Quebec disagrees with Canada's plan to welcome more immigrants

The Canadian government is constantly increasing the number of immigrants, but not all provinces like it. On November 1, the Immigration Levels Plan was released, according to which Canada will accept 465,000 immigrants in 2023, rising to 500,000 in 2025.

The province of Quebec is the only one in Canada that has its own immigration system and publishes its immigration plans separately from the federal ones. Quebec can accept up to 23% of newcomers from the target set by the federal government. So if Canada aims to admit 500,000 immigrants a year, Quebec can set a target of 115,000.

But such numbers seem too high to the Quebec government. Quebec Premier François Legault believes that the province cannot accept more than 50,000 immigrants a year, otherwise, in his opinion, immigration would negatively affect the French language, which the provincial government actively promotes.

"Already at 50,000 [newcomers] it is difficult to stop the decline of French," said François Legault.

Quebec Immigration Minister Christine Fréchette also insists that 50,000 immigrants a year is the maximum for the province, and wants to make the most of available opportunities to preserve the French language and attract the French-speaking population. Fréchette also believes that accepting more immigrants would create housing problems and make it harder to teach newcomers French.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau disagrees and says that Quebec has an opportunity to raise its bar for admitting immigrants and that it is necessary to continue to fill jobs in all provinces to grow the economy. According to Trudeau, business owners in Quebec are constantly complaining about labour shortages. The federal government sees immigration as the solution to this problem.

Nevertheless, it seems that Quebec authorities are determined to stand their ground, and there will be no increase in the immigration plan. Quebec has already welcomed more than 45,000 immigrants this year.