The Trudeau government is not giving up on raising immigration thresholds to 500,000 new arrivals per year from 2025, a number that it, however, wants to “stabilize” from 2026, the time to promote “successful integration” while achieving “sustainable population growth” to maintain. .
• Also read: Foreign temporary workers: Knowledge of French is required to renew your residence permit in Quebec
• Also read: The immigration threshold is 50,000, but Quebec is opening the floodgates to foreign students
The idea behind the new Immigration Levels Plan 2023-2026 is to “attract the skills and talent we need to address labor shortages and ensure Canada’s economic prosperity, helping families come together and leading the way in refugee resettlement.” to stay,” Immigration Minister Marc Miller said Wednesday afternoon.
A question of housing
Despite concerns about the country’s housing crisis, the minister wanted to ensure a new “whole of government” approach takes into account immigration “which is putting pressure on housing”.
“I don’t think you’ll find anyone who will tell you that five thousand more, ten thousand more would have made the difference,” he defended keeping the targets, adding that there was “no linear equation” between the number of immigrants and the supply of housing.
Ottawa also plans to keep a “more intensive” eye on the share of immigration related to temporary residents, the number of which was greatly underestimated last year.
Quebec was not consulted
Quebec Immigration Minister Christine Fréchette reiterated that “the situation prevailing in Quebec has not been taken into account.”
“I would tell you that at the administrative level there was an exchange that could be compared to a consultation, but at the political level there was no consultation. And normally the federal government must consider Quebec’s immigration goals before advancing its own goals,” she said at a news conference.
“We’re talking about it [d’immigration] at a political level,” Mr. Miller said. “Should I tell everyone in the entire province 500,000? No, because that would violate the privilege of Parliament,” he added.
François Legault presented Quebec’s immigration plan earlier in the day, announcing that he wants to maintain the threshold at 50,000 new permanent residents per year, including about 6,500 students under the Quebec Experience Program (PEQ).
For his part, Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet hopes the federal government will review its targets next year, something he committed to by supporting a motion from the bloc to that effect on Wednesday.
“I see the Quebec number and I see what Quebec’s share of the Ottawa number would be, and obviously the share of the Ottawa number is way too big,” he said.
Greater French-speaking immigration
After meeting its target of 4.4% of French-speaking immigration outside Quebec “with difficulty” last year, Ottawa aims to nearly double that rate to 8% starting in 2026, Mr. Miller indicated.
“At 8% we are roughly stable, but certainly not growing,” complained the President of the Federation of Francophone and Acadian Communities (FCFA), Liane Roy.
The organization estimates that 12% of French-speaking immigrants would be needed “to put the Francophonie back on the growth path.”
– With Geneviève Lajoie, Le Journal de Québec