Miller 'fed up with people always blaming immigrants' after Legault's housing comments

OTTAWA -

Federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said Tuesday that he was "fed up with people always blaming immigrants for absolutely everything," after Quebec Premier François Legault attributed "100 per cent of the housing problem" to the rising number of people arriving on a temporary basis.

Questioned on his way out of a cabinet meeting about Legault's comments, Miller was careful to direct his apparent exasperation at "people."

"The increase in mortgages, the price of mortgages, has nothing to do with immigrants," he said.

At the end of Monday's meeting in the Quebec capital with his federal counterpart, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Quebec's premier said he was "disappointed" despite "some progress."

"Mr. Legault, I think he came out grumbling," Miller said on Tuesday.

Ottawa has pledged to pay Quebec $750 million to compensate for receiving asylum seekers on its territory. Legault pointed out that he had asked for $1 billion.

Among other measures, the federal government also promised to process asylum seekers' files more quickly and to encourage their "voluntary relocation" to other Canadian provinces. Ottawa also said it wanted to remove "inadmissible foreign nationals" more quickly.

Quebec's premier keeps hammering home the point that there has been an "explosion" in the number of temporary immigrants settling in the province, and that this is putting a lot of pressure on public services and housing.

"One hundred per cent of the housing problem comes from the increase in the number of temporary immigrants," he said.

Legault pointed out that his government is demanding a 50 per cent reduction in the number of asylum seekers and temporary foreign workers from the International Mobility Program (IMP), two categories that fall under Ottawa's jurisdiction.

When asked about this percentage put forward by Quebec, Miller carefully avoided answering with any other proportion.

"What I certainly didn't want to do was mislead Quebecers and Canadians by setting targets that weren't based on reality," he said on Tuesday. "I have no reason to question what Mr. Legault wanted. I think he wanted concrete figures."

According to Miller, the few weeks of existence of the working committee examining the distribution of asylum seekers in the country are yielding "positive results" and he has "some confidence that we'll be able to put a plan before the public in early September."

- With files from Thomas Laberge

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on June 11, 2024.