Quebec's immigration plan is “incomplete” and ironic, believes Marc Miller

Photo: Sean Kilpatrick The Canadian Press Marc Miller said that the freeze decreed by Jean-François Roberge on permanent immigration “does not help the potential reduction of temporary residents”.

Émilie Bergeron – The Canadian Press in Ottawa

Published at 3:54 p.m. Updated at 6:00 p.m.

• Canada

Federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller believes that the freeze announced by his Quebec counterpart, Jean-François Roberge, on two programs providing access to permanent residency is an “incomplete” plan and he believes that Quebec is not taking its share of responsibility for targeting people arriving on a temporary basis.

“There is a kind of refusal in Quebec to accept that they have this jurisdiction in their own backyard. There is a certain irony in demanding full immigration capacity and denying that they already have 50%,” he declared Thursday in the foyer of the House of Commons.

Mr. Miller said that the freeze decreed by Mr. Roberge on permanent immigration “does not help in any way the potential reduction of temporary residents.” The federal minister suggested that Quebec may have issued too many selection certificates in the two programs targeted by Thursday's announcement and now wants to tackle its backlog.

“The people who are there drying out, they're going to have to remain temporary residents in the meantime,” Miller said.

In 2024, the total number of new permanent residents in Quebec is expected to be between 52,000 and 56,000. This will increase in 2025, to 66,500 people.

It is mainly in the category of skilled workers selected under the Quebec Experience Program (PEQ) Quebec Graduates component that the ceiling is increasing considerably. It will increase from 3,800 in 2024 to a range of between 13,500 and 15,000 in 2025.

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To curb this increase, Mr. Roberge announced that he would freeze until next June the PEQ graduate component and the Regular Skilled Worker Program (PRTQ), two programs that allow people to obtain permanent residence.

According to Mr. Miller, candidates for permanent residence who will encounter the freeze in Quebec would make good French-speaking immigrants in the rest of Canada.

“There is room for them. We have an important duty in Canada to ensure that Francophone communities outside Quebec can flourish,” he maintained.

Minister Roberge indicated that François Legault’s government would take temporary immigration into account, in addition to permanent immigration, in its next multi-year planning.

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The case of temporary immigrants

Mr. Miller prides himself on having already done this exercise. The announcement he made last week on immigration thresholds includes targets for permanent residents, but also for certain temporary immigrants, namely foreign students and temporary foreign workers.

Ottawa therefore plans to reduce the number of non-permanent residents by 445,901 people in 2025. Then, the expected decrease is 445,662 in 2026. An increase of 17,439 people is then planned for 2027.

These reduction targets in 2025 and 2026 exclude asylum seekers who are waiting to find out whether or not they will be granted refugee status. These people are also part of the temporary immigrants.

Statistics Canada estimates that there are about 600,000 non-permanent residents in Quebec, but the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB), which uses a less broad definition and a different methodology, counted 388,959 last summer, Mr. Miller's team said.

Temporary immigration has been growing rapidly across the country since 2022.

As a first measure to tackle this influx, Quebec announced a six-month suspension of the temporary foreign worker program for low-wage jobs in Montreal. A few weeks ago, Minister Roberge also tabled a bill to reduce the number of foreign students, without however proposing a target.

Although immigration is a shared jurisdiction between Quebec and Ottawa, the Legault government believes that the federal government has the upper hand in making a difference.

For months, Quebec has been asking Ottawa to reduce the number of temporary immigrants by 50%. Quebec Premier François Legault was disappointed with the new targets announced by the federal government last week.

With information from Patrice Bergeron in Quebec City