Quebecers split by region on immigration: Jedwab
As politicians spar over whether a woman in a hijab can be a police officer, details from a Léger poll reveal a deep divide between multicultural Montreal and the rest of Quebec on immigration.
“There’s a Montreal vs. Quebec divide. There’s also a divide in Montreal between francophones and non-francophones,” said Jack Jedwab, executive director of the Association for Canadian Studies.
Last week, a Léger poll for the LCN television network showed the Coalition Avenir Québec is ahead in voter intentions with 34 per cent, compared with 29 per cent for the Liberals, 21 per cent for the Parti Québécois and nine per cent for Québec solidaire.
It also showed Quebecers are split on immigration, with 44 per cent saying it should be curbed, while 38 per cent want to keep it
at the current level and 15 per cent would like to increase it.
Jedwab analyzed the results by region, language, political affiliation and education. They reveal sharp differences in attitudes toward immigration between Montreal and the rest of the province, and between francophones and non-francophones — even in the Montreal area.
In Greater Montreal, with 4.1 million residents from St-Jérôme to St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, 39 per cent of respondents want to reduce or eliminate immigration, while 41 per cent want to maintain current levels and 18 per cent want to increase it.
In contrast, 58 per cent of respondents in central Quebec — the region most opposed to immigration — say it should be reduced or eliminated.
One in five residents of central Quebec say the province should stop admitting immigrants altogether.
“Opposition is being driven in places where there are very few immigrants,” Jedwab said.
Those who say immigration should be reduced or eliminated make up 48 per cent of respondents in western Quebec, 46 per cent in eastern Quebec and 43 per cent in Quebec City.
That is despite a shortage of workers in those regions, according to employers who are reaching out to immigrants to fill openings, now that Quebec has one of the lowest unemployment rates in Canada.
The poll also reveals differing views among francophones and non-francophones on immigration, including in Montreal, Jedwab noted.
Almost half of francophones across Quebec (49 per cent) want immigration to be reduced or stopped, compared with 27 per cent of non-francophones.
Only 12 per cent of francophones want to increase immigration, while 26 per cent of non-francophones want to do so.
Thirty-six per cent of francophones think current immigration levels should be maintained, while 42 per cent of non-francophones think that.
Jedwab observed that even in Greater Montreal, 46 per cent of francophones think immigration should be reduced or eliminated, compared with only 28 per cent of non-francophones.
Twenty-nine per cent of francophones in Greater Montreal want to reduce immigration, while 16 per cent of Montreal francophones — almost one in six — think Quebec should entirely stop admitting immigrants.
Only 20 per cent of non-francophones in Greater Montreal think immigration should be reduced, while eight per cent say it should be stopped completely.
Quebec admitted 53,084 immigrants in 2016, a few thousand more than planned because of the influx of Syrian refugees that year. Nearly 85 per cent settled in Montreal, Laval and on the South Shore.
There is a close connection between opposition to immigration and resistance to allowing religious garb like the hijab, a head scarf worn by some Muslim women, Jedwab noted.
“The more you are concerned over immigration, the more you are very reluctant to support religious signs,” he said.
TURBAN OR HIJAB
A comment by Mayor Valérie Plante two weeks ago that she was “very open” to letting Montreal police officers wear religious garb such as a turban or hijab touched off a firestorm in the National Assembly.
Measures to promote diversity in the police force and other municipal jobs are “a sign of the times,” Plante said in response to a proposal by Snowdon councillor Marvin Rotrand that officers in the Montreal force be allowed to wear religious garments.
Last month, Plante set up a panel to promote diversity in municipal services.
On Tuesday, the city’s Public Security Committee will hold a meeting on how to promote diversity within the fire department, where there are only 29 women and 24 members of visible minorities among the 2,360 firefighters.
But provincial opposition parties slammed the idea of allowing police officers to wear religious symbols last week, after Premier Philippe Couillard came to the defence of Sondos Lamrhari, 17, a police technology student at Collège Ahuntsic who wants to become a police officer and still wear a hijab.
Couillard was responding to Parti Québécois secularism critic Agnès Maltais, who said that under a PQ government Lamrhari would have to give up her hijab or go work for the RCMP, which accepts such garb.
“A police car is not a house of worship,” agreed CAQ secularism critic Nathalie Roy, whose party has promised to ban religious garb for authority figures including police.
The poll shows a strong correlation between support for the CAQ and the PQ and opposition to immigration, Jedwab said.
People with less education are also most likely to support a reduction in immigration. Among those with only an elementary or high school education, 59 per cent want curbs on immigration, compared with 27 per cent of university graduates.
One-quarter of people with only an elementary or high school education want to completely stop admitting immigrants, compared with four per cent of university grads.
The more you are concerned over immigration, the more you are very reluctant to support religious signs.