‘Ottawa is creating an emergency’: Quebec minister on temporary immigration cuts
Global News
Immigration Minister Jean-François Roberge said Ottawa’s new restrictions on temporary foreign workers have left businesses facing severe labour shortages.
After years of urging Ottawa to reduce the number of non-permanent residents in the province, Quebec is now saying the federal government has gone too far.
On Thursday, Immigration Minister Jean-François Roberge said Ottawa’s latest measures to curb temporary immigration, particularly cuts to the temporary foreign worker program, have pushed many Quebec businesses into “deplorable” situations.
“Ottawa is creating an emergency,” Roberge told the media in Quebec City. “I don’t understand what they’re thinking.”
His comments mark a sharp shift in tone for Premier François Legault’s government, which has long argued that an influx of non-permanent residents was putting pressure on housing, healthcare and the French language.
But in recent months, Quebec business owners and industry groups have sounded the alarm about new federal limits on the temporary foreign worker program, warning they could have catastrophic consequences. Roberge echoed their concerns on Thursday, saying there’s a “crisis” in Quebec’s regions.
Roberge stressed that Quebec’s concerns have always been directed at asylum seekers and other categories under federal control — not at temporary foreign workers who fill labour shortages. “We don’t want businesses to close,” he said.
This comes as Roberge unveiled his immigration plan for the province on Thursday, which included lowering its immigration targets for the next four years to 45,000 new permanent residents annually. This marks a decrease from the 61,000 permanent immigrants who are expected in Quebec this year.
Roberge said he had previously considered cutting permanent immigration levels to as low as 25,000 people per year. But with Ottawa refusing to ease restrictions on temporary foreign workers, he said Quebec now has little choice but to offer permanent status to some of those workers rather than see them forced to leave.
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