Ukrainian refugees crossing into Poland, 2022. Via Wikimedia Commons.

At a time when the Canadian government is promising to bring in 40,000 Afghan refugees and an unlimited number of Ukrainians fleeing the war, dozens of red flags signal that the regular immigration system in Canada and Quebec is out of control.

Nearly two million immigration applications awaiting processing

Let’s start with the number of files awaiting processing at the federal level. Citing numbers from Immigration Refugees Citizenship Canada, the CBC reported on March 21 that more than 1.8 million immigration files – applications for permanent residency, temporary study and work permits and citizenship – were waiting to be processed as of February 1.¹  Bit by bit the numbers are coming down in some categories. The number of applications for permanent residency had fallen by about 30,000 since the end of October to 519,030, including skilled workers, family reunification, refugees and asylum seekers. Applications for citizenship, down to 448,000, fell at the same rate. At this rate, if new applications aren’t added to the pile, it will take almost five years to process them all.

But new files are being added to the pile. The number of applications for temporary permits awaiting processing increased by 73,000 between the end of October 2021 and the beginning of February 2022, and the federal government continues its mission to ease the conditions for study and work permits.

On April 11, there were more than two million applications in the inventory, of which 1.1 million were for temporary permits, an increase of 230,000 since mid-March.

These people will generate a large portion of the new admissions because the government is doing everything it can to facilitate the transition from temporary to permanent status. In 2021, almost half of all permanent immigration to Canada, and approximately 75 per cent of the economic class, was made up of people who previously held these types of permits.

The increase in the number of people with temporary status will inevitably force an increase in permanent immigration targets, because applications for permanent residency will surpass the targets set by the Canadian and Quebec governments. It would be political suicide to refuse to process these applications. It would mean that the temporary permits of people who have been integrated into the country for years, studied here, worked, paid their taxes and started to raise their families would expire, and they would have to leave.

Then, as more and more people obtain permanent residency, applications for citizenship will increase. At least 85 per cent of people with permanent resident status in Canada apply for citizenship.

In the end, this means that we cannot expect to see a meaningful drop in the inventory of immigration applications any time soon. It’s like trying to fill the infamous bucket with a hole in the bottom.

Delays resulting from inventories and fluctuating priorities

This huge inventory of applications results, of course, in very long waiting times, particularly for permanent residency (as well as citizenship), where the wait is well over two years. The exception is for those with a temporary status applying for permanent residency through the Canadian Experience Class, for which the wait time, at the time of writing, is eight months.

Speeding up processing times and reducing inventories requires more officers, who need to be recruited, equipped and trained, which takes time. It also requires a more effective electronic processing system, which will also take at least several months to put in place, assuming there are no major glitches along the way.

It is not surprising that the government has had trouble putting procedures in place to welcome tens of thousands of Afghans and Ukrainians.

Major increase in immigration budgets

Receiving more applications means increased costs. The federal government had already announced $85 million in the fall of 2021 to reduce inventories. Then, the budget unveiled on April 5 provided for:

• $2.1 billion over five years and $317.6 million ongoing in new funding to “support the processing and settlement of new permanent residents – including the government’s increased commitment to Afghan refugees”;
• $385.7 million over five years, and $86.5 million ongoing “to facilitate the timely and efficient entry of a growing number of visitors, workers, and students”;
• $1.3 billion over the next five years, and $331.2 million ongoing, “to support the long-term stability and integrity of Canada’s asylum system”;
• $43.5 million in 2022–23 to “maintain federal support for immigration and refugee legal aid services”;
• $187.3 million over five years, and $37.2 million ongoing, to improve “capacity to respond to a growing volume of enquiries and to invest in the technology and tools required to better support people using their services.”

These unprecedented increases in expenditures of almost $3.8 billion over five years, followed by $735.3 million annually, are broken down essentially by immigration category, but it is not really clear how much will go toward new electronic processing systems, how much to human resources and how much toward actually ensuring welcoming and resettlement services on the ground either in transfers to provinces or in grants to community organizations.

Biometrics may have become a rite of passage for security reasons, but access will have to be greatly facilitated with increasingly urgent international migrations. According to reports, this has been causing huge headaches, not only for Ukrainians but for immigration applicants in general, especially during the pandemic. This will also add to costs.

Moreover, it will take legislative action to allow automated and machine-assisted processing of citizenship applications and to require the electronic submission of asylum claims.

Proliferation of pathways for entering Canada and ad hoc policies

With the current world context of conflict, climate change and communicable disease, it is clear that any modern immigration policy needs to be flexible. But it raises the question of whether simply multiplying the pathways to temporary and permanent residency without first consulting and seeking consensus can be successful in the long run.

I have written previously about the dozens of pathways to permanent residency – federal and provincial – that were created across the country in recent years, as well as the hundreds of types of temporary permits made available, particularly under the International Mobility Program.²

We are now seeing a proliferation of “public policies.” This mechanism, provided for in the federal law on immigration, allows the minister to change the rules for granting permanent residency or to apply exemptions to other rules if he or she “is of the opinion that it is justified by public policy considerations.”³  In fact, we see that the device is often used to modify the rules that apply to temporary immigration.

These “public policies,” adopted by ministerial decree, seem to have been used very infrequently for several years, but recently the numbers have taken an extraordinary leap, as illustrated in figure 1.

They typically target particular situations and very specific clienteles, such as people with temporary status caught up in the consequences of the fires in British Columbia or private sponsorship of refugees from Syria and Iraq. There have been several in the last two years to protect the status of foreign nationals caught up in travel restrictions during the pandemic. But this type of ad hoc policy can also be quite general in scope: for example, a form of exemption from language requirements for people who cannot be assessed because of a physical or mental disability.
There is a political and potentially discriminatory dimension as well. Thus, the “temporary public policy to exempt certain Hong Kong residents from work permit requirements,” updated in February 2021, aimed to “attract educated Hong Kong youth to Canada, where it is expected that their human capital and international experience will contribute to Canada’s economic, social, and cultural fabric. At the same time, Canada’s response demonstrates its solidarity with other like-minded allies, and its robust support for, and defense of, democratic values.”⁴ This is clearly a valid humanitarian gesture, but the reasoning could be applied to many other regions in the world.

Unilateral modifications to temporary immigration rules and inconsistencies

The federal government is also using its control over temporary immigration to change rules. It made an announcement on April 1 to relax certain requirements of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program across Canada. In 2016, it created a new open permit under the International Mobility Program for employers outside Quebec who hire French speakers from abroad. Since francophone immigration is just as important in Quebec, if not more so, it is not clear why Quebec employers are excluded.

There are instances of inexplicable inconsistency. For several years, the federal government has been touting its determination to encourage foreign students to stay permanently in the country by facilitating their path to permanent residency. And yet it never amended the regulation requiring that people applying to study in Canada demonstrate that they will leave the country at the end of their stay. This has resulted in large numbers of study permit applications being refused, especially from African countries, because the intention to leave was not clear enough in the application. Another unintended result of this situation is that, given that many of the African countries are members of the Francophonie, these refusals are affecting government efforts to attract francophone immigration inside and outside Quebec.

Different processes are being used for different groups. The announced 40,000 Afghans are arriving as refugees. To be recognized as a refugee, the person must be outside their country of origin and officially recognized by the United Nations refugee agency. People accepted under this program receive support for health services, initial lodging and other integration services. For Ukrainians fleeing the war, a special three-year temporary residency permit has been created. Since they are not entitled to the same level of service as recognized refugees, the federal government had to announce special temporary funding to help with their initial settlement needs.

Finally, each time a new priority or process is announced, the human and financial resources initially allocated to the processing of regular files and applications needs to be redirected. The decisions and the new processes must be explained to the staff, the new procedures – electronic and otherwise – put in place, websites adjusted, information officers trained to answer questions, notices distributed to stakeholders, etc.

Lack of consultation with the provinces

Under current law, the federal government is required to undertake consultations with the provinces on the multiyear planning of immigration levels. But there is no obligation to consult on temporary immigration or “public policies,” and hence there has been no systematic open consultation with provincial governments prior to the announcement of these decisions. This means that no consideration is given to housing or childcare capacities on the ground, or to the effect of this rapid population increase on schools, health and social service systems or public transit.
Different types of immigration require different services. Well-meaning Canadians and Quebecers are opening their homes to new arrivals, particularly from conflict zones. Aside from the cultural differences, many of these people, adults and children alike, will suffer posttraumatic stress disorder for which the sponsors are not prepared. Without proper planning and consultation with the provinces that provide these services, the fallout could be problematic, not only for the human beings concerned but politically as well.

The usual argument for increasing temporary immigration is to resolve labour market shortages. These shortages vary significantly from one region, rural or urban, to another. However, for the most part, specific local considerations are not identified, and there is no way to ensure any link between the expertise and work experience of these newcomers with open work and study permits and local labour market needs.

Situation mirrored in Quebec

Despite its special powers recognized in the Canada-Quebec Agreement on Immigration, Quebec is caught in the net of the improvised federal system in many respects. It has no control over federal processing times. Like the federal government, it too improvises new programs that take longer than expected to implement and do not produce the expected results.

It also encourages temporary immigration, which increases the number of applications for Quebec Selection Certificates (QSC), a required step toward permanent residency for people wanting to settle in Quebec. The delivery of QSCs continues apace, and then these people, having passed the months-long Quebec process, become victims of the long federal processing times when they apply for their permanent resident visas.

Contrary to the federal government, the Quebec government does not want to be seen to be raising its targets for permanent immigration. The federal government then will sometimes slow down the granting of permanent resident visas in Quebec to respect these targets. The result is that delays for those trying to obtain permanent status to settle in Quebec can be even longer than for those applying for other provinces.

The essential need for a clear vision and efficient infrastructure

Immigration is a fundamentally human project, transforming the lives of people and the cohesion of societies around the world. The success of this crucial project – for the people who migrate, for Canadian and Quebec societies, and for the countries of origin – requires a clear political vision supported by an efficient legislative and administrative infrastructure. Can we be confident that our reputation as a “welcoming” society will hold up with an increasingly improvised and often inefficient immigration system?

Could Quebec fully control immigration?

In response to a question in the National Assembly on April 27, Quebec Premier François Legault said he wants his government to have full control of all immigration in Quebec.ᵃ His minister of immigration, Jean Boulet, had earlier said that he wants to open and renegotiate the 1991 Canada-Quebec Accord on immigration. I would strongly suggest that the Quebec government take greater advantage of the power already conferred by the accord before trying to renegotiate.

The immigration accord was negotiated during the period when the Meech Lake Accord was awaiting approval by the provincial legislatures to be entrenched in the Constitution. We all know how that went. The Canada-Quebec Immigration Agreement was designed as the implementation of the second point in the Meech Lake Accord:

2. The Government of Canada will, as soon as possible, conclude an agreement with the Government of Quebec that would

a. incorporate the principles of the Cullen-Couture agreement on the selection abroad and in Canada of independent immigrants, visitors for medical treatment, students and temporary workers, and on the selection of refugees abroad and economic criteria for family reunification and assisted relatives,

b. guarantee that Quebec will receive a number of immigrants, including refugees, within the annual total established by the federal government for all of Canada proportionate to its share of the population of Canada, with the right to exceed that figure by per cent for demographic reasons, and

c. provide an undertaking by Canada to withdraw services (except citizenship services) for the reception and integration (including linguistic and cultural) of all foreign nationals wishing to settle in Quebec where services are to be provided by Quebec, with such withdrawal to be accompanied by reasonable compensation, and the Government of Canada and the Government of Quebec will take the necessary steps to give the agreement the force of law under the proposed amendment relating to such agreements.

At the time, the Canadian and Quebec governments decided to go ahead with the immigration accord despite the failure of Meech. The two governments therefore considered it essentially a quasi-constitutional accord, delegating to Quebec all the powers it needed to ensure that immigration in the province would not have long-term negative effects on the “distinct society.”

The federal-provincial context has changed substantially since 1991. The Canada-Quebec Accord is the envy of the other provinces, especially the provision for financial compensation. It is extremely unlikely that the current federal government will agree to delegate to Quebec even more powers in immigration, or provide more money. The other provinces would insist on the same treatment.

The formula used to calculate the annual transfer to Quebec sets as a floor the amount transferred the year before. So the amount can never go down, even if Quebec welcomes fewer immigrants. It can only stay the same or go up. This has been the major reason why no Quebec government has ever suggested reopening the agreement. Also, unlike federal-provincial agreements since, there is no time limit on the accord – no requirement for renewal, say, every five years.

The only reason ever offered as to why the current Quebec government wants full power over immigration is to be able to require relatives sponsored under the family reunification program to have a knowledge of French. There are many other ways to facilitate and encourage French-language learning in this category without going to the point of refusing reunification. There have been no other indications of what the Quebec government would do with full power over humanitarian immigration or even temporary immigration. Given its positions so far on temporary immigration, it would seem that Quebec would open it up even more, even though language doesn’t seem so important when it comes to foreign temporary workers or even foreign students.

The Quebec government could theoretically better assert its powers, even over temporary immigration, within the confines and the spirit of the current accord, including with respect to its objectives regarding francophone immigration. It would be wise to try. It is risky to think it will come out ahead if the accord is reopened.

It is also impossible to conceive of a subnational government having full control over immigration. Far too much is determined at the national and international levels, including humanitarian commitments, migrant safety, border openings, crossing and closings, citizenship/nationality, international health and security concerns. The 1867 Constitution allows for provinces to legislate in this field alongside the federal government, but all provincial legislation must be compatible with federal laws.

Continue reading “Our Immigration Policy is Out of Control” →

Photo by Matt.Hebert, via Flickr.

In the first week of November, the CEO of Air Canada, Michael Rousseau, announced that his upcoming speech to the Metropolitan Montreal Chamber of Commerce would be in English only.

Immediately the Quebec media started to protest. Apparently, he received warnings from the federal Commissioner of Official Languages and from the Quebec government that it would be wise to ensure that at least some parts of the speech be in French. But to no avail. After an awkward “Bonjour,” he proceeded with his speech in English only. When asked by journalists about how it looked that the head of Air Canada, with its head office in Montreal, had not used French in this major appearance, he calmly proclaimed that he had more pressing things to do than learn French. To top it off, he declared he had lived in English for 14 years in the Montreal area and that this was a testament to the city!

The same week, Immigration Canada posted unilingual English positions for its Montreal call centre, claiming it couldn’t find bilingual candidates because of the labour shortage. The chief judge of the Cour du Québec decided to sue the Justice Minister, who is also the minister responsible for the French language, because a call for candidates for several justice positions in five regions, including Montreal, did not include any requirement of a knowledge of English.

So language was once again making headlines in Quebec, just as the latest attempt to reform the French Language Charter, An Act respecting French, the official and common language of Québec, commonly referred to as Bill 96, was being adopted in principle by the National Assembly.

Election promises

The renewed discussion in Quebec about how to protect the French language has actually been a long time coming. The 2018 election platform of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), which won the election under François Legault, contained several promises to act to protect the French language in Quebec.

The CAQ promised to strengthen the powers of the Office Québécois de la Langue Française (OQLF), with a view to increasing the francization of the workplace.¹ It also announced that it would appoint a Commissioner of the French Language to deal with complaints from the public and make recommendations to the government, and promised compulsory francization for any “new arrival” requesting a Quebec Selection Certificate (QSC).²

This last promise revealed an astonishing lack of understanding of how the Quebec immigration system works. And it only got worse as the campaign progressed because Legault went further, saying that new arrivals, after spending three years in Quebec, would have to pass a test demonstrating an understanding of Quebec values and the French language. If they failed, they could try again in a year, and if they failed again, they would not receive their QSC and would have to leave Quebec. Once the CAQ was in power, someone finally explained to them that no provincial government, not even Quebec, has the power of expulsion. The idea was dropped.

Other parties also promised to protect the French language. The issue was prominent in the Parti Québécois (PQ) platform, which promised to reform the French Language Charter (Bill 101), apply it to companies with 25 or more employees (rather than the current floor of 50 employees), require employers to justify English requirements when hiring, and select only immigrants who have learned French before arrival. Québec Solidaire (QS) vowed to strengthen French in the workplace and apply Bill 101 to companies of 10 employees or more. The Liberals’ commitments were harder to find and confined essentially to strengthening the francization of the workplace.

How do we measure the future of a language?

The incidents mentioned above are only the latest components of the backdrop that led to the legislation. There had been growing pressure for the government to act. Its own OQLF has published 12 studies since 2018 on various subjects, including the use of French in retail stores, in the workplace and in public, the proportion of companies and municipalities requiring a knowledge of English in their hiring, and the number of anglophone, francophone and allophone students registered in English and French schools and postsecondary institutions. There were also several demolinguistic studies on the language spoken most frequently in the home by Quebec francophones, anglophones, allophones and immigrants, as well as projections of the strength of French, English and third languages up to 2036. Many of these studies were used to produce the five-year analysis of the situation of the French language published in 2018, required under the French Language Charter.

Linguistic demographers, including those at Statistics Canada, make their predictions on the future strength of a language using data on the language spoken most often at home and its corollary, language substitution. If I answer on the census form that my mother tongue is Italian and the language I speak most often at home is French, I have made a language substitution (or transfer). Looking at the trend in language substitutions along with demographic trends (birth and death rates, migrations) and immigration levels, linguistic demographers can predict how many people will be speaking a particular language several years into the future. The language spoken at home is considered to be the best predictor of the language that will be spoken by the next generation. Immigration trends and rates of language substitution among immigrants significantly influence the future of French in Quebec. Also, more and more, we are seeing mother-tongue francophones in Quebec speaking English in the home.

Although there is a consensus among experts on the use of the home language indicator, many outside the field, particularly in Quebec, are uncomfortable with the idea of measuring the language spoken at home, arguing that it is the language spoken in public that counts and constitutes the objective of the Language Charter: French as the official and common language of Quebec, as Bill 96 states.

Language policy in Quebec, or anywhere in Canada for that matter, has never legislated the language spoken at home. But language spoken at home is currently recognized as the best indicator for measuring the intergenerational survival of a language. A simple statistic illustrates the difference between the future of French in Quebec and the future of English in Canada. In 2016, among allophones who spoke either English or French as principal home language, in Quebec 55 per cent had chosen French and 45 per cent had chosen English, whereas in the rest of Canada over 99 per cent had chosen English.

What do defenders of French want?

Organizations defending the French language have concentrated their calls for action on a few specific issues. They want the provincial public sector to put more emphasis on French in its interactions with citizens, rather than automatically switching to English if faced with someone who is not francophone. They want less automatic bilingualism in retail outlets and restaurants (the famous “Bonjour-Hi” debate).

The demand likely to do most in slowing the decline of French in Quebec would be to apply the same rules on access to English cegeps as on access to English primary and secondary schools since passage of Bill 101 in 1977.³ In oversimplified terms, Bill 101 specifies that only children with at least one parent who received most of his or her Canadian primary schooling in English may be registered in English public schools in Quebec. The shorthand for this demand is “applying Bill 101 to cegeps.”

Another proposal is to finance English and French cegeps proportionally to the English and French mother-tongue populations in Quebec. In the past, the debate centred on the attraction of English cegeps to allophones coming out of French high schools, but recent studies have brought to light a significant and increasing number of native-born French-speaking Quebecers choosing to attend the English cegeps.

At least four recent books examining the linguistic situation in Quebec and Canada highlight the attraction of English cegeps in Quebec. Two are by Charles Castonguay, with titles roughly translated as French in Freefall and The Fiasco of Canadian Language Policy; the other two are by Frédéric Lacroix: again roughly translated, Why Bill 101 is a Failure and Free Choice? English Cegeps and International Students: Diversion, Anglicization and Fraud. The authors, both of whom write regularly in a left-wing online (with monthly print edition) journal called L’Aut’journal, have gotten a fair amount of French media coverage.⁴

The CAQ itself has triggered outcries by announcing large sums for the expansion of the English cegep that has come to dominate admissions on the island of Montreal, Dawson College, as well as by ceding to McGill University the old Royal Victoria Hospital, largely emptied since the opening of the English megahospital, McGill University Health Centre.

Other demands include eliminating the blanket requirement of a knowledge of English in hiring. This trend is expanding, according to the OQLF’s own study. It is a concern because anglicization of the workplace in Quebec hinders efforts to francize new arrivals. There have been demands to expand the number of companies required to meet francization criteria established by the OQLF. At this point, companies with 50 or more employees are covered by these criteria. The PQ, when in power, tried unsuccessfully to apply them to companies with 25 or more employees. QS, the second opposition party, proposes to bring the threshold down to 10 employees, largely to include the companies where immigrants are most present.

Organizations defending French, along with the PQ (currently the third opposition party) and QS, also lament the fact that the annual proportion of new permanent residents who declare a knowledge of French has dipped below 50 per cent and that the francization of new arrivals does not seem to be working. The Quebec Auditor General, in a report published at the end of 2017, severely criticized the effectiveness of the Ministry of Immigration’s francization programs and the lack of means of even measuring their effectiveness. Even though extra money has been invested in the programs and eligibility criteria have been widened, there is still no evidence of improvement in the results.

Until recently, nationalists have consistently called for reduction in immigration levels to resolve the language problem. However, it has become evident that the French language is threatened by much more than the immigrants who come to Quebec and are faced with learning not only French but also English if they want to get work. Employers are constantly pushing for immigration levels to rise because of labour shortages. The evolution away from blaming immigrants for the problems facing the future of French, while not complete, is a welcome one. The language debate can no longer be used to hide fundamentally ethnocentric anti-immigrant sentiments.

Leaving francophones hungry for more and anglophones nervous

In the first two years of the CAQ’s mandate, the government proposed little to strengthen the protection of French, but in 2020 Premier Legault shuffled his cabinet and put Simon Jolin-Barrette in charge of the file. Jolin-Barrette had been Immigration Minister, and during his time in that portfolio he opened francization programs to temporary workers. He was also the minister who brought in the controversial secularism law, Bill 21 – and managed to get it adopted. Now, as Justice Minister, he will be overseeing the court cases arising from that legislation.

Jolin-Barrette is a young lawyer – brilliant, doggedly nationalist and very close to the Premier. He is also interested in constitutional law, particularly as it applies to Quebec. Shortly after taking over responsibility for the French language file, he started making “teaser” announcements. In August, October and November 2020, he repeatedly promised an “action plan” on language reform “soon.” Finally, in May 2021, he and the Premier tabled Bill 96. No action plan, no white paper. Instead, a 100-page bill with more than 200 articles. This is an extremely long and complex piece of legislation, purported to be an overhaul of the French Language Charter.

The lack of a white paper or action plan to accompany the legislation meant that the vision of the government’s reform was ungrounded. Press releases, press conferences, media interviews and a Facebook post from the Premier all made mention of the decline of French in Quebec and exalted the government’s response. However, such issues as declining francophone immigration rates and the increasing pervasiveness of English in the arts, culture and media were avoided.

The legislation does address the major concerns raised by the groups defending the French language in recent years, but it does so in such a way that nobody is convinced it will make a difference – many feel that several of the proposed changes will be impossible to implement. More than 50 stakeholder groups and experts were heard in legislative committee in October. They all agreed with the principle of taking measures to protect the French language, and only the anglophone representatives refused to speculate on the actual decline of French. But when it came to the details, the questions and concerns were numerous.

Some reactions were predictable. The private sector doesn’t want any more red tape and the Chamber of Commerce – which warned the CEO of Air Canada not to give a speech in English only – resisted any obligation to justify requiring English in the hiring process and made veiled threats that more rigorous language regulation would result in companies leaving Montreal for Toronto.

The legislation attempts to reassure anglophones that government services will continue to be available in English and, at the same time, assure francophones that French will be the exclusive language of communication with the government for anyone except anglophones. The reassurances aren’t working. Bill 96 muddies the waters by introducing a definition of eligible anglophones which is different from the one found in the Health and Social Services Act. The new definition will be impossible to implement because the identifying information does not exist in any government database.

Since the government reform has not addressed the issue of selecting immigrants who already have knowledge of French, it is putting all its eggs in the basket of francizing immigrants once they have arrived – despite its lack of results in this field. The bill “creates” an organization called Francisation Québec, an administrative unit of the Ministry of Immigration, that will ostensibly coordinate all government-financed adult French second-language courses in the province with an interactive platform that will offer one-stop access.

The proposal received unanimous support from groups working with immigrants. The problem is that successive governments since 2005 have announced and attempted to install a similar, much less ambitious platform, including one-stop access targeting only adult immigrants and only French-language courses offered by the two ministries of Immigration and Education. It’s still far from operational in the fall of 2021.

The government, in particular the Premier himself, has rejected the option of applying Bill 101 to cegeps. It wants to maintain the option of free choice, particularly because it is the choice of so many young francophones, a key target group for the CAQ.
It has come up with a complicated formula to cap admissions to English cegeps in such a way as to ensure that the proportion of college students enrolled in these institutions will not grow. It also wants to reserve spaces in the English colleges for students graduating from English high schools. Some anglophones are currently not accepted into English colleges because they don’t have the marks to get in. This is raising the concern that the English cegeps are becoming more elitist. None of the concerned groups understand how the system will actually function and the Quebec Liberal Party spokesperson on language, Hélène David, a former Minister of Higher Education, dismisses the idea as inoperable.

Several researchers testifying before the committee pointed out the confusion in the bill over which organization, the Commission of the French Language or the OQLF, is tasked with producing the studies and analyses of the situation and future of French. The independence of this research is considered critical, and if left with the OQLF it would be subject to ministerial review prior to publication. Some have argued it should instead be in the purview of an independent director of research, perhaps linked to the new Commissioner of the French Language, created by the bill and reporting to the National Assembly.

All these ambiguities and many others will come out in the clause-by-clause consideration of the bill which should start before the National Assembly session breaks in the second week of December.

Symbolic gestures?

But it is two other elements in this bill that are the most likely to draw reaction outside Quebec.

As in Bill 21, the Act respecting the Laicity of the State, the government has included “notwithstanding” clauses to protect the new language act against judicial moves based on the Quebec and Canadian charters of human rights. Jolin-Barrette puts a positive spin on this decision, referring to it as “parliamentary sovereignty.” Predictably, anglophone rights groups, the Commission de Droits de la Personne du Québec and some of the constitutionalists who testified criticized these notwithstanding clauses.

Some wondered which aspects of the bill the government is afraid would be contested. A reasonable question, since there doesn’t seem to be anything that goes against current Canadian jurisprudence on language. However, these clauses represent an important symbolic gesture because many elements of the original French Language Charter were ruled unconstitutional after they were challenged on the basis of equality rights in the Canadian Charter. The use of notwithstanding clauses in Bill 96 is a signal that the CAQ does not want the same thing to happen to this legislation.

The surprise feature of Bill 96 was a clause that amends the Constitution Act, 1867.

Section 159 reads:

The Constitution Act, 1867 (30 & 31 Victoria, c. 3 (U.K.); 1982, c. 11 (U.K.)) is amended by inserting the following after section 90:
“FUNDAMENTAL CHARACTERISTICS OF QUEBEC
“90Q.1. Quebecers form a nation.
“90Q.2. French shall be the only official language”

The government defends this approach based on the unilateral amendment procedure in Section 45 of the Constitution Act, 1982. This article provides that the legislature of each province may exclusively (unilaterally) make laws amending the constitution of the province. Eight constitutionalists were invited to testify on this section of the bill. Although they all agreed that Quebec can do what it wants with respect to its internal constitution, they differed widely on whether entrenching two provincial constitutional principles in the Canadian constitution would pass muster and, even if it did, whether it would be more than symbolic. Supporters of the idea are convinced that this is constitutional and that, once entrenched, the principles would be considered by the courts when reviewing Quebec legislation. Other constitutionalists are of the opinion that the proposal changes the basic structure of the Canadian constitution, which cannot be accomplished unilaterally. Time will tell. In the meantime, Jolin-Barrette clearly feels that this is quite a coup and that it will reinforce Quebec nationalist pride and give supralegislative protection to Quebec language legislation.

More electoral strategy than practical implementation

Bill 96 was adopted in principle on November 9. The session breaks on December 10 and resumes on February 1, 2022. The government undoubtedly aims to have the bill adopted before the end of the spring session on June 10, perhaps even early in the session since the bill provides that the sections related to English cegeps will be in place for the 2022–23 school year. Cegeps start their fall semester the week before Labour Day. In anticipation of Bill 96’s not being passed in time, the Higher Education Minister announced in June 2021 that the number of places in English cegeps will be frozen for 10 years. This decision seems to undermine the French language bill and is actually slightly more restrictive with respect to access to English cegeps. Many other aspects of the bill won’t come into effect within a year and certain measures won’t come into effect within three years.

Clause-by-clause study will be arduous. The Quebec Liberals, on day one of the experts’ and stakeholders’ hearings, warned the government not to try to use closure to get the bill adopted precipitously and reiterated this notice during the debate on adoption in principle. Was this a legitimate concern that there is a lot to cover and it needs to be done right – or a warning by the Liberals that they intend to filibuster the next step? Either way, the government used closure to get Bill 21 enacted and won’t hesitate to do the same with this legislation.

Despite the notwithstanding clauses, there will undoubtedly be legal challenges to various parts of the legislation, notably the section that amends the Canadian constitution.

The next Quebec election will be in early October 2022. The government is aware that very little of the new act will be implemented by that time. For electoral purposes, what’s important is that it be adopted and that the measures related to English cegeps and the constitutional amendment be in place. The reform of the French Language Charter and Bill 21 will be front and centre for the CAQ in the next elections.

In a future issue of Inroads, we will come back to this legislation to look at its final form and the debate, if any, that it triggers inside and outside Quebec.

Continue reading “Quebec’s Language Debate, 2021–22 Edition” →

To get a handle on Canada’s immigration policy, we first need to address two misconceptions surrounding Canadians’ understanding of how their country’s immigration system works.

When the government announces that close to 340,000 immigrants will be admitted¹ in a given year, many interpret this to mean 340,000 new arrivals that year. This is the first misconception. The reality, as revealed by a recent OECD study, is that – outside the context of the pandemic – hundreds of thousands of people arrive in Canada each year on a temporary basis, and this pool of people accounts for around 35 per cent of all those in the annual planned immigration total, including close to half of those accorded permanent residence in the economic category.

To be precise, in 2019, of the 341,180 people who obtained permanent resident status in Canada, 120,535 or 35 per cent were already legally in the country with some form of temporary status, broken down in table 1.² The remainder were outside the country when they obtained their permanent residence visas; most of these were admitted through the family and humanitarian categories (see figures 1 and 2). The result is that many included in the overall immigration numbers are not new arrivals. They have been working or studying in Canada for at least two years and may well be settled with a spouse and children; some of those children are native-born Canadians.

The second misconception is that the standard path to being selected as a permanent resident is through the points system that gives foreigners wishing to reside in Canada an equitable opportunity to do so and ensures that those selected will have all the qualifications necessary to integrate successfully into the workplace and society in Canada. In fact, temporary residents generally are admitted through provincial and federal programs that apply specific criteria thereby fast-tracking their applications and bypassing the traditional selection grid. As a result, a relatively small proportion of total admissions are actually selected through the regular basic points system.

In this two-part article, I examine the two main groups of temporary residents who become permanent Canadian residents – foreign students and temporary workers – and attempt to highlight some of the issues raised by this trend. This first part focuses on international education, and the second part, to be published in the Summer/Fall 2021 issue of Inroads, will look at temporary workers. Quebec’s immigration policy situation has its own specific features, which I occasionally describe.

A complex system

I begin with an overview of the complexities of the overall Canadian immigration system. Figure 1 is a schematic of the main permanent immigration categories in Canada. It should be noted that the business class includes various federal and provincial programs for entrepreneurs or self-employed applicants.³ Express Entry is the platform for the reception and processing of almost all applications for permanent residence from foreign workers. There is an exception for those applying to live in Quebec, which has a similar platform called Arrima. This platform receives and processes applications for a Quebec Selection Certificate (known as a CSQ) under the Regular Skilled Worker Program.⁴ According to a longstanding agreement between the Quebec and federal governments, Canada accords permanent residence to those who have obtained a CSQ from Quebec.

The regular foreign skilled workers programs, Canadian and Quebec, are what most Canadians understand to be the core of the immigration process. Under these programs, applicants, generally living outside the country, complete an online questionnaire indicating their interest in applying for permanent residence. An algorithm searches for the applications that correspond best to Canada’s or Quebec’s needs and are most likely to obtain the necessary points to be selected. Invitations to apply are sent to those people, who then have two months to make a formal application. These requests for permanent residence are subjected to the Canadian or Quebec selection grid, and those who obtain the required number of points are selected to receive a permanent residence visa.

These visas are issued to the principal applicant and also to all accompanying members of the applicant’s family. Inclusion of family members is important to note. Even among those selected by the points system, more than half are family members of a principal applicant. Admissions through the Foreign Skilled Worker Program selection grid in 2019 amounted to 77,800, or 39.6 per cent of the economic category and 22.8 per cent of total admissions. Of these 77,800, roughly half were spouses and dependants. In effect, of all admissions in 2019, about 11 per cent were explicitly selected by the regular basic points system.

Moreover, included in the 77,800 are Quebec CSQs, which include many students and temporary workers already in Quebec. The share of those explicitly admitted via the points system is probably less than 10 per cent of the total. (Temporary residents can apply through the Canadian Experience Class or, in Quebec, through the Programme d’Expérience Québécoise or through various provincial nominee programs which heavily favour people with a valid temporary work permit in the particular province.)

The schematic in figure 2 breaks down immigration via Express Entry into its components. The bright red box represents the admissions explicitly selected through the basic Canadian points grid.

Of the 341,180 people who obtained permanent residence status in Canada in 2019, 120,535 or 35 per cent were already legally in the country with some form of temporary status, broken down in table 1.⁵

As set out in table 2, all of the above categories of temporary permits are on the rise except the temporary foreign workers subcategory, which requires a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA).

Other than asylum seekers, who are also in Canada at the time of obtaining permanent residence, the two main temporary categories generating transitions to permanent status while within Canada are temporary workers and foreign students. Generally, foreign students need to have work experience in Canada as well as a Canadian diploma. Each of these groups raises specific issues, some innocuous, others more consequential. In what follows I concentrate on foreign students.

A significant increase in foreign students

Table 2 shows that, in 2019, there were 27,515 transitions from a postgraduate work permit and 11,565 from a Study Permit⁶ to permanent residence. These 39,080 transitions are more than double the comparable number in 2015 (10,215 transitions from a postgraduate work permit and 8,565 from a Study Permit). Even more dramatically, by 2019 the overall numbers of the two types of student-related permit holders had grown by 264 per cent since 2009, and the number of postgraduate work permit holders alone was seven times greater.

According to the OECD report on the Canadian immigration system, a survey by the Canadian Bureau for International Education showed that 60 per cent of all international students plan to stay permanently in Canada. While there is good reason to believe that almost all of those eligible who apply are accepted, it is difficult to determine the actual percentage of foreign graduates of Canadian educational institutions who request permanent residence. The numbers who are eligible for the various federal and provincial immigration programs, and are therefore potential applicants, would have to be calculated from data held by each jurisdiction. What we do know, as shown above, is that 825,880 people resided in Canada with either a study permit or an IMP postgraduate work permit on December 31, 2019. That same year, 39,080 people with these types of permits became permanent residents.

This uptake is also evident in enrolment figures. Figures 3 and 4 illustrate the increases in international students as share of all enrolments and new enrolments in colleges and universities over recent years.⁷

It would be wonderful if these trends were solely linked to the reputation of our institutions of higher learning or to a greater awareness of the academic, scientific and cultural advantages of international education. But that cannot explain the upsurge in new enrolments. A closer examination suggests that international education has become a full-fledged industry. Many stakeholders have a vested interest in the presence of these students. Clearly, the potential of eventual permanent residence and Canadian citizenship is a key selling point above and beyond the value of the education offered.

Across the world, more than half of all international students are Chinese and Indian. The same is true in Canada, with the exception of Quebec where French students are the largest group as a result of specific bilateral favoured-nation agreements signed between the Quebec and French governments. While more study permits are issued to attend university than to attend college, the number of college-level permits is growing faster than the number of university-level ones. Moreover, at the college level Indian students outnumber even Chinese students. The fact that college programs are generally more employment-oriented suggests that enrolment as foreign students is especially immigration-driven among those from India.

The financial incentives

In 2019–20, average undergraduate fees in Canada were more than four times higher for international students ($29,714) than for Canadian students ($6,463).⁸ Graduate-level fees were a little more than one and a half times higher. Undergraduate fees for domestic students increased by 4 per cent over the past five years, but for international students the increase has been 33 per cent. At the graduate level fees for domestic students increased by 8 per cent and for international students by 22 per cent.

At the same time, provincial government funding of institutions has been declining despite increased enrolment. A recent study points out that for “the first time since the 1950s, public sources are no longer the dominant source of income for Canada’s postsecondary system,” and that “not only do many universities now derive more fee income from international students than domestic ones, many now derive more income from international students than from their provincial governments” (emphasis added).⁹

This increase in foreign students, paying much higher tuition fees than domestic students, is keeping some smaller universities and colleges from having to close, especially in regions affected by deindustrialization. Two thirds of students at Cape Breton University now come from a country other than Canada (primarily from India and China). Students from France and Africa are helping to assure the survival of some colleges (CÉGEPs) in Quebec, particularly those outside urban centres. This is best illustrated by a linguistic furor arising from an initiative of the francophone CÉGEP in the Gaspé Peninsula.¹⁰

After years of unsuccessful begging for increased funding from the Quebec government to maintain local programs, in 2015 the CÉGEP de la Gaspésie et les Îles opened a satellite campus in Montreal offering specific certificate programs in English that targeted largely Indian and some Chinese students. The result was that in 2019, 2,000 international students in Montreal were helping to finance programs in French for 1,200 students at four small campuses in the Gaspé Peninsula, making the college not only self-sufficient but profitable.

Political sensitivities surrounding English-language education for foreign students in Quebec being what they are, the nationalist CAQ government in Quebec City was called upon to intervene. It is a testament to the place that revenues from international education occupy in Quebec that the “intervention” amounted to insisting that the college’s website be bilingual, that it be clear on the site that French is the common language in Quebec, and that French second-language courses be provided for the international students. In the 2019–20 budget the CAQ improved the financing formula for CÉGEPs, favouring smaller regional institutions by introducing criteria sensitive to both the territory covered and the number of students. But like all other governments, it is clearly not prepared to introduce measures that might reduce the number of international students.¹¹

A comparable situation has arisen at St. Clair College in the Windsor-Chatham area of southwestern Ontario. Reporters Isabel Teotonio, Nicholas Keung and Grant LaFleche wrote that the college’s 2019–20 budget

shows for the first time that international student tuition is the largest source of revenue, with a projected $71.8 million. By comparison, operating grants are $41.3 million, and tuition for its budgeted 7,600 domestic students is about $24.3 million. This fall, the college, which has seen its population of international students grow from just about 500 in 2014 to 4,200, increased tuition for new international students by 15 per cent.¹²

Not all in the academic milieu agree that the increased dependence on foreign students is a good thing. Some agree with Doug Todd’s conclusion in the Vancouver Sun:

The programs have lost their humanitarian ideals, grown into a giant business, largely draw second-tier students, put a disguised burden on taxpayers (especially on health programs) and are leading to declining standards in classrooms, particularly because many foreign students struggle with new languages.¹³

Educational institutions have been making adjustments in priorities and hiring to attract and accommodate foreign students. Resources are allocated to greeting students at the airport as flights arrive and providing advisers and support staff who offer welcome services to the students. These include helping them to find housing, buy their first groceries, open a bank account, find winter clothing, and learn how rental leases work and what their responsibilities are as tenants. Information on health insurance and driver’s licences and other government services is provided. Workshops explain the cultural specificities of life in Canada, and advice on immigration procedures is provided as well as language lessons to help them master English or French. Occasionally, remedial classes are established to bring students up to minimally necessary levels. Partnerships are established with institutions in other countries to facilitate bilateral mobility. Joint and dual degree programs contribute to attracting international students. Recruitment efforts include promotional costs and often, particularly outside Quebec,¹⁴ major contracts to firms that specialize in the field.

The broader economic impact

The federal government justifies such recruitment efforts in these terms:

As a trading nation, Canada must continually expand and diversify not only its customer base, but also its roster of potential exporters. This requires securing markets, as well as encouraging and enabling new exporters. The new strategy contributes to these goals by increasing the diversity of inbound student populations, skill sets and programs, and by fostering people-to-people ties and international networks. This will help build labour markets, spur economic development in target regions and industries, and support diversity at Canada’s educational institutions.

In other words, internationalizing educational institutions is basically a matter of money. Just prior to the 2019 election, the Canadian government proudly announced that young people coming to study in Canada spent approximately $21.6 billion on tuition, housing and other costs in 2018, and that their presence had supported nearly 170,000 jobs for Canadians in 2016. It concluded that this spending had a greater impact on the Canadian economy than exports of auto parts, lumber or aircraft. Canada is hardly alone in seeking to attract foreign students. Australia has calculated that international education is its “largest service export, contributing $37.6 billion to the Australian economy last year and supporting 240,000 jobs.”¹⁵

Since there are not many bursary programs available to international students, many are dependent not only on family support but also on part-time and summer work. Moreover, the various immigration programs geared toward international graduates of Canadian universities require six months to a year of Canadian work experience on top of their diploma. They and their spouses are eligible for work permits for up to three years. Working under revocable visas makes them ripe for exploitation, especially given the strong family pressure to succeed in their studies, their work and their immigration applications.

In India, sending a young person to study abroad is often an important investment supported by the extended family. There are reports of marriage scams in India and China in which a family wanting their son to emigrate will offer to pay all expenses for a girl capable of passing the required English tests to marry the young man. The wife will pursue her studies in Canada while he works, sending home remittances to his family. Once permanent residence is acquired, the young people undertake the process of bringing family members to Canada through family reunification, even if the marriage is dissolved.

Through their work and that of their spouses, these students send money to their country of origin. India and China are the biggest recipients of such funds from around the world. Stories abound of their exploitation by employers, sometimes members of the same community, as a reliable source of low-paid labour. The exploitation of Indian students recruited into the trucking industry has been recorded several times. The example of this industry is also significant for jurisdictional reasons (see below).

Some (though fewer and fewer, it would seem) raise the “brain drain” ethical argument – that this rush to recruit foreign students, often from developing countries, deprives the poorer countries of needed educated population. According to Doug Todd, “Indian education officials, especially in the Punjab, are complaining about losing students to Canada.” There are allegations that “many of the foreign students are being exploited by unscrupulous immigration agents and English-language trainers in India, as well as by money-hungry colleges and universities, landlords and South Asian business owners in Canada.”¹⁶

When I raised this issue (in writing) with an expert in international education in Quebec, he replied,

Young people want to be educated abroad so that they can benefit from the training they feel is of higher quality than they could get at home. They want access to better-paying jobs that allow them to realize their full potential, which their home country is not necessarily able to provide. Forcing them to return home would have a major demobilization effect and would contribute to a drastic drop in the number of international students in Canada … International students from developing countries who choose to settle in Canada will continue to support their families back home through remittances. They will thus help their families to educate their children, support the start-up of a business or income-generating activities. Ultimately, they will have made a concrete contribution to the development of their country, even if on a small scale, something that they may not have been able to do by staying at home.¹⁷

Agencies and consulting firms offer recruitment services. Educational institutions often pay commissions for such services, but the students’ families are also often charged in return for a promise to secure permanent residence and citizenship for the family member sent abroad. The recruiters direct international students to programs and institutions most likely to meet immigration criteria. As Mark Stobbe describes in the accompanying article, this results in students in courses that don’t interest them in the slightest, doing the minimum to obtain the required diploma or certificate, which can make life miserable in the classroom. These recruiters have also been known to facilitate the production of false language tests or other types of fraud.

Other worrying situations have been reported. In Australia young Chinese students have been identified as acting as agents of their government to infiltrate sensitive scientific research projects, while some Chinese students in the United States have reported on compatriots who dare to criticize the Chinese government through participation in human rights activities or protests.

The jurisdictional tangle

While international education started out as – and thankfully largely remains – an academic and research initiative fostering cross-border sharing of knowledge and cultural experience, the trend in recent years toward an immigration-driven project has significant repercussions for public policy. Constitutionally, education is a provincial responsibility, foreign policy and citizenship are federal, and immigration is a shared responsibility. Both the provinces and the federal government intervene in matters of language and integration, not to mention the economy, security, employment and labour.

Hence there are multiple actors involved at each level of government. When the federal government made public its five-year international education strategy in August 2019, three ministers attended: the Minister of International Trade Diversification; the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour; and the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship. Other departments come into play as well, such as those responsible for security or finance.

At the provincial level, the departments involved are those responsible for education, immigration, immigrant integration, labour, employment and finance. In Quebec, the departments responsible for international affairs and the French Language Charter are involved as well.

It is difficult at the best of times to ensure interministerial collaboration on a single policy issue. In Quebec in late 2019, the Minister of Immigration decided to change the criteria of a program for foreign students designed to provide a fast track to a CSQ for foreign students. The changes would have restricted access and reduced the number of students eligible. The uproar was instantaneous from all sides – educational institutions, immigrant lobby groups and the students themselves. Internal divisions came to light when it became apparent that the minister had not thoroughly consulted his own cabinet colleagues, including the Minister of Higher Education. The government ended up scrapping the proposed changes within three days, and several months later brought out a modified version of the reform.

If interministerial collaboration is complex at one level, ensuring coherent policy decisions when both federal and provincial levels are involved is more than doubly complex. Indian-owned trucking companies in Canada provide a concrete example. If such a company is engaging in local hauling within a single province, provincial labour laws and protections apply; if it is doing interprovincial hauling, federal labour laws apply. How are the many students from India hired by these companies to understand their rights in such a morass of legislation?

To sum up: international education has become a major industry, far beyond its original educational, cultural and research objectives. So much so that governments have become more and more explicit in dangling the carrot of citizenship. The students so attracted are pawns more than beneficiaries.

But another Canadian policy stalwart, planned immigration, could also be losing out in the process. As we can see with regard to foreign students (and, as will be discussed in the second part of this article, with regard to temporary workers), the short-term needs of the universities and colleges and the marketplace are guiding the selection of these new immigrants, not a points system based on long-term social and economic priorities.

While you’re here, click to read Part 2 of How Immigration Really Works in Canada.

Continue reading “How Immigration Really Works in Canada” →

The political consequences of the coronavirus pandemic are easy to see in Quebec, notably with regard to the Parti Québécois leadership race that was officially launched on February 1, with results to be announced on June 19. Like so much else, plans had to be changed after the pandemic struck. But first, we need to set the stage.

Pre-crisis situation: A party trying to rebuild

The Parti Québécois came out of the October 1, 2018, election with 17.1 per cent of the popular vote, the lowest percentage in its history. With 10 seats in the National Assembly, it ended up behind the Liberals and tied with tthe more left-leaning sovereigntist Québec Solidaire (QS). However, it lost its status as second opposition party to QS because one PQ MNA quit the party shortly after the election to sit as an independent, leaving the PQ in last place in the National Assembly.

Both the PQ and the Quebec Liberal Party were hurt badly by the backlash against traditional parties and the turn toward more populist parties that has been witnessed in other Western democracies in recent years. The self-styled nationalist Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), headed by François Legault, picked up 74 of the 125 seats with 37.4 per cent of the vote. One explanation for the move of many PQ supporters to the CAQ and QS in 2018 lies in the dubious strategy adopted by PQ leader Jean-François Lisée on the national question: a promise to hold a referendum after 2022 once he was elected to a second term. As a result, many left-leaning sovereigntists, especially young people, switched to Québec Solidaire, which was able to win several seats outside its Montreal base. Simultaneously, with independence off the table, it was easy for many francophone nationalists who lean to the right to switch from the PQ to the “anti-establishment” CAQ headed by a popular former PQ cabinet minister. (Non-francophones didn’t trust Legault’s federalist stance and stuck with the Liberals.)

The PQ establishment realized that a serious renewal was called for if the PQ were to climb its way back up to serious party status again. Lisée resigned, an interim leader was named and the leadership race was postponed to allow time for a renewal process to take place. The reasoning was that as a result of this process the leadership candidates would be bound to the will of the party members. Whether that reasoning was sound remains to be seen.

So in the spring of 2019, a special policy convention was called for the fall of that year. The objective of the convention would be to adopt a new “Statement of Principles” and new statutes, restructuring the party. The process was also designed to rally support and reach out to new members. As it turned out, the mobilizing efforts were far from successful. The process got very little media coverage and, with so few ridings represented by PQ MNAs, no adequate organization was in place even to reach existing members effectively.

The convention nevertheless was held in November 2019 and a new Statement of Principles was adopted, as well as new statutes. The statement puts an emphasis on independence (the vocabulary has moved away from sovereignty), without proposing any timeline. The challenges addressed are the permanence of the French language, along with climate change, inequality and trust in democratic institutions.

It lays out in four paragraphs the fundamental values guiding the party:

• freedom – Quebec will only be free once its citizens are;
• justice and equity – the health of a society is measured by its level of well-being and quality of life;
• nationalism – defined by the PQ as a value of openness, inclusion and unity;
• protection of the inherited environment as an expression of Quebec’s identity.

At least one attempt to add a reference to social democracy to the statement was voted down.

The revised statutes create a new category of “sympathizers” (sympathisants). For $5, anyone can sign up to be a PQ sympathizer and vote for the new leader, without being a party member (party membership costs $10 and allows one to stand for office within the party and be an observer at party meetings that are not in camera). This “sympathizer” category would seem to be largely geared to filling party coffers, but it also makes the outcome of the leadership race more difficult to call for reasons which will be discussed later.

The Campaign Coordinating Committee set a spending limit of $125,000, including a nonrefundable $25,000 payment to the party to get on the leadership ballot. Only donations from individuals eligible to vote in Quebec are accepted, all must go through the office of the Chief Electoral Officer and the maximum individual donation allowed is $500 (in elections, the maximum donation allowed is $100). Finally, each candidate must gather 2,000 signatures of active PQ members from at least 50 ridings and nine regions. The original deadline for submission of applications – including the $25,000 and 2,000 signatures – was April 9, with the results of the vote (online or by phone) to be announced at a big event on June 19, just before Quebec’s national holiday (the Fête Nationale, still commonly referred to by its former name of La Saint-Jean) on June 24.

But it was not to be. The first COVID-19 case in Quebec was detected on February 28. Three weeks later, the deadline for the submission of nomination papers was pushed to April 30, and then it was suspended entirely. The collection of signatures and donations were suspended at the end of March. At the time of writing, announcement of the final vote was scheduled for August 28, which will allow the party to have a new leader before the fall session begins (virtually?) in September.

The ex-minister, the comedian and the others

With all attention focused on dealing with the effects of the virus, no one is much interested in the campaign among the six candidates. The party has had a very difficult time convincing a woman to run. The most obvious female contender, MNA Véronique Hivon, announced early on that she would not be in the race, and it wasn’t until the second week in March that Gloriane Blais announced her candidacy. Blais, however, is a complete unknown outside her Mégantic region, where she ran and lost four times. By mid-April, she had raised $175 according to the Chief Electoral Officer’s website.

One of the five male candidates, Laurent Vézina, is also an unknown, so the contest is among four white francophone men, all between 43 and 51 years of age, which doesn’t do a whole lot to project an image of change.

Sylvain Gaudreault is the only candidate with a long and solid history in the party. He is openly gay, married, an MNA from the Saguenay region for more than 13 years, and a respected former minister in Pauline Marois’s PQ government (2012–14). His website and – more importantly in this campaign so dependent on social media – his Facebook page present concrete proposals linked to coming out of the COVID-19 crisis. He clearly understands the tools of government. His proposal relies heavily on green infrastructure projects and a green economy, including transitional programs to train workers for the new types of jobs this will involve. He even proposes to negotiate full constitutional powers over the environment for Quebec.

He is inclusive in his approach to what it means to be a Quebecer and decidedly leans to the left of the political spectrum. He supports the idea of a referendum during the first mandate, while recognizing that it is an uphill battle. He has so far the public support of two current and three former PQ MNAs and, interestingly, that of Lucie Papineau, former MNA and riding president for Prévost where rival Paul St-Pierre Plamondon ran in 2018. While he is a competent and articulate speaker, as evidenced in his videos, and sets out his position well, his often acknowledged lack of charisma could be his biggest drawback, given that he is running against a professional stage performer (see below). He had raised over $42,000 by mid-April, perhaps a sign that his experience and party networks are working in his favour.

Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, at 43 the youngest of the candidates, has raised only slightly less money than Gaudreault. He is a lawyer who joined the PQ and started contributing to it financially in 2016, when he entered the leadership race after the resignation of Pierre-Karl Péladeau. While he sought to take advantage of his network as cofounder of Génération d’Idées, whose mission was to encourage young Quebecers to become politically and socially involved, his ambition to enter party politics did not go over especially well. After his results on the first ballot were in the single digits, he threw his support, such as it was, to Jean-François Lisée. This was enough to get Lisée over the finish line, and PSPP, as he is known, was rewarded with a contract to prepare a report on how to widen the party’s base, particularly among young people, but the recommendations were not very well received by a party composed largely of boomers.

PSPP notes that he has lived and studied in Sweden but avoids identifying Sweden as any kind of model, instead staying very safe in his positions: pro-environment, pro–equality for women, pro-independence – nothing that would allow him to be identified to the right or the left. His platform, which ignores the diversity dimension, targets suburban rather than urban voters. He proposes a referendum in his first mandate and lowering immigration levels by close to 30 per cent to protect the French language.

Frédéric Bastien, a historian who teaches at Montreal’s anglophone Dawson College, has little to say except on matters of identity politics. There are two pillars to his platform: constitutional confrontation and cutting immigration levels by half. A fervent defender of the secularism legislation adopted by the current Legault government, he has “outed” judges he feels are too biased in favour of multiculturalism to ensure they change their behaviour or recuse themselves from rendering decisions on the legislation. He does this by checking which organizations they have agreed to speak to publicly. His has gleefully filled his Facebook page with media stories about the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision not to hear an appeal to suspend the secularism legislation and about the problems Hasidic Jews are having with the pandemic.

On the question of a referendum on independence, unlike the other candidates he would wait for his second term. Note that when Lisée took this position in 2018, Bastien published a book severely criticizing Lisée’s campaign and complaining that Lisée had not listened to him. He has nevertheless gained a high profile, which probably explains why he has managed to raise $23,000, almost enough to cover the amount he will need to recover the deposit required to get on the ballot.

A significant complicating factor in the race is the entry of standup comic Guy Nantel, who joined the party in order to run. While the candidate the most in a hurry to have a referendum, to be held within two years of his being elected, he suggested in an interview with Le Devoir that it be on a form of sovereignty-association, a proposal effectively rejected by the party after the unsuccessful 1980 referendum on that question. In a book published in 2017, Nantel sets out a number of his political positions, from appealing to anglophones by declaring English a national minority language and adding an English symbol to the Quebec flag to a National Assembly made up of 200 MNAs – 100 elected on a purely proportional basis and another 100 picked lottery-style from a list of interested citizens. And, to his credit, he holds that immigration is a plus for Quebec. He devotes much effort to breaking down in lay terms the figures on equalization and other federal programs, to demonstrate that Canada gets more from Quebec than Quebec gets from Canada.

Much of Nantel’s humour is socially and politically based, but it is largely mockery, including of politicians and political parties in general. Aside from his standup shows, he has made quite a name doing short “person-on-the-street” videos for YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, designed to illustrate the low level of political and general knowledge of Quebecers. During the campaign, he has on an almost daily basis been producing six- to seven-minute videos on various subjects, including policies to put in place after the pandemic linked to energy or food self-sufficiency. Others, though, have mocked people he feels go overboard with social distancing.

Still, he cannot be discounted given his prominence – he has 80,000 Facebook fans – and the fact that he has some well-known party organizers behind him. While he had raised less than $15,000 by mid-April, he started at the top among respondents who identified as PQ voters in the only poll published so far (in mid-February) with 38 per cent, compared to 16 per cent for Gaudreault, 5 per cent for PSPP and 4 per cent for Bastien, with 36 per cent undecided.

But it is only PQ members and sympathizers who will be voting. In the context of Quebec’s having to deal with the pandemic and its consequences, could they prefer a comedian over the more sober and experienced Gaudreault? At this point the deadline for recruiting members and sympathizers for voting purposes is August 1. The campaign was officially paused at the end of March, and little recruiting is taking place – although it is possible to sign up on the party website. The wild card is whether Guy Nantel’s fans will actually go to the trouble of signing up as sympathizers.

The pandemic crisis and beyond

As noted, any messages the candidates are managing to get out are carried strictly on social media. None of the mainstream media are picking up on the campaign. So it will probably be some time before any more polling is done. With no party events, it became impossible to gather original signatures, so the party changed the rules to allow for scanned handwritten signatures. Then the process was suspended on March 30. As it stands, when the decision is taken to start up again, the candidates will be allowed to resume fundraising and will have three weeks to collect signatures. A preliminary voters’ list will be provided to the official candidates within five days, but all emails to the voters will be channelled through the party. The rules now allow for the two debates before August 20 to be held by video streaming, with voting to take place August 24 to 28.

Parties normally count on leadership campaigns to boost membership and finances and to whip up some enthusiasm through publicly attended debates and a rousing final announcement event with as many party members as possible squeezed into a limited space. But in the spring and, presumably, summer of 2020, attention is elsewhere. With the pandemic upending democratic processes in Quebec as elsewhere, how many will even bother to vote? It is hard not to wonder what difference it makes who the PQ leader is when the current Premier, like many other heads of government, has popularity ratings off the charts.

However, these popularity figures may well fall dramatically before the next election in 2022, when the economic fallout of the pandemic sinks in. Will the independence movement and its leaders be able to take advantage of the current drive toward self-sufficiency? Will they gain traction in reminding the population of how many important decisions were dependent on another level of government, or will it be the federalists who gain from pointing to the collaborative initiatives taken with the federal government and other provinces to get through the crisis? A lot will depend on how François Legault, himself a former PQ minister, chooses to present himself and his party in the runup to the 2022 election. Stay tuned.

Quebec has had its own immigration department for more than 50 years, and for almost as many years Quebecers have heard about special agreements between Quebec and Canada under which Quebec “controls” its immigration. It is only natural, it is assumed, that this “distinct society,” recognized as a nation by the Parliament of Canada, should be able to develop and implement the policies relating to the number and types of immigrants that it receives, for the benefit of both the new arrivals and their hosts.

But is this really the case? To what extent does Quebec in fact control its immigration? To answer this, we need to look at several aspects that underpin the processes whereby immigrants are selected and welcomed. Immigration is a complex reality, and distinctions need to be made between those who arrive to work permanently in Quebec, those who arrive as refugees, those who present themselves at the border and request asylum, those who are in Quebec temporarily for various reasons and those who come to join their family.

I start from the assumption that immigration policy for Quebec should strive to achieve the goals of a harmonious, fair and just, secure and healthy society, in which French, as the common language, contributes to a shared sense of belonging to a community whose members have well-defined rights and responsibilities. An overview of an integrated immigration policy covering all aspects of migration is provided in box 1.

The Quebec government controls relatively few aspects of such a comprehensive immigration policy. The Canadian government has exclusive control over duration, categories of permanent immigration, conditions relating to temporary immigration, entry, expulsions and citizenship. Except for Quebec’s “selection grid” for admitting skilled workers and integration services for newcomers, the policies and procedures of the two governments often overlap and can even be contradictory.

Legal Framework

The basis of jurisdiction in immigration matters in Canada is found in section 95 of the British North America Act of 1867:

In each Province the Legislature may make Laws in relation … to Immigration into the Province; and it is hereby declared that the Parliament of Canada may from Time to Time make Laws in relation … to Immigration into all or any of the Provinces; and any Law of the Legislature of a Province relative … to Immigration shall have effect in and for the Province as long and as far only as it is not repugnant to any Act of the Parliament of Canada.

It is clear then that both governments may legislate in matters of immigration, but all Quebec laws and regulations in this field must be consistent with all the laws of Canada. In addition, article 91 of the Canadian Constitution states that the Parliament of Canada is solely responsible for “Naturalization and Aliens” which gives it authority over citizenship and the “conditions for entering and remaining in Canada.”¹

The other key document setting out the specific roles of the two governments is the Canada-Quebec Accord Relating to Immigration and Temporary Admission of Aliens signed in February 1991. It specifies that the integration services offered by Quebec and financed by the Agreement must “correspond in their entirety to those offered by Canada in the rest of the country.” In addition, section 29 states that “nothing in this Accord shall be construed as restricting the right of Canada to provide services to Canadian citizens relating to multiculturalism or to promote the maintenance and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians.”

Permanent Immigration

Annual number of admissions: Planning for permanent immigration involves the two governments establishing on a multiyear and yearly basis the minimum and maximum number of immigrants to be admitted to their respective territories. Article 7 of the Canada-Quebec Accord stipulates that “Québec undertakes to pursue an immigration policy that has as an objective the reception by Québec of a percentage of the total number of immigrants received in Canada equal to the percentage of Québec’s population compared with the population of Canada.” According to article 5, Canada takes into consideration Quebec’s advice on the number of immigrants that it wishes to receive.

The numbers matter. If Quebec does not receive the number of immigrants corresponding to its share of the Canadian population, the proportion of its population in Canada will decrease. The population of Quebec determines the number of Quebec seats in Parliament and hence the influence of MPs from Quebec, and is a factor in the calculation of certain grants and transfers from Ottawa. So there is not only a legal but also a political and financial incentive for Quebec to maintain relatively high permanent immigration levels.

This being said, Quebec has never reached this threshold. Its admissions have always been 2 to 6 percentage points lower than its share of the population. In 2018, the population of Quebec was 22.7 per cent of that of Canada, but Quebec received barely 16 per cent of immigrants.² This is one of the explanations for the fact that Quebec’s share of the Canadian population has fallen from 27 per cent in 1976 to less than 23 per cent in 2018. To fulfill its election promise to lower the immigration threshold in 2019 to 40,000 people, admissions to Quebec under the CAQ government in 2019 will be around 12 per cent of Canadian admissions. The Canadian maximum is set at 350,000 and the Quebec maximum at 42,000.³ The number required for Quebec to reach its share of Canadian immigration in 2019 would be close to 80,000.

Categories: Applications for Canadian permanent immigration fall into several categories, the three main ones being economic, family reunification and humanitarian. The economic and humanitarian categories are broken down into subcategories. The humanitarian category includes those privately or collectively sponsored, government-assisted refugees selected abroad, and individuals who request asylum after arriving in the country. The economic category is composed of skilled workers and businesspeople. A few years ago, the government of Canada ended its Immigrant Investor Program, but maintained the subcategory, allowing Quebec to continue to accept applications under of its own Investor Program (box 2).

According to article 14 of the Canada-Quebec Agreement, “Canada has sole responsibility for the establishment of selection criteria for family class immigrants and Québec shall be responsible for the application of those criteria, if any, with respect to such immigrants destined to Québec.” The role of Quebec comes down to an assessment of the sponsor’s capacity to support the family member.

As for the humanitarian category, Canada defines refugee in accordance with its international obligations and the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. (Because of its provincial status, Quebec does not participate in the international forums which adopt these conventions and obligations.) Quebec reviews the undertakings of private group sponsors and signs funding agreements with organizations that help settle government-assisted refugees. As for those from abroad who claim refugee status once on Canadian soil, commonly called asylum seekers, article 20 of the agreement is very clear: “Where permanent resident status is granted to a person already in Québec who is recognized as a refugee, Québec’s consent shall not be required.”

Most of Quebec’s influence in the selection of newcomers is found in the economic category, and particularly the subcategory of skilled workers who are subject to the Quebec point system. The factors that make it feasible to accumulate points on the Quebec grid are similar to those found on the Canadian grid: training, work experience, age, language skills, prior stay or family in Quebec (a factor designed to gauge the potential of the candidate to adapt to Quebec society), and verified job offer.

Quebec establishes its grid according to its specific needs. Points awarded for training and experience are based on Quebec labour-market demand. Quebec gives more weight to French-language skills under the skilled workers subcategory, which makes it possible to ensure that overall admissions in general include a majority with a knowledge of French. Language skills are not a criterion in the family reunification or humanitarian categories.

Quebec selects individuals with characteristics that allow them to settle into and contribute to Quebec society fairly quickly with a minimum of government intervention. Typically they are well educated, have work experience, are trained in fields in demand in Quebec, are of working age and, often, have young children, which encourages long-term residence. They are therefore well placed to contribute to the ongoing development of Quebec, as well as to the sustainability of the French language.

The goal of the Quebec government is to ensure that a large majority of total admissions are in the economic category. However, Quebec does not entirely control the number of admissions in the categories controlled by the federal government. If Ottawa decides to undertake a blitz to process a backlog of requests for family reunification in Quebec or if, as a result of external pressures, it makes a commitment to welcoming a larger number of refugees or asylum seekers than originally planned, these increases will force a decrease in the proportion of admissions to the economic category so as to respect the total admission threshold established by Quebec.

The effects of this interconnection among the categories can be readily observed. In 2015, 66.6 per cent of admissions to Quebec were in the economic category; this share dropped to 57.1 per cent in 2018. The percentage of people admitted who had a knowledge of French was lower as a result. In 2014, 75 per cent of admissions in the skilled workers subcategory declared that they had French skills, so the percentage of francophones among all admissions reached 58.6 per cent. In 2018, the percentage of francophones among skilled workers declined to 65.4 per cent, but the percentage of admissions in the economic category also went down, resulting in an overall proportion of French speakers admitted that year of only 48 per cent.

Admission and arrival of immigrants: It is also important to look at what happens at the moment newcomers arrive in the country. How are they welcomed and informed about their rights and responsibilities and the government services available to them, as well as how to access them?

In other provinces, this service is typically offered by a local organization subsidized by the Canadian government at a counter space in international airports. In Quebec, there is a small, little-known team of Quebec officials that provides a reception service at Montreal’s Trudeau Airport. This team welcomes people who have obtained their permanent residence visa irrespective of category. It provides basic information on government services and even offers to set up appointments for integration services, enrolment in French-language courses offered by the Quebec immigration department and application for their health insurance card. It also updates the personal file of people already in the Quebec immigration ministry information system.

The Quebec government has recently announced the expansion of this service to include domestic flights (since many immigrants destined for Quebec arrive first at Vancouver or Toronto) and to assign an immigration agent to accompany the newcomer in his or her first steps towards integration. Expansion of this service will depend on signing an agreement with the relevant federal agencies, since airports are a federal responsibility.

Quebec’s limited resources do not allow this service to be offered at other airports or to those arriving by land, nor is it available to temporary workers. An effort is made to welcome foreign students, but given the mass arrivals in August it is usually offered in a group setting rather than individually. The result is that while every newcomer arriving in Canada interacts with the Canadian government at customs and immigration, where they receive their permanent or temporary visa and security clearance, the Quebec government is able to welcome on arrival only a minority of those coming to Quebec.

A word about administrative data: The first of the 23 goals of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 19, 2018 by 152 countries, reads as follows: “Collect and utilize accurate and disaggregated data as a basis for evidence-based policies.”⁴

The importance of such comprehensive and reliable data cannot be overstated. Depersonalized data are an invaluable source of information about the processing of requests (processing times, acceptances, refusals, application inventories, etc. ), the numbers admitted and their characteristics (status and category, age, occupation, mother tongue, country of birth and origin, gender, city of destination, city of residence five or ten years after arrival), employment rates of native-born Canadians and immigrants, the demand for skills and training, the language of work and study, and government, community and private resources available for the integration of newcomers.

In addition, nominalized data are important to be able to follow the progress of the immigrants after arrival. Through their email addresses the government can contact the newcomers with regard to their satisfaction with the services received and their needs and expectations, and to provide information on new services. All this information helps to improve planning for the number of people to select and the services required to meet their needs.

The British North America Act states in section 91 that the Census and Statistics are under the sole purview of the Canadian government. In addition, in matters of immigration, only the Canadian government can collect data on entries to the country and the characteristics and status of people crossing Canada’s international borders. With the exception of the data derived from requests processed by its immigration ministry, Quebec is dependent on Canada for all information on admissions. Except for those who stop at its counter at the Montreal airport, Quebec has no information on when people actually arrive, which makes it very difficult to reach many newcomers at the right time with the right information.

Integration

Knowledge of the common language is the main requirement for rapid and harmonious integration. In this area, messages from Canada and Quebec conflict. English and French are enshrined in the Canadian Constitution and reinforced by the federal Official Languages Act, while the Charter of the French Language declares French the only official language in Quebec. As specified in the Canada-Quebec Accord, in return for Canada withdrawing from offering socioeconomic and linguistic integration services in Quebec and offering equivalent financial compensation, Quebec must offer services that, when considered in their entirety, correspond to the services offered by Canada in the rest of the country. Moreover, as a result of their many contacts with the Canadian government, newcomers often assume that Quebec has two official languages.

Quebec has been trying for decades to define its own approach to social cohesion, which in many respects is at odds with Canada’s multicultural approach. The 2019 Act Respecting the Laicity of the State is only the most recent initiative in this regard. Multiculturalism was enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (article 27), but has never been accepted as suiting Quebec. Upon the announcement in 1971 of the new Canadian multiculturalism policy, Quebec’s Liberal Premier at the time, Robert Bourassa, wrote to Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau as follows:

Concerning the principle of multiculturalism, Quebec does not adopt the approach of your government. Indeed, it appears difficult to align this notion with the Quebec reality where there the predominant population group is linguistically and culturally French … If the federal government assumes overall obligations for all the other cultures to be found in Canada, Quebec must take within its own territory, the role of prime defender of the French language and culture.⁵

One of the most important tools in the arsenal of a nation-state to create a sense of belonging and loyalty among its immigrant population is naturalization. As every nation does, Canada reinforces the messages of its history and values in the naturalization process, including those of bilingualism and multiculturalism. Quebec offers socioeconomic and linguistic integration services, one aspect of which sets out Quebec values, but these services are voluntary, and Quebec does not have the power to make them mandatory. Given that it does not have the data and personal information needed to reach every immigrant, especially in the family and humanitarian categories or the temporary programs, it lacks the overall resources to effectively counteract messages from the Canadian government which do not jibe with its reality.

Temporary Immigration

Temporary immigration is under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Canadian government and covers a wide range of foreigners residing in Quebec. There are three general programs, the Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP), the International Student Program and the International Mobility Program (IMP).

The number of people in Quebec each year with temporary permits is far greater than those admitted as permanent residents. On December 31, 2017, there were 107,310 people with temporary status within Quebec’s borders – 61,565 as international students, 38,535 under the IMP and 7,210 under the TFWP.⁶ That same year 52,388 people were admitted to Quebec as permanent residents.

According to the Accord, for those in Quebec under the International Student Program (of which the number has been steadily rising since 2012) and the TFWP program, the Quebec government must consent to their admission to the territory. A process of validation of the requests gives rise to the issuance of a Certificat d’Acceptation du Québec. This process results in some, though limited, information being filed in the ministry’s information system. However, people who come through the IMP (more than 35 per cent of temporary workers in Quebec on December 31, 2017) do not need a work permit, in large part because of various international agreements signed by the Canadian government. Quebec has no say in these issues and therefore does not have its own data for them. In fact, a recent OECD report on the Canadian immigration system criticizes the fact that even the Canadian government has no useful data on the people in the country under the IMP program.

For several years, the Quebec government has made significant efforts to increase temporary immigration and to convince people with temporary status (workers or students) to apply for permanent status. A special program, the Programme de l’Expérience Québécoise (PEQ), based loosely on the federal government’s Canadian Experience Category, offers a fast track to permanent selection by Quebec for eligible applicants with temporary status. Applications under the PEQ are processed within a month, and must show proof of French-language skills. In recent years, the vast majority of people selected by Quebec have had a temporary status at the time of their selection. This has been an important goal of the ministry’s strategic plan.

It is not difficult to understand why the government would want to meet its permanent immigration goals with individuals who already have a job in Quebec or a diploma from a Quebec institution of higher education. Temporary immigration applications are processed faster than permanent ones by the Canadian and Quebec governments. Companies can potentially fill positions within a few weeks or months rather than the two or three years required to process permanent immigration applications. In addition, they cost little or nothing in integration or francization services because they are not eligible to receive these services as long as they have a temporary status. Recently, the government announced that certain services will be opened to some temporary workers, but details are sketchy.

There are some disadvantages to this, however. These individuals are not selected using the Quebec point system. They come into Quebec through Canadian government programs and, in the case of TFWP, on the basis of the ebb and flow of the short-term labour market. In this sense, it is effectively private enterprises that are selecting the foreign workers who can come to Quebec. People with temporary status do not need to know French to reside and work in Quebec. Moreover, as already mentioned, the Quebec government has little or no contact with them either on their arrival or afterwards to assist them in finding the services for which they may be eligible.

Another relevant consideration is that temporary immigrants who apply for permanent status in Quebec have been in the province for at least a year, often several years, and during that time, under the French Language Charter, they can enroll their children in English schools. The data reveals that this is a choice more and more of them are making. A recent study by the Office Québécois de la Langue Française presents figures on the numbers of francophones, anglophones and allophones in public preschool, primary and secondary education in Quebec. It shows that between 1990 and 2001, the percentage of children enrolled in the English public schools thanks to their temporary status was 4.8 per cent. This percentage more than doubled to 11.4 per cent for the cohort from 2002 to 2015.⁷

When these people are selected for permanent status by Québec, this special authorization is no longer available, but data have not been published on the number of exemptions offered by the Ministry of Education to enable these young people to continue their education in the English school system. It is also not known how many have graduated from high school before obtaining permanent status. Moreover, unless and until the issue comes before the courts again, these children pass their eligibility to enter Quebec’s English public-school system to their brothers, sisters and offspring.

Can Quebec Remain a Distinct Francophone Society?

Overall, Quebec’s control over immigration-related policies is not sufficient to ensure its position as a distinct francophone society. It is constrained by international agreements and treaties negotiated unilaterally by the Canadian government within the framework of an immigration system established by it. The Quebec government is unable to adequately receive and thus integrate all foreign nationals arriving on its territory with the powers and resources at its disposal. Much of the data essential to the planning and implementation of a comprehensive immigration policy are collected and controlled by the Canadian government. Finally, the message newcomers receive about Quebec’s historical, cultural, linguistic and economic specificity is blurred by their interactions with a bilingual Canadian government and its ideal of multicultural citizenship.

Is there sufficient room for improvement? Or are these limitations such as to pose the question of whether Quebec, as a province within the Canadian federal system, can hope in the long run to adequately integrate immigrants so as to remain a distinct francophone society?

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