The labour shortage has become Quebec's main economic problem, and it's a phenomenon that will only get worse -- and which the Legault government doesn't seem to be following closely, said the former Liberal finance minister, MNA Carlos Leitao.

Leitao is calling for a much more muscular, very short-term approach, a "detailed and coherent plan" of mitigation measures aimed at countering the effects of this scarcity.

The impact of the problem can only hurt the province's economic development in the coming decade, he warned.

"We are heading towards an extremely problematic situation," he predicted in a telephone interview on Thursday, based in particular on the most recent Statistics Canada census data made public the day before.

It showed that in Quebec, 20 per cent of the population is now aged 65 and over.

Despite the evidence, the business community's cries for help and the unemployment rate -- at an extreme low -- he said Premier François Legault persists in talking about job creation.

Until recently, "the government did not see it as something of concern," he said, referring to the labour shortage. 

Nowadays, he said, the challenge is no longer to "create jobs," but to find people to fill them.

First at a press briefing on Thursday morning, then during question period in the National Assembly, the MNA for Robert-Baldwin urged the government to double down on labour recruitment by all possible means to prevent the crisis from spiraling out of control.

In an interview, Leitao showed great concern for the future, keeping in mind the current age pyramid, which ensures that a large number of Quebec workers between the ages of 55 and 65 are preparing to leave the workforce.

The cohort of young people who will enter the labour market will be much too small, on the other hand, and will only be able to meet a fraction of future needs.

Quebec predicts that by 2030, there will be up to 1.4 million vacancies to fill.

While he recognizes the efforts made by current Minister of Labour Jean Boulet, who recently announced various programs in this area, Leitao said he believes "we must go much further than that and much faster than that."

 According to him, the government must have three priorities: the regions, women and immigration.

The economist and former banker is particularly worried about the regions, which risk losing some vitality for lack of personnel to grow their local economy. Several medium-sized cities, including Trois-Rivières and Saguenay, will face this kind of population decline, he predicts.

He also said the government has a flawed policy on child-care services that will ultimately deprive it of a valuable female workforce.

Thousands of women cannot return to the labour market because they have a baby at home and cannot find a place in daycare, he said.

Quebec must make every effort to quickly create the maximum number of places in child-care services, he said.

"We are facing an emergency, and in an emergency, we have to find places quickly," said the MNA. 

In terms of immigration, he criticizes the government for relying on temporary workers instead of encouraging newcomers to settle permanently in Quebec.

"It's nonsense," he said, instead counting himself among those who want to see the government bet "massively" on permanent immigration while raising immigration thresholds.

"How do you think that a person who arrives here with a two-year residence permit, how he will integrate if he knows when he leaves that in two years he will have to leave?" he asked.

"So, if we want immigration and if we want integration -- and we want integration -- it's not with temporary immigration that we're going to get there."

Quebec must also find a formula that will encourage immigrants to settle more in the regions, he says -- a widely shared objective that all governments have struggled with in the past.

Finally, Leitao maintains that the government must focus more on the tax incentives paid to experienced workers to convince them to delay the retirement age. It takes "more audacity, more vision," he says, on the tax front, to achieve real results.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on April 28, 2022.