Montreal Gazette

Parti Québécois won’t commit to numbers on immigratio­n levels

Meanwhile, six mayors say immigrants are needed to address labour shortages

- CHRISTOPHE­R CURTIS ccurtis@postmedia.com twitter.com/titocurtis

QUEBEC CITY An increasing­ly bitter debate over immigratio­n has forced party leaders to take a stand on the issue of who gets to call themselves a Quebecer.

But while the Coalition Avenir Québec and Liberals clearly spelled out their positions at Thursday’s debate, the Parti Québécois still won’t commit to how many people it would allow in the province each year.

The front-running CAQ leader is calling for an overhaul of the current system.

François Legault wants to impose a kind of loyalty test and cut immigratio­n levels by 25 per cent at a time when the province is facing its worst labour shortage in years.

If, after taking French courses for three years, an immigrant doesn’t have a good enough mastery of the language, Legault’s government would not grant a selection certificat­e from Quebec and “make them illegal.”

“It’s not as though we’d be expelling citizens,” he said, during Thursday’s debate.

Liberal Leader Philippe Couillard wants to continue letting in around 53,000 immigrants each year but also make sure they take “francizati­on” classes to integrate.

That program costs roughly $75 million a year and a recent study, by Quebec’s auditor general, found that fewer than 10 per cent of those who take it wind up with a functional level of French.

Which leaves us with PQ Leader Jean-François Lisée, who is glad to pick his opponents’ plans apart but ducked and weaved his way out of specifics during a press conference Friday.

“I will let the auditor general set (immigratio­n) levels and that will be my guideline,” he said. “I’m not going to speculate about what that number would be.”

In pre-election interviews, Lisée had suggested his ideal number is somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 immigrants — potentiall­y lower than the CAQ’s quotas.

But on Thursday he disavowed his previous estimates. Instead, the PQ leader says he wants prospectiv­e immigrants to come to Quebec with a working knowledge of the French language. If the person takes a French course and passes it, Lisée said a PQ government would reimburse them.

“If you arrive and you have no knowledge, the learning curve is steep,” said Lisée. “Their children will go to school in French and they’ll learn it. We know that. But they won’t be able to help with homework and that’s sad.

“So if they take a course for six months, then pass and come here ... they’ll make a success of it.”

It’s unclear how many immigrants would come to the province each year under this criteria but the United Kingdom and Holland have similar programs in place.

“There are more people who speak French, as a second language, in the U.K. than in the rest of Canada, said Lisée. “I’m telling you this can work! There are 270 million people who speak French as a first, second or third language in the world.”

“There are one million Asians, as we speak, taking French courses in the Alliance Française . ... We’re not asking for full proficienc­y here.”

The Montreal Gazette interviewe­d six mayors from across the province Friday at an assembly of Quebec municipali­ties. Each of them said they needed immigrant workers in their cities.

“We won’t get into numbers — that’s not our job — but there isn’t one mayor here who’ll tell you they don’t want immigratio­n,” an adviser to Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante said.

The immigratio­n question has also opened the door to the conversati­on about “Quebec values” and secularism — which appears to be aimed primarily at immigrants from Muslim majority countries.

Legault says he wants immigrants to pass a values test after they’ve been in Quebec for three years. If they don’t, he’d effectivel­y hand their file over to Ottawa and allow the federal government to deport them.

Lisée said he’d sooner have them sign a declaratio­n about “secularism, the equality between men and women and democracy.”

The CAQ leader’s comments on immigratio­n have earned him praise from the far-right group La Meute — whose members frequently rant about the “Islamifica­tion” of Quebec. Legault called the group “borderline racist” and Lisée said he doesn’t want to give them any attention and refuses to answer questions on La Meute.

But he did accuse the CAQ leader of fearmonger­ing on the issue.

“Yes, Mr. Legault is scaring (immigrants),” he said. “He realized his mistake last night after the debate and spent all day today plugging that hole in his campaign ... justifying himself.”

 ?? JACQUES BOISSINOT/THE CANADIAN PRESS ?? Parti Québécois Leader Jean-François Lisée says he wants newcomers to Quebec to have a working knowledge of French. He says a PQ government would reimburse immigrants for successful­ly completing French-language courses.
JACQUES BOISSINOT/THE CANADIAN PRESS Parti Québécois Leader Jean-François Lisée says he wants newcomers to Quebec to have a working knowledge of French. He says a PQ government would reimburse immigrants for successful­ly completing French-language courses.

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