Achi news desk-
The latest spat between Quebec and Ottawa over immigration is based on politics and not the reality of the labor market, the head of a major employers’ group says.
“In some ways, it’s pathetic,” said Karl Blackburn, president and CEO of the Conseil du patronat du Québec.
His comments come as Quebec Premier François Legault threatened to hold a “referendum” on immigration if the federal government does not take swift action to stem the growing number of temporary immigrants, which include foreign workers, international students and refugee claimants.
“The majority of Quebecers think 560,000 temporary immigrants is too many,” Legault said last week. “It hurts our health care system. We don’t have enough teachers, we don’t have enough houses.”
Provincial Immigration Minister Christine Fréchette said the province’s demands include stronger French-language requirements in immigration programs managed by the federal government and a reduction in the number of asylum seekers and temporary workers.
While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rejected the province’s request for full control over immigration – a responsibility currently shared – Legault said in March that his federal counterpart had shown openness to some of the province’s demands, and agreed to him on the need to reduce temporary immigrants.
Businesses affected by visa cuts
Blackburn, however, disagrees that there are too many temporary workers, who he said are “working in our businesses producing goods and services.” Their numbers, he added, reflect the needs of the labor market and an aging society.
He said he supports the Legault government’s call to reduce the number of asylum seekers in the province because Quebec has received a disproportionate share in recent years. But he denounced the federal government’s “improvisational” decision to suddenly reissue visas to some Mexican nationals earlier this year, a measure Quebec had pushed for as a way to reduce asylum claims.
He said that was already having “direct effects” on businesses by limiting their ability to bring in workers. Any subsequent measures to reduce the number of temporary workers will further hurt Quebec’s economy as well as consumers who will no longer have access to the same goods and services, he said.
“It is as if our governments have deliberately agreed to cause companies to lose contracts for reasons of political partisanship and not based on economic growth, which is nonsensical in a way,” said Blackburn.
Politicians unfairly blame immigrants for the shortage of housing, daycare places and teachers, and the real problem is the government’s failure to invest in those areas, he added.
The long-standing debate between Quebec and Ottawa has flared up in recent months. Earlier this year, the premier wrote to Trudeau about the influx of asylum seekers entering Quebec, which has hosted more than 65,000 of the 144,000 potential refugees who came to Canada last year.
Quebec has demanded that Ottawa reimburse the province $1 billion – the amount Quebec says it has cost to care for asylum seekers over the past three years.
Federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said this week that no country would ever relinquish total control over immigration. But he said he and his provincial counterpart were having good discussions and agreed on many issues, including limiting visas for Mexicans and protecting the French.
While Legault blamed the federal government for the “explosive” number of newcomers, the director of a research institute and co-author of a recent study on temporary immigrants says Ottawa and Quebec have introduced measures in recent years to facilitate their arrival .
Multiple factors are driving the surge in immigration
Emna Braham says the surge in temporary immigrants is the result of a combination of factors, including a tight labor market, post-secondary institutions recruiting internationally, and programs from Ottawa and Quebec to allow companies to bring in more workers .
He said numbers have now climbed higher than either level of government expected, likely because temporary immigration is administered through a series of separate programs.
“We had a set of measures that could be justified individually, but it was not reflected what the cumulative effect of all these measures will be on the flow of immigrants that Quebec and Canada receive,” he said in a telephone interview.
Braham and Blackburn both point out that the high number of temporary workers in Quebec is also a result of the province’s decision to cap the number of new permanent residents it accepts each year at around 50,000, creating a backlog of people who n waiting for permanent status.
“If the Quebec government had set its thresholds at the level they should be to meet the needs of the labor market, we would not be in this situation where [there] is a significant increase in temporary workers,” said Blackburn.
Braham said the moment is right for states and the federal government to develop a coordinated approach to immigration, and ensure a system is put in place to ensure long-term and short-term needs are met.
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