Hearings on the CAQ’s controversial immigration reform bill were stalled Thursday as groups pulled out of the process and politicians accused each other of sabotage.

Bill 9 hearings were supposed to start right after Question Period, but instead, the room was mostly empty.

Two of the original groups decided not to take part in the hearings, leaving the government scrambling to replace them. With barely any notice, though, the ‘Plan B’ groups said no to the last-minute invitation, leaving opposition parties to accuse the CAQ of improvising and rushing to make their bill into law.

“They want to go very fast. They want to adopt their bill very fast, and that's a problem. They are going too fast. They are trying to walk over the opposition parties,” said Quebec Solidaire’s Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois.

Interim Liberal Leader Pierre Arcand blamed the CAQ for the structure of the hearings.

“The way they seem to be working when it comes to parliamentary commissions, they want most of the time to have people who will support their ideology,” he said.

Immigration Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette said that criticism is unfair, given that the Quebec Immigration Lawyers’ Association is on the list of groups chosen to speak. The group is taking the government to court starting Friday over its plans to scrap 18,000 immigration applications.

“They're suing the government, and I've accepted to hear them. So if I'm not open, I don't know what I am,” said Jolin-Barrette.

 

Hearings 'ludicrous' and 'a mess'

When none of the groups invited to speak during the first session showed up, there was confusion and frustration on all sides.

“It's a mess. It's a major problem,” said Nadeau-Dubois, as the PQ’s Pascal Berube called it ‘ludicrous.’

Even Jolin-Barrette was displeased.

“I'm not happy, I'm really not happy,” he said.

Even though no groups were there, MNAs were still required to make opening statements.

“It's going to last four minutes, and after four minutes we're going to have to have to delay the work, simply because people are not showing up, because they were invited too late. I don't think it's acceptable,” said Liberal immigration critic Dominique Anglade.

The first groups finally showed up when the hearing resumed mid-afternoon, but the rocky start is raising questions about the entire process.