Quebec solidaire believes that 500,000 temporary immigrants is far too many

Current co-leader Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, right, and newly elect Émilise Lessard-Therrien are seen on stage following Lessard-Therrien's election victory as the new co-spokesperson of the Quebec Solidaire party at their convention in Gatineau, Que. on Sunday, Nov.26, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby

Quebec solidaire (QS) co-leader Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois is adamant that 500,000 temporary immigrants to Quebec are far too many, but he refuses to say what an acceptable number would be, preferring to leave it to an eventual assessment by a committee of experts.

At the opening of the Quebec solidaire pre-sessional caucus in Laval on Thursday morning, the QS parliamentary leader acknowledged that the explosion in the number of temporary immigrants in recent years is putting pressure on public services and the housing crisis, but he reiterated that it is not the cause.

The crisis, he says, has been in the making for a decade and is entirely attributable to government inaction.

While he agrees with Premier François Legault that Quebec takes in more than its fair share of asylum seekers and that the rest of Canada should take in more, he points out that it is Quebec that controls temporary immigration of students and workers. The current situation is a clear demonstration that the model is not working.

"Temporary immigration is a bad model for immigrants because it is synonymous with insecurity," he said.

Privatized immigration

Temporary workers, he says, don't just pick strawberries in the fields; they also work in retirement homes and in industry. Quebec, he says, needs these workers, but not with temporary status, and we need to think in depth rather than just looking at the figures.

"Do we want privatized immigration, where companies bring in people from outside to work on temporary status, according to their immediate needs?" he asked. "Or do we want permanent, regionalized, francized immigration that integrates into Quebec society? I don't want us to let ourselves be blinded by the debate about numbers. We also need to debate the model."

However, moving in this direction necessarily means tackling the thresholds for permanent immigration, a threshold that Quebec solidaire does not set in absolute terms, preferring to talk about a range of 60,000 to 80,000.

The party also criticized the Parti Québécois for proposing an unrealistic threshold of 35,000, while it accused the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) of talking about a threshold of 50,000 while ignoring the massive influx of temporary immigrants.

A regional caucus

The QS MNAs, who are meeting to prepare for the next parliamentary session, are also due to discuss the high cost of living, particularly with regard to food, housing and mortgages. One of his proposals to ease this burden is to repatriate to Quebec and improve the federal dental care program, since health is an exclusive jurisdiction of Quebec.

Nadeau-Dubois pointed out that one in five Quebecers goes without dental care because of the costs involved.

Alongside him, the party's new co-spokesperson, the former MNA for Rouyn-Noranda-Témiscamingue, Émilise Lessard-Therrien, announced the formation of a regional caucus, with each MNA responsible for a region.

She criticized the CAQ for neglecting the regions: "The CAQ operates with 'top gun' ministers. There are regional ministers whom we don't hear much from. I haven't heard them talk about the impact of the Dubé reform in their region. I haven't heard them talk about the impact of the Drainville reform (...) We want the Quebec solidaire MNAs to be able to relay that voice."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Jan. 25, 2024.