People attend a demonstration opposing Quebec's Law 21 in Montreal, Oct. 27, 2019.Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press
When Donald Trump was elected U.S. president last week, François Legault had one issue at the forefront of his mind: immigration. Quebec’s Premier spoke to reporters on Wednesday and warned of a “massive influx” of migrants fleeing Mr. Trump’s promised deportation plan.
It was a familiar theme for Mr. Legault, who has been aggressively cutting immigration targets in recent weeks as he warns the province has taken more newcomers than it can handle.
The U-turn mirrors the federal government’s but with Quebec characteristics. The province has a parallel immigration system that chooses its own economic migrants, unique concerns about language, and a long-running debate about the place of religion in society, which has flared up lately.
That has produced a heated conversation about reducing immigration in Quebec that is similar to the one taking place across Canada, but different in key ways.
Although Quebeckers have joined the rest of the country in worrying more about the number of newcomers, their concern has mounted more slowly and now sits at the lowest level of any Canadian region, a September study by Environics Research found.
While 63 per cent of Ontario residents feel there is too much immigration to Canada, and 68 per cent in the Prairies do, only 46 per cent of Quebec respondents agree.
Even so, Mr. Legault has promised to reduce immigration since coming to power in 2018, presenting it as “something that could be threatening for language, but also for social services,” said Mireille Paquet, an associate professor of political science at Concordia University in Montreal – “using immigration as a scapegoat for several problems in the province.”
The Premier notably said in 2022 that it would be “suicidal” for Quebec to welcome more than 50,000 permanent residents a year because of their potential impact on the place of French.
Still, his government has failed to stop the rise in immigration, with 67,000 new permanent residents expected next year, and the number of temporary residents in Quebec having almost doubled to about 600,000 between 2021 and 2024.
That is largely the product of demand from employers for foreign workers and the spike in irregular border crossings at Roxham Road along Quebec’s border with the U.S., Dr. Paquet said.
Because the federal government controls refugee and family-reunification arrivals, the Legault government often blamed Ottawa for runaway immigration numbers, but the Trudeau government’s announcement of major cuts to its targets took that argument off the table, said Jack Jedwab, president and CEO of the Montreal-based Association for Canadian Studies.
“It took the thunder away from Legault.”
His Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), a nationalist party that does not seek independence from Canada, had already started restricting migration flows, suspending some low-wage temporary worker admissions for Montreal and introducing legislation to limit the number of foreign students in Quebec.
Soon after the federal government announced it was cutting its immigration target by more than 20 per cent, Mr. Legault also froze two popular permanent residency programs in the province.
The cutbacks are happening at a time of concerns about housing costs and strained public services, like in the rest of Canada, but also a political battle between the government and the sovereigntist Parti Québécois, which has called for even sharper reductions. The PQ currently leads in the polls and competes for the same basket of nationalist voters as the CAQ.
Meanwhile a pair of controversies has highlighted tensions in the province around the place of Muslim immigrants in Quebec society. The October release of a report into a “clan” of teachers with North African origins who imposed their conservative teaching philosophy on a Montreal public school over several years has sparked outrage.
Although the report makes little mention of religion, the failure to adequately teach science or sexual health at the Bedford school in the multicultural neighbourhood of Côte-des-Neiges prompted PQ Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon to decry “Islamic infiltration” of the education system.
Mr. Plamondon also attacked a welcome poster in Montreal’s City Hall that featured the image of a woman wearing a hijab, prompting Mayor Valérie Plante to have the poster removed in the name of secularism. The Legault government’s Bill 21 bars certain public servants including teachers from wearing visible religious symbols.
Migrant rights and private-sector groups have harshly criticized Mr. Legault’s recent shift on immigration. Denis Hamel, strategic advisor to the Conseil du patronat du Québec – a lobby group representing employers – called the cutbacks a “catastrophe” and said he sensed “panic” about businesses concerned with staffing shortfalls. Ordinary people will feel the pinch too, he said, as sectors heavily dependent on immigrant workers, such as health care and childcare, face a reduced pool of recruits.
Adding to the “incoherence” of the government’s immigration policy, Mr. Hamel argued, is the decline in French-language instruction for newcomers. In September, the Legault government cut “Francization” subsidies for part-time students, while budget cuts have closed dozens of French classes for immigrants across the province.
“It seems we have a government that wants to act but doesn’t quite know why or how,” said Mr. Hamel.