The PLQ wants a ministerial office to better plan immigration

Photo: Karoline Boucher The Canadian Press The PLQ and its interim leader, Marc Tanguay, are proposing that “specialized staff” from a series of ministries be directly assigned to the formation of this office. The goal: “to stop working in silos.” ​​

The Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ) wants government officials to propose immigration targets now that Quebec’s “integration capacity” has, according to it, been reached.

To “regain control of immigration,” the Legault government would benefit from setting up an “integrated planning office” within the Ministry of Immigration, Francisation and Integration, proposed interim Liberal leader Marc Tanguay on Tuesday, two weeks before the start of the parliamentary session.

“[Prime Minister] François Legault, in 2018, remember when he told us: ‘take less to take care of it.’ Well, he lied to us twice. He didn’t take less and didn’t take care of it,” he said at a press conference in Quebec City.

“When we talk about planning, what does that mean?? It’s about determining what the needs of Quebec, of Quebec society, are in three years, five years, ten years,” added Liberal immigration critic André A. Morin.

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This office, which would report directly to the minister in office, would have the objective of determining Quebec's reception capacity, in addition to acting as an advisor in setting multi-year immigration objectives — permanent or not. It would also have the mandate to collect and make public all relevant statistics on newcomers to Quebec.

The PLQ is proposing that “specialized staff” from a series of ministries, such as Housing, Employment, Economy and Education, be directly assigned to the formation of this entity. The goal: “to stop working in silos.”

“It is by doing things this way […] that we can claim to regain control of necessary immigration,” Mr. Tanguay argued on Tuesday.

After telling his caucus in January that Quebec would have “no choice” to welcome more immigrants in the coming years, the interim leader of the first opposition group agreed on Tuesday that Quebec’s reception capacity had now been exceeded. “We recognize that there is a loss of control over our ability to integrate,” he said in an exchange in English.

The interim Liberal leader expects immigration to continue to make headlines in the coming weeks, when parliamentary activity resumes in Quebec City. In June, a few days after the National Assembly began its summer recess, Premier François Legault expressed a desire to halve the number of temporary immigrants currently housed in Quebec.

According to the latest count, there are almost 600,000. In recent days, both Quebec City and Ottawa have announced their intention to reduce the use of low-wage temporary workers.