Legault presses on with plan for immigration
Quebec facing ongoing skills shortage
Quebec Premier François Legault will push forward with plans to seek more power from Ottawa over the selection of immigrants, dismissing concerns that reducing the flow of overseas workers will exacerbate the province’s already severe skills shortage.
The newly elected premier, who has pledged to temporarily cut Quebec’s immigration quota by 20 per cent to 40,000, said he has directed his Employment Minister Jean Boulet to identify the labour needs of each region in the province “company by company.”
“We really have a problem in choosing immigration,” said Legault in an interview following meetings with Ontario Premier Doug Ford in Toronto. “We will choose them based on skills ... Sometimes its welders, sometimes engineers, but I want to focus on the needs of companies.”
The CAQ , a party founded by Legault just seven years ago, swept to power in early October after 15 years of mostly Liberal rule. It has inherited an economy with 5.2 per cent unemployment, the lowest in decades, strong business confidence and GDP growth of three per cent in 2017. A program of debt reduction and unpopular social services cuts by the previous Liberal government has put public finances in order, turning years of deficits into surpluses.
“If you are Legault you have a situation that is the envy of every other province,” said Sebastien Lavoie, chief economist at Laurentian Bank Securities in Montreal.
Nevertheless, Legault believes the province still has some distance to go before reaching its full potential. A founder and former executive at Air Transat, he has promised to be the “economic Premier” boosting growth in business investment and exports.
Central to Legault’s plans for the Quebec economy is a goal to double non-residential private investment to $60 billion annually, in part by taking a more aggressive approach at Investissement Quebec, the arm of the Quebec government charged with attracting provincial and international business dollars. He’ll also attempt to move the needle on an average household income level that is among the lowest of all the provinces by seeking to shift the mix of employment in Quebec to higher wage jobs.
“The challenge is not to create jobs or decrease the unemployment rate,” he said. “It’s really to increase the number of jobs at $30, $40 an hour. That’s what we don’t have enough of. Manufacturing, artificial intelligence, IT, those sectors you have a value added.”
But in chasing more investment, Legault will run into a central challenge facing the province, analysts say. Indeed, Quebec’s aging population, low birth rate and high employment rate, means its growth is increasingly dependent on skilled workers from overseas.
“The challenge is that growth is now limited by the lack of available labour,” said Avery Shenfeld, chief economist at CIBC capital Markets. “To see a growth pickup, we will either need more immigration or enhanced productivity growth to raise output per worker. The latter isn’t easy for a government to influence much.”
Much of Quebec’s economic strength comes down to immigration, which has fuelled investment, rising home prices and more, said Lavoie.
“Part of the reason for Investissement Quebec is to grow new sectors and businesses to replace old fading sectors,” he said. “From a public policy standpoint that’s a good thing. But those businesses need skilled workers.”