin de respecter les seuils d’immigrationqu’il s’est fixés.

Le député solidaire Andrés Fontecilla a suggéré lundi d’accroître la portée du Programme spécial afin que les préposés à l’entretien, les agents de sécurité, les travailleurs agricoles, les travailleurs d’abattoirs ou d’entrepôts en situation de précarité puissent aussi s’y inscrire.

La ministre de l’Immigration, Nadine Girault, a dit être en paix avec sa décision de permettre seulement aux demandeurs d’asile ayant prodigué des soins directs à des patients — dont des préposées aux bénéficiaires et des aides-infirmières — de s’inscrire au PSDAPC, ce qui leur permettra de s’établir au Québec. « Ce n’était pas un programme discriminatoire. C’était un programme pour remercier les gens qu’on voulait remercier chez les “anges gardiens” qui ont pris soin de nos gens. C’est tout simplement ça », a-t-elle fait valoir.

Puis, elle a cédé, sans avertissement, la parole au nouveau sous-ministre de l’Immigration, Benoit Dagenais. Béant de surprise, le haut fonctionnaire s’est mis à la tâche d’énumérer les 10 orientations de la Planification pluriannuelle de l’immigration 2020-2022 léguée par l’ex-ministre Simon Jolin-Barrette.

Il a par la suite mentionné que le Plan d’immigration du Québec 2021 sera établi à la lumière de la situation économique du Québec, qui a été fragilisée par l’arrivée du coronavirus en sol québécois le printemps dernier. « La crise sanitaire, évidemment, on va la prendre en considération », a souligné M. Dagenais.

De son côté, Mme Girault a indiqué qu’« il n’y aura pas de baisse des seuils d’immigration ».

Lutte contre le racisme

Le PLQ a aussi jeté le doute sur la volonté du gouvernement de lutter contre le racisme au Québec, lundi, après que Mme Girault eut refusé net de nommer les groupes rencontrés jusqu’à aujourd’hui par le Groupe d’action contre le racisme (GACR), dont elle assure la coprésidence.

Le « groupe des sept » élus de la Coalition avenir Québec, qui a été mis sur pied au lendemain de la mort de l’Afro-Américain George Floyd sous le genou d’un policier de Minneapolis, doit présenter une série d’actions visant à faire reculer le racisme au cours de l’automne.

« C’est malheureux et c’est décevant de ne pas avoir l’information », a dit la députée libérale Jennifer Maccarone, tout en invitant le GACR à solliciter sans délai l’avis de la Ligue des Noirs, du Congrès maghrébin au Québec, de la Ligue des droits et libertés…

Source: Le PLQ et QS dénoncent un programme de régularisation discriminatoire

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Ralentissement économique: Québec ne réduira pas les seuils d’immigration

2020/08/19 Leave a comment

Small step in their overall more restrictive immigration policies in ruling out further decreases to their already announced lower levels:

Le gouvernement Legault poursuivra l’augmentation du nombre d’immigrants admis annuellement, malgré la hausse du taux de chômage et le ralentissement économique causé par la COVID-19.

«Il n’y aura pas de baisse des seuils d’immigration dans les cartons pour les prochaines années», a déclaré la ministre de l’Immigration, Nadine Girault, au premier jour de l’étude des crédits à l’Assemblée nationale lundi.

«C’est évident qu’avec la COVID, on a eu moins d’immigrants qui sont rentrés, les frontières étaient fermées, a souligné Mme Girault. Mais ça n’a pas affecté les seuils d’immigration et ça n’affectera pas les seuils d’immigration pour les prochaines années.»

La ministre répondait aux préoccupations du député solidaire Andrés Fontecilla, qui s’inquiétait d’un retour à la baisse, comme ce fut le cas au début du mandat du gouvernement caquiste. Le nombre d’immigrants admis était alors passé de 51 118 à 40 546 et doit maintenant remonter graduellement au seuil original d’ici 2022.

Le 14 avril dernier, le premier ministre François Legault avait évoqué la possibilité d’accepter moins de nouveaux arrivants si la pandémie devait mener à une hausse importante du taux de chômage. «On n’est pas rendus là, mais effectivement, c’est quelque chose qu’on va regarder, avait-il déclaré dans les premières semaines de la pandémie. Je pense qu’il faut tout revoir puis, entre autres, le nombre d’immigrants avec le taux de chômage élevé qu’on va avoir dans les prochains mois. On pourrait effectivement réduire le nombre.» Au mois de juillet, le taux de chômage atteignait 10,7% au Québec.

Mais la ministre Girualt fait valoir que, même si le Québec ne sera plus en situation de plein emploi, «on va avoir quand même des gros manques au niveau de certains secteurs d’emploi».

D’autres «anges gardiens» à risque

Toutefois, c’est l’entente avec Ottawa pour permettre aux demandeurs d’asile du réseau de la santé de régulariser leur statut qui a surtout retenu l’attention du PLQ et de QS durant l’audience de quatre heures. Les deux partis d’opposition reprochent à Québec d’avoir restreint l’accès au programme uniquement à ceux qui ont donné des soins directement aux patients entre le 13 mars et le 14 août, et ce, sur une période d’au moins 120 heures.

«Je suis persuadé que les gens comprennent que ce qu’on fait, c’est parce qu’on voulait s’occuper et prendre soin de nos anges gardiens qui, eux, ont pris soin de nos gens», a martelé la ministre Girault.

Mais le critique libéral Gaétan Barrette fait valoir que le risque est le même de contracter le virus pour tous les employés d’un établissement de santé. «Que je sois préposé à l’entretien ménager ou gardien de sécurité, quand j’attrape le virus et que je meurs, c’est moi qui suis mort et ma famille qui en pâtit», a-t-il souligné.

Source: https://www.journaldequebec.com/2020/08/17/ralentissement-economique-quebec-ne-reduira-pas-les-seuils-dimmigration

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Quebec farms facing lost profits and rotting harvests due to migrant worker shortage

2020/08/15 Leave a comment

A further reminder of our dependence of foreign seasonal agriculture workers:

Nineteen-year-old Florence Lachapelle was among hundreds of Quebecers who tried their hand at planting seeds and harvesting produce this summer, replacing migrant workers who were unable to leave their countries because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

And while Lachapelle spent long days working the fields on Francois D’Aoust’s farm in Havelock, Que., too few other Quebecers took up the call to help the province’s struggling agricultural industry.

Despite a recruiting drive by the provincial government in April, the lack of labour this season has forced farmers to cut production or leave food rotting in the fields.

Unfortunately for Lachapelle, she fell ill with mononucleosis after two months and returned home to Montreal. She said the work was very demanding with so few migrant workers available.

“They’re professionals and we’re simply not,” Lachapelle said in a recent interview.

D’Aoust said he hired a handful of people to work alongside Lachapelle, who were out of work in other sectors such as communications, film and the restaurant industry. But once their opportunities returned, he said, they left for their better-paying jobs.

“Not a lot of people are used to (physical) work all day,” D’Aoust said in a recent interview. “It’s just not the kind of work that we do. It’s rare that people are in shape and can (work) all day in the field.

“People that are farmers, themselves, in their country, surely they are at an advantage.”

D’Aoust and his wife, Melina Plante, have hired the same four Guatemalan seasonal workers year after year. But this year the farmhands were stuck at home at the beginning of Quebec’s farming season due to travel restrictions their country imposed to limit the spread of COVID-19.

He said it takes inexperienced Quebecers up to three times as long to do farm work compared to a migrant worker. That meant he had to pay locals to do less work, eating into his profits.

D’Aoust slashed production at his farm, Les Bontes de la Vallee, by 60 per cent this year because he and his wife figured they would only have migrant workers later in the harvest season.

Two Guatemalan workers eventually made it on D’Aoust and Plante’s farm — but the financial damage to the business was done. “What we hope is to pass through this difficult period without too much loss and start again next year,” he said. “We just want to stay alive.”

For Michel Ricard, who owns 60 hectares of farmland in Saint-Alexis-de-Montcalm, about 60 kilometres north of Montreal, he said he’s going to lose a lot money and food this year because migrant workers from Mexico and Guatemala haven’t been able to arrive.

By the end of August, Ricard said he expects to lose approximately $100,000 dollars worth of cucumbers because he has no one to pick them.

Experienced foreign workers are “essential for the future, for me, and for the majority of growers of vegetables,” he said in a recent interview.

“The people from Guatemala are able to work from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. It’s not a problem. Sometimes I need to stop them because they want to continue, but sometimes I say ‘that’s enough for today.'”

Local workers haven’t been much help to him, he said. Ricard had his daughter post a message on Facebook to reach out to prospective farmhands, but he said only eight came through for him.

“It was impossible,” Ricard said.

The Union des producteurs agricoles, which represents about 42,000 Quebec farmers, says there are close to 2,000 fewer migrant workers on Quebec farms than usual. Despite the UPA’s efforts to lure Quebec workers through a recruiting drive, just under 1,400 were assigned to Quebec farms this year.

“It didn’t replace, really, the foreign workers,” UPA President Marcel Groleau said in a recent interview. “It helped on some issues … but those workers are not trained and can’t really replace the foreign workers that are trained and have experience on farms.”

Farmers such as D’Aoust and Ricard say migrant farmhands are willing to work longer hours, even for minimal pay.

Groleau said the federal government’s emergency response benefit, which offers up to $2,000 a month to many people who have lost jobs, has encouraged Quebecers to stay away from the gruelling field work.

“When you can get two thousand dollars a month sitting at home,” Groleau said, “it’s not really interesting to go on a farm and work a little bit for minimum wage.”

Source: Quebec farms facing lost profits and rotting harvests due to migrant worker shortage

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Judge who told woman to remove hijab offering to apologize in settlement proposal

2020/08/01 Leave a comment

Hard to see that this apology is genuine or just an effort to avoid discipline given how long Judge Marengo has been fighting this:

A Quebec court judge who refused to hold a hearing for a Montreal woman after the woman refused to remove her hijab now says she’s willing to apologize for the incident, more than five years after it happened.

In February 2015, Judge Eliana Marengo refused to hear the case of Rania El-Alloul.

El-Alloul was in court trying to get her impounded car back.

“In my opinion, you are not suitably dressed,” Marengo told El-Alloul at the time. The judge said the court was a secular space, and no religious symbols should be worn by those before it.

Marengo compared the hijab to a hat and sunglasses, saying she wouldn’t hear a case from someone wearing those, either.

After the incident, dozens of people filed complaints with the Quebec Council of the Magistrature, the body responsible for disciplining judges in the province.

In a letter sent recently to the complainants, the council said it would convene a hearing Sept. 8.

“The purpose of this hearing will be to study a settlement proposal from the prosecutors on file, including a letter of apology from Judge Marengo to Mrs. El-Alloul,” the letter said.

The letter also said the apology would be released to the public, in exchange for the dropping of the disciplinary complaints against Marengo.

Council spokesperson Paul Crépeau told CBC News the settlement is being jointly proposed by Marengo’s lawyers and the lawyer handling the complaint for the council.

Long legal fight

Marengo has been fighting the disciplinary complaint in court for years, at one point challenging the authority of the council to even hear the complaint.

Judge Eliana Marengo’s lawyers are now proposing a compromise where Marengo would write a letter of apology to El-Alloul.(Radio-Canada)

After a request from the legal team assisting El-Alloul, the Quebec Court of Appeal in 2018 issued a judgment reaffirming that the Quebec court dress code does not forbid head scarves if they constitute a sincere religious belief and don’t harm the public interest.

El-Alloul herself filed a formal complaint with the council after the incident, but it was rejected because of a technicality.

However, dozens of other complaints were accepted, and the council convened a special panel of five judges to consider the case.

El-Alloul declined to comment on the latest developments.

Source: Judge who told woman to remove hijab offering to apologize in settlement proposal

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Mulcair: Jagmeet Singh calls MP ‘racist’, but has he forgotten about Bill 21?

2020/07/04 Leave a comment

Valid question:

In 2016, when I first prepared a House of Commons motion condemning islamophobia, we couldn’t get it past a handful of Conservatives who’d denied unanimous consent. We worked hard for all-party agreement, drew a big chalk circle around the stain of Conservative opposition and were able to present the motion again. This time it was accepted and passed unanimously.

Those events in Parliament immediately came to mind when Jagmeet Singh chose to call Bloc House Leader Alain Thérrien a racist. Thérrien had communicated the Bloc’s refusal of unanimous consent for the introduction of Singh’s motion, which called for the recognition of systemic racism within the RCMP. Singh confirmed that he had indeed called Thérrien a racist, but refused to withdraw the word when asked to do so by the Speaker. The Speaker, Anthony Rota, proceeded to expel Singh for refusing to respect his decision.

In subsequent interviews, Singh affirmed that Thérrien had to be a racist because of the subject matter. He also said that he would not apologize for the personal insult, explaining that doing so would be like apologizing for being against systemic racism. As of Jun. 30, Bloc Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet was threatening a robust reaction when the House returns July 8, if Rota maintains the decision of expelling Singh for just one day. Blanchet went so far as to call Singh’s reaction “orchestrated.”

Rota has had to defend his credentials in his home riding of Nipissing—Timiskaming, after a local group called on the MP to demonstrate “stronger anti-racism leadership”. There is now little hope that the grave and urgent issue of systemic racism in the RCMP will ever be the object of the unanimous denunciation of the House of Commons.

In the case of that vote against Islamophobia, it had also been no small feat to get the Bloc Québécois onside. Beginning with my 2007 by-election for the NDP in Outremont, the Bloc rode anti-Muslim sentiment hard. I recall a thoughtful, soul-searching meeting with Alexa McDonough, Ed Broadbent, Jack Layton and our key organizers in the basement of our campaign headquarters where we struggled to find the right words to push back. In that particular by-election, the Bloc was decrying Muslim women’s right to vote with a face covering. We came out four square against the Bloc’s toxic position but personal name-calling wasn’t part of the game plan. We won handily and the Bloc lost two-thirds of it’s vote, finishing third.

In the 2015 general election, of course, the issue came to a head. My support for a woman’s right to wear a niqab at a citizenship ceremony cost us dearly. I remember my campaign director, who’d flown in from Ottawa, imploring me to change my position because it was causing a precipitous drop in Quebec that was playing into our national numbers. Many voters, she said, were just waiting to see whether the NDP or the Liberals, could defeat Harper to make their final choice. She was concerned it could cost us the election. A publication forthcoming in the prestigious Journal of Politics, has confirmed that the NDP got clobbered over the issue of niqabs in Quebec; it was pivotal in deciding the outcome of the election.

In France, even socialist governments have banned certain outward expressions of the Muslim faith. Other religions, such as Sikhism and Judaism have not been spared. Under the guise of separation of church and state, Muslim moms have even been denied the right to accompany their kids on school field trips, because of their headscarves. Outside every school in France is a poster explaining the rules against religious symbols.

Astonishingly, even the European Court of Human Rights has upheld the ban. Public French intellectuals like Michel Houellebecq and Élisabeth Badinter write openly about the threat religious symbols pose to French society.

For those of us who support Canada’s multicultural traditions, such views are an anathema. From our perspective, it’s easy to view them as racist, which I do. In Europe, they are widely shared and accepted as being part of public debate and have gained some currency here amongst those who find fault with multiculturalism.

When Quebec Premier François Legault is asked about systemic racism in Quebec, he too restates the question: “Ah, you’re saying all Quebecers are racist, and I’m saying some Quebecers are racist but that Quebecers are not systematically racist.” It’s a rhetorical trick where politicians repeat the issue in terms that suit their purpose while answering their own question.

Systemic racism doesn’t mean everyone is systematically racist. It means the dice are loaded against some members of our society because of their ethnic, religious or cultural origin. The result of that racism within the system can be proven by looking at results, measuring and comparing outcomes. Legault is too well-informed not to know that, but he also knows his base. Like the crafty populist politician he is, he’s talking to that base bysaying, “I won’t let them call you a racist!”

Legault seems to have in part, at least, won his point. In the aftermath of the dispute between Singh and the Bloc a “premiers’ statement” issued by Justin Trudeau and all of the provincial premiers, on Jun. 26, talks several times of racism and discrimination but never uses the word “systemic”.

I made my first appearance in a parliamentary commission in Quebec City on the subject in the mid-80s and it’s an issue I’ve felt passionately about since. Government reports showed a huge, systemic under-representation of minorities in the Quebec civil service back then. We worked hard to change that. It began by making people understand the problem. The situation has indeed improved considerably, but just this month, the Quebec Human Rights Commission released a study showing that there are fewer than half the number of visible minorities in the Quebec civil service than their proportion of the overall population. Historically, this situation is also a reflection of another old divide: there was much discrimination against French-Canadians in the business sector in the past and good civil service jobs were seen as a way of levelling the economic playing field.

These issues are complex and Jagmeet Singh knows that. He has proven it in the past, notably when confrontedby a voter who told him to remove his turban in order to “look more Canadian”. Singh was almost spiritual in his calm reaction. He knew he was dealing with someone who just didn’t get it and it became a teachable moment. Many people called that man a racist, but Singh never did.

Right now Québec has a law on the books, Bill 21, which openly discriminates against religious minorities, in particular against observant Muslims, Sikhs and Jews. Thus far, no opposition party in Parliament, including the NDP, has dared challenge that law for what it is. They all, including Mr. Singh, say Quebec has a right to adopt it. Trudeau is still refusing to refer the case to the Supreme Court and instead, the victims of Bill 21 who  are being denied the right to teach, become cops or government lawyers, will have to fight for years as the issue slowly wends its way through the courts.

Singh could choose to use all of his credibility and deep personal experience with this issue to persuade Trudeau to finally do the right thing and challenge the discriminatory Bill 21 immediately by referring it without delay to the Supreme Court. That would be helpful.

Source: Jagmeet Singh calls MP ‘racist’, but has he forgotten about Bill 21?

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Demonstrators rally against Quebec’s updated immigration reforms

2020/06/29 Leave a comment

CAQ continues to struggle with immigration issues, most notably with international students and their transition to permanent residency, reinforcing Quebec being a less attractive destination for international students:

Protesters in Montreal and around the province gathered Saturday to denounce upcoming reforms to a Quebec program that fast-tracks immigration for foreign students and temporary workers.

The reforms, announced in late May, mark the Coalition Avenir Québec government’s second attempt to adjust the Quebec Experience Program after it backed down on a first set of changeslast fall.

Those changes were criticized as disorganized and poorly thought out by opposition parties and decried as unfair by students and other members of the public. Simon Jolin-Barrette, the immigration minister at the time, eventually said the reforms had been a mistake.

On Saturday, demonstrators — who marched from Mont-Royal Park to Quebec Premier François Legault’s office in downtown Montreal, as well as others in Quebec City, Sherbrooke, Trois-Rivières and Rouyn-Noranda —  said the new reforms still compromise the future of international students and temporary workers.

“They are totally unjust and unfair to international students like me who just graduated,” said Carla Trigoso, who is from Peru and studied sociology at McGill University. “There are no acquired rights for us. We are terribly, terribly disappointed with the changes in general.”

Quebec Liberal Party MNA Kathleen Weil was one of several opposition members at the demonstration. She said the program, which she introduced as immigration minister in the Charest government, was the envy of many other jurisdictions.

“We created this rapid immigration route because we wanted to retain this talent,” she said of the program, known by its French acronym PEQ. “We compete with the world to attract them. We’re regressing with this reform. We’re not looking at human beings with their full potential.”

Quebec’s new minister of immigration, Nadine Girault, who was appointed to the position on June 22, declined an interview request from Radio-Canada. Her office said it will take some time to properly take over the reform file.

The reforms are nonetheless expected to come into effect soon.

Among other things, the reforms add or increase work experience requirements for applicants. Foreign students, who previously did not need work experience in addition to completing their studies, now do: two years of full-time work for those with a professional diploma and one year for those who complete a university degree or technical diploma.

“Now a diploma in Quebec is not enough to integrate someone,” said Thibault Camara, an organizer with Quebec Is Us Too, one of the groups behind the demonstration.

Trigoso said meeting the work experience conditions would be exceptionally difficult “now that we’re in the middle of an economic crisis and a world pandemic.”

Temporary workers will have to work more to qualify. Until now, one year of work experience was required, but the reforms raise the requirement to the equivalent of three years of full-time work over 48 months.

Camara said his group was also concerned about certain jobs being removed from eligibility altogether.

“All the préposés and all the truck drivers, for example, they aren’t part of the Quebec of tomorrow because of this reform,” he said.

The reforms also impose new requirements around French-language knowledge and increase the processing time for applications from less than a month to six months. Opponents to the reforms want Quebec to maintain the shorter time for applicants who were already in the province.

Source: Demonstrators rally against Quebec’s updated immigration reforms

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Quebec stops publishing daily COVID-19 data despite leading country in number of cases UPDATED: Quebec reversal

2020/06/27 Leave a comment

Update: Quebec announced that it will continue publishing the data on a daily basis following an outcry (Québec recule: les données sur l’évolution de la pandémie seront publiées sur une base quotidienne). Still curious about the rational behind the original decision.

——-

Not sure this strategy will address the “communications” issue as weekly reporting will likely continue to highlight Quebec’s relatively poor performance both domestically and internationally.

Not a great example of transparency and accountability.

Will change my weekly update to accommodate their Thursday release schedule:

Quebec’s Health Ministry says it will only provide weekly reports about COVID-19, rather than providing a daily rundown of the situation.

The province’s public health institute, INSPQ, had also been publishing daily updates, including the number of cases and hospitalizations in Quebec, the number of tests conducted and how many people have died.

The data was also broken down by age and region and showed how many long-term care homes have outbreaks.

The move from daily to weekly updates appears to mean Quebec is providing data less frequently than any other Canadian province, despite leading the country in number of cases. Ontario, which has the second-highest number of cases, continues to provide daily numbers.

As of Thursday, Yukon’s Emergency Measures Organization is providing a public update once per week — but the territory has only 11 confirmed cases.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addressed the change in his daily news conference on COVID-19 Thursday, saying it’s up to each province to decide how transparent it needs to be.

He also said that Quebec still has a “significant number of cases” and deaths every day.

“I certainly hope that Premier [François] Legault would continue to be transparent and open with Quebecers and indeed with all Canadians as he has been from the very beginning,” Trudeau said.

The Health Ministry and INSPQ will only publish the data on their respective websites every Thursday, the first of them beginning July 2. The ministry will also be sending out a news release with the figures on that day every week.

The decision was first announced in a news release on Fête nationale, the province’s annual holiday.Dr. Horacio Arruda, the province’s public health director, said Thursday that the decision was made in order to provide the public with “more stable numbers,” as fewer confirmed cases each day will make any day-to-day increase appear more significant than it is.

He said this would also allow the province to provide a more accurate portrait of how the virus is spreading, as reporting delays have often prompted a revision of the daily numbers.

“As soon as there is some important data to share with the population, we will do that.” Arruda said, suggesting that the daily updates could return in the event of a second wave of infections.

The government announcement appeared to take the INSPQ by surprise. A notice on its website Tuesday said it would begin limiting its updates to weekdays only, rather than seven days a week.

But on Thursday, following the Health Ministry’s announcement, it said it too would only provide a weekly update. A spokesperson referred any questions to the Health Ministry.

The number of daily cases and deaths in Quebec has declined in recent weeks.As of Thursday, 55,079 people in Quebec have tested positive for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. That’s an increase of 142 new cases since Wednesday.

There are 487 people in hospital and 5,448 have died. A total of 520,227 tests have come back negative.

The Quebec government has allowed most businesses to reopen, including restaurants, bars, gyms and shopping malls, with physical-distancing restrictions in place.

Source: Quebec stops publishing daily COVID-19 data despite leading country in number of cases

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@Picardonhealth How should we thank our guardian angels? Certainly not with deportation

2020/06/10 Leave a comment

Petty not to do so:

They call them the “guardian angels,” the thousands of personal-support workers (PSWs), orderlies, cooks and janitors who have been toiling for months in Quebec’s beleaguered and often overwhelmed long-term care homes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Almost all of them are women, many from racialized communities, including a disproportionately large number from Quebec’s Haitian community.

In recent days, one subset of this overworked, underpaid work force has received a lot of attention – asylum seekers.

Why?

Because, despite doing essential work that no one else would and literally putting their lives at risk, juggling multiple part-time gigs for as little as $13 an hour, many of these front-line workers could face deportation.

That’s disgraceful, and un-Canadian.

Lawyer and social entrepreneur Fabrice Vil has been leading the social-media campaign #JeMeSouviendrai (I will remember) to get the provincial and federal governments to “regularize” the immigration status of asylum seekers working as essential workers.

“This pandemic has shown us the human face and the real sacrifices of essential workers,” Mr. Vil said on the popular Radio-Canada talk show Tout le monde en parle. “When people make a contribution to society, we need to recognize that contribution.”

Quebec Premier François Legault has been cool to the idea, but in recent days, in response to growing public pressure, he has softened his position a bit.

A little recent history helps explain the political volatility of this issue.

In 2017 and 2018, more than 37,000 people made an “irregular” border crossing and requested asylum in Canada. Most of them simply trudged up Roxham Road in Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Que., exploiting a loophole in the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement, which said they could only be turned back at official border crossings.

Before he was Premier, Mr. Legault took a hard line on the asylum seekers, saying Quebec could not welcome “all the world’s misery” and demanding the Roxham Road crossing be shut down. It has been. Since March, there have been only 14 “irregular” crossings and all have been sent back to the United States. Yet, “Roxham Road” remains a dog-whistle term for anti-immigration proponents.

Let’s not forget that most of the asylum seekers have been working while waiting for their cases to be processed. Many have been working in long-term care for two or three years, invisible until the pandemic hit.

When the idea of granting residency to asylum seekers was first floated, the now-Premier rejected it out of hand, saying: “We can’t open the door and say, ‘If you come here illegally, if you find a job, we’ll accept you as an immigrant.’ That’s not how it works.”

His critics responded by saying that, first of all, asylum seekers are not illegals. Further, they stressed that what is wanted is a special dispensation for those who work in health care facilities in these extraordinarily difficult times. The precise number is unclear, but believed to be at least 2,000.

Mr. Legault responded by promising to review their requests on a case-by-case basis, potentially accepting them as economic immigrants. (While immigration is a federal jurisdiction, this is a provincial program.) Federal Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino has tried to stay out of the fray, saying “all asylum claimants will receive a fair and full hearing on the individual merits of their claim.”

Quebec’s Immigration Minister, Simon Jolin-Barrette, has also announced a plan to recruit 550 temporary workers as PSWs and fast-track their permanent residency applications.

Around the same time, Quebec also announced a bold plan to hire 10,000 PSWs by offering a paid three-month training course and full-time jobs at $26 an hour. (About a $50,000 annual salary.)

The catch is that the program is only for Canadian citizens, so asylum seekers, refugees and migrant workers are shut out again.

This sparked another wave of outrage.

Wilner Cayo of the advocacy group Debout pour la dignité says the exclusion adds insult to injury.

“These women were good when it came to working for a miserable salary,” he told CBC News. “But now that this work is going to be well paid, the thank-you they get is ‘You can’t be part of the program.’”

At a demonstration last week, the sentiment was well summarized on a protester’s sign, written in Haitian Créole: “Nou pap mouri pou gran mèsi!”

Translation: “We will not die for a ‘thank you’ and we will not die in vain.”

Indeed, a proper thank-you must begin with granting permanent residency. Then full-time jobs. And speeding up family reunifications.

It’s the least we can do for these guardian angels, for services rendered selflessly.

Source: How should we thank our guardian angels? Certainly not with deportation

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Quebec should reconsider immigration changes

2020/06/03 Leave a comment

On the non-competitiveness of recent Quebec changes to PEQ:

Recently announced reforms to the Quebec Experience Program should be reconsidered.

Since 2010, the Quebec Experience Program (or “PEQ” in French) has offered a fast-track to permanent residence for temporary foreign workers and international students that lived in Quebec. Such individuals could often get their Quebec Selection Certificate in around 20 business days, and then go ahead and submit their permanent residence application to the federal government.

This was excellent policy by Quebec.

Government research shows that such individuals integrate quickly into Canada’s economy and society since they are young, well-educated, speak English and French and have Canadian work experience.

In addition, it made sense for Quebec to fast-track their applications since unlike immigration candidates outside of Canada, such individuals are already here. It would be very inconvenient to have them leave Quebec when they have already established themselves in the province and are contributing to the economy as workers and consumers.

Problems with Quebec’s new work experience requirements

The province is increasing the work experience requirements that future applicants will need to obtain to become eligible for the PEQ.

Currently, a temporary foreign worker (TFW) needs 12 months of eligible Quebec work experience within the preceding 24 months of submitting their application to meet the PEQ’s criteria. Students do not need Quebec work experience to be eligible.

Quebec will now require 36 months of work experience from TFWs and between 12-24 months of work experience from foreign students (depending on their program of study in Quebec).

A benefit of the stricter PEQ criteria is it will help more Quebec Skilled Worker Program (QSWP) candidates immigrate to the province through its Arrima Portal.

Currently, highly-qualified QSWP candidates are not able to obtain permanent residence under what is a more competitive process than what PEQ applicants need to go through.

However, Quebec is now introducing stricter work experience requirements for the PEQ than what is currently in place nationally. This means it will become more difficult for foreign workers and students to obtain permanent residence in Quebec.

One may argue that this is a good thing, since those that do become immigrants (whether through the QSWP or QEP) are more likely to succeed in the province.

But, many of the foreign workers and students who are poised to succeed will be unlikely to meet the high bar that Quebec has set.

It is quite normal across Canada for federal and provincial programs to have work experience requirements in place for existing TFWs and international students that want to transition to permanent residence. However, typically, the Canadian work experience requirement is set at 12 months. Whether Quebec likes it or not, it is in competition with other provinces to attract and retain global talent.

If I am a province that is offering the same product (in this case, Canadian permanent resident status), what is the incentive for a prospective immigrant to go through more hurdles when neighbouring provinces offer that product at a much lower cost? (i.e., only 12 months of work experience required versus 24-36 months for TFWs and some international students in Quebec).

Quebec’s higher standards will disincentivize TFWs and students from choosing Quebec.

Such individuals will either choose to go to other provinces at the start of their Canadian immigration journey, or will leave Quebec and move to another province when they are ready to apply for permanent residence.

Even if an individual is motivated to remain in Quebec, it may prove difficult for them to obtain the work experience they may need to be eligible for the PEQ.

For instance, some TFWs such as International Exchange Canada participants have work permits that are valid for no more than two years. Employers may not be willing spend the time and money required to petition the government to provide such individuals with one or more work permits (e.g., a work permit that requires a Labour Market Impact Assessment or “LMIA”).

One other point on this front: in the short run, it will become even more challenging for candidates to meet the new work experience requirements due to the economic damage that is being caused by the coronavirus pandemic. 

New processing standard is also problematic

Quebec indicated that it will now seek to process PEQ applications within 6 months, rather than 20 business days, in order to harmonize its processing standard with the Quebec Skilled Worker Program.

Once again, Quebec is hurting its competitiveness since the quicker processing standard was one of the PEQ’s major selling points. Now, prospective immigration candidates may look to options outside of the province given that there will no longer be a significant advantage to applying to the PEQ.

Keep in mind that it was already taking nearly 23 months for PEQ candidates to obtain permanent residence (20 business days to get a Quebec Selection Certificate plus another 22 months for the federal government to process permanent residence applications).

Adding another fives months on top of that is unwise on its own, and even more so when you consider that successful Express Entry candidates are usually able to get permanent residence within six months.

A better solution would have been to identify how to reduce the length of time it takes Quebec to issue CSQs to QSWP candidates.

Changes come at a time when Quebec will need more immigration

No immigration program is perfect, and it is a good practice for Canada’s federal and provincial governments to seek reforms to their programs to help meet the country’s evolving economic and social needs.

However, not all reforms end up being beneficial.

In this case, time will likely prove that Quebec’s reforms are misplaced. By discouraging workers and students from remaining in the province due to uncompetitive work experience requirements and processing times, Quebec may end up with even lower immigration levels at a time when it will need higher immigration in the years to come due to its aging population and low birth rate.

This may be hard to fathom at the moment due to the COVID-19 crisis.

But, the crisis will eventually pass and Quebec will soon need more immigrants to complement its Quebec-born work force.

What better way of doing so, then by providing a fast-track to immigration for the workers and students that have already resided in Quebec and contributed for several years?

Source: Quebec should reconsider immigration changes

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After slashing immigration, Quebec turns to immigrants to fill shortage in long-term care homes

2020/05/30 Leave a comment

Welcome and needed change:

Immigration Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette, who cut immigration levels during the CAQ’s first yearin power, has announced a plan to recruit immigrants to work as orderlies in the province’s long-term care homes.

“The needs are immediate,” Jolin-Barrette said at a news conference Thursday.

The pilot project to bring in 550 experienced health-care workers is part of a series of reforms to the Quebec Experience Program, or PEQ, which provides foreign students in the province and temporary workers with a fast track to permanent residency.

Since 2013, Quebec has only recruited 115 orderlies through the PEQ — a program which Jolin-Barrette tried to reduce last year as part of his immigration cuts but was forced to roll back after a flurry of criticism.The province’s long-term care institutions, known by their French initials as CHSLDs, have been short-staffed for years and face the prospect of an even more acute shortage in the fall, when experts believe a second wave of COVID-19 infections is likely to hit.The Canadian military has said it will pull soldiers from the homes before then.

Legault aims to recruit Quebecers, too

On Wednesday, Premier François Legault presented a plan to hire 10,000 more CHSLD employees by the fall.

The government is offering prospective employees $21 per hour to take a three-month training program over the summer.

If they complete the program, the trainees’ starting salary will be $26 per hour — which works out to $49,000 a year. The orderlies, known in French as préposés aux bénéficiaires (PABs), provide much of the daily care in CHSLDs.

“The problem of the préposés aux bénéficiaires is not from yesterday. It exists for years and years and years,” said Marguerite Blais, the minister responsible for seniors,Thursday.This isn’t the first time Blais has promised to address the worker shortage. In 2019, she announced a plan to hire 30,000 orderlies over the next five years.Blais now suggests people in fields like aerospace who find themselves out of work might be tempted to take on a new line of work in long-term care homes.

Blais echoed Legault, who on Wednesday asked “all Quebecers that can to consider it very seriously.”

Facing criticism over the crisis in long-term care homes, Seniors’ and Caregivers’ Minister Marguerite Blais vows to protect vulnerable people 0:43

The vast majority of orderlies in CHSLDs are women — 34,821 of 42,340 in both private and public facilities. Their average salary in 2019 was $40,551.

The Health Ministry did not immediately return a request for a breakdown of how many of those employees are recent immigrants.

Plan for asylum seekers in the works

Hundreds of orderlies are asylum seekers working on temporary visas while they await a final ruling on their refugee applications.

While the province says it has no record of the total number of asylum seekers working in CHSLDs, the Maison d’Haiti in Montreal’s Saint-Michel district estimates that about 1,200 of the 5,000 Haitian asylum seekers the organization has helped since 2017 have become orderlies.

Legault had previously rejected the idea of giving any kind of preference to asylum seekers and others without status working in essential jobs during the pandemic. But there have been growing calls for him to recognize their contribution, including a rally last weekend and a petition backed by the NDP.

Earlier this week, the premier said he will now consider giving asylum seekers who work in CHSLDs a chance to stay in the province by applying as economic immigrants — the class of immigration that Quebec controls.

Legault said he asked his immigration minister to look at the situation of those workers, on a case-by-case basis, as a way of saying “thank you.”

Jolin-Barrette said he is looking into the matter and is in discussions with the federal government, which oversees refugee applications.

As for the program to attract new immigrants to Quebec to work as orderlies, full details will be announced later, along with plans to advertise in foreign countries.

Source: After slashing immigration, Quebec turns to immigrants to fill shortage in long-term care homes

For a sobering account of just how bad the situation is, see this account:

Dear Premier François Legault,

I am inviting you to leave the safe confines of your office and join me on the front lines of what even you have described as a “national emergency.” Come spend a day with me inside a long-term care home, known in French as a CHSLD.

As a journalist who covered Quebec politics before heading to law school, I learned about the challenges facing this province’s elder care system long before the pandemic. And I know you, like all politicians, were aware, too.

I volunteered to work because you asked people to step up. For the past five weeks, myself and many others who answered your call have been working as assistant patient attendants, a paid position, at one of the Montreal CHLSDs hit hard by COVID-19.

I have been stunned, shocked and moved. I am asking you to come see first-hand what is happening. It will change the way you view this crisis and elder care forever. I know, because that is what happened to me.

You would, of course, wear the full ensemble of personal protective equipment: medical mask, plastic visor, gloves and gown, as we do every day to protect ourselves and our residents. On a regular day, these layers can suffocate. Imagine how we have felt during this week’s heat wave, without air conditioning. Yes, there may be air conditioners in common areas, but on the floor where I worked earlier this week, it wasn’t on.

If you joined us, you would see that our seniors are currently receiving the bare minimum level of care. Where I work, assistant patient attendants, like me, patient attendants, and soldiers are constantly feeding, changing diapers and washing. Nurses provide medication. Doctors are on hand during the day, often moving between floors.

But nothing else is happening beyond moving residents from their bed to their wheelchair — and sometimes, even that does not happen.

You could watch how a Canadian Forces soldier, who has traded in a uniform for scrubs, gently feeds a elderly woman who needs total help, carefully and patiently placing each spoonful of food in her mouth.

You could help wash a resident’s hair — hair that has not been washed in weeks.

You would hear how we try to console and reassure a distraught resident who has just received a positive COVID-19 diagnosis. You would see the thick, bright red tape I have to unroll to mark a huge X beside her door to indicate that her room is now a hot zone, while the resident sobs in the background.

You would learn how to prepare the body of a deceased resident with a sheet of white plastic for travel to the morgue. And then you would pack that resident’s personal belongings into garbage bags, label them with a Post-It note and pile them in a maintenance closet.

You would try to explain to residents with varying degrees of dementia when this will all be over, and why their loved ones can’t visit them. After 11 weeks of this crisis, repeating “it’s going to be all right” (ça va bien aller in French) starts to lose its punch.

You would see how a team of people tries to figure out where to place red, yellow and green tape on the floor of a hallway to indicate hot, caution and safe zones to prevent further infection.

We called that floor “the jungle,” a reference to the steps and care we have to take when travelling between positive and negative areas so as to not contaminate residents who are negative. Despite our best efforts, every resident on that floor was infected by the end of the week.

You would see how some of the problems that started this crisis are creeping back. For example, last week on one of my floors, there was only one patient attendant available for 33 residents. Luckily, four of assistant patient attendants were on hand to help.

Above all, you would see people from all walks of life, soldiers, and staff giving their all to make a difference in this humanitarian crisis.

I never thought I would see, in Canada, the kind of desperation, fear and anxiety that I have seen in the eyes of our elders. And it is only by spending time on the front lines that you will be able to feel the true weight of this ongoing tragedy.

Sincerely,
Ryan Hicks

Source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/open-letter-quebec-premier-legault-chsld-long-term-care-homes-1.5587089

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