Quebec Premier François Legault is doubling down on his pledge to ensure the French language’s survival is not put in danger by a flood of English-speaking immigrants by announcing all temporary foreign workers will soon have to speak French.
The premier of Canada’s only francophone province, Legault has also nixed any ideas that Quebec might even come close to increasing immigration to the record-breaking levels seen in the rest of the country.
“I want to be very clear,” Legault reportedly told journalists outside the National Assembly of Quebec. “It is out of the question for Quebec to experience such an increase in immigration in the coming years.
“It is this way and must stay this way: Quebec alone must decide on the number of permanent immigrants it receives each year.”
The Montreal Gazette, the province’s biggest English-language newspaper, reports the provincial government is also planning to soon outline new measures to ensure temporary foreign workers will have to learn French and so not contribute to the anglicization of Quebec.
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The latest Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) data reveals Quebec accepted 68,715 new permanent residents last year.
The province also saw the arrival of 51,885 workers through the International Mobility Program (IMP) and another 38,460 through the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) that year.
That’s a total of 90,345 foreign nationals arriving to work temporarily in Quebec in 2022, or about 31.5 per cent more temporary workers than new permanent residents that year.
In the 2023-2025 Immigration Levels Plan, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) is targeting 465,000 new permanent residents in 2023, 485,000 new permanent residents in 2024 and 500,000 in 2025.
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That’s a total of 1.45 million immigrants to Canada over the coming three years.
Under a provincial-federal agreement, Quebec’s annual share of new permanent residents is to be equal to its demographic clout within Canada. Since the province has 23 per cent of the country’s population, a national immigration target of 465,000 new permanent residents means Quebec could accept up to 106,950 new permanent residents this year.
By 2025, that number would rise to 115,000, or about 67.4 per cent more permanent residents than Quebec welcomed last year.
Raising Immigration Levels To Quebec Would Be Suicidal To French Language, Legault Says
But Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government is steadfast in its opposition to that level of immigration to the province because it maintains Quebec lacks the ability to integrate that many newcomers into the Quebecois society every year.
During the last provincial election campaign last year, Legault made it clear he considers high levels of immigration to Quebec to pose a threat to the future of the French language in the province and the Quebecois cultural identity.
He told a business audience that raising immigration levels would be “suicidal” to the French language and insisted that Quebec must not accept substantially more than 50,000 new permanent residents annually.
Then, in a speech to open the 43rd session of the provincial legislature, Legault announced that, by 2026, all economic immigrants to Quebec will have to be francophone.
“Previous Parti Québécois and Liberal Party governments accepted that 50 per cent (of economic immigrants to Quebec) speak French,” Legault was reported as saying in French in the Le Soleil daily newspaper.
“We have succeeded in the economic immigration categories in increasing that to 80 per cent and we must reach 100 per cent.”
Quebec has one of the lowest rates of unemployment in Canada. These new planned restrictive language requirements targeting foreign workers, a first in Canada, will likely harm Quebec employers from accessing the international market of top talent.
