Protest held against Quebec program
A protest was held Saturday against changes in Quebec’s experience program for immigrants. This program has already been a hot potato that made the government backtrack on plans announced last fall. A new version was proposed in May, but this item doesn’t exactly get into the aspects still felt to be unfair. In Metro, there’s more of an explanation about the much longer waiting periods being required by Simon Jolin-Barrette’s newest vision of immigration.
David656 11:54 on 2020-06-28 Permalink
The system as it currently exists is possibly the easiest immigration path of any western country. Essentially, you graduate, you get three years of work permit with which you can work any job. During that time once you have a year of work experience in a certain professional category determined by the government to be in short supply, you apply and then Quebec nominates you (awarding something called the Quebec selection certificate) to the Canadians to be a permanent resident, and the Canadians always grant it, by special agreement. Three years after that, it’s citizenship.
This path is behind the huge jump in French we’ve seen over the past years – they paid Quebec resident tuition until very recently. Now they pay Canadian tuition, which is still much cheaper than international. And, of course, most of the people protesting are french.
The changes would lengthen the number of years until permanent residence.
The French (and others) are incensed because under the proposed changes, their post graduate work permit time would expire before they could meet the minimum requirements for the selection certificate. This would mean they’d need to find some other bridge visa status until they meet the minimum requirements, likely employer sponsorship. Challenging, and only the most in demand people would get that.
The net effect will be to reduce the number of students who can stay.
Personally, I think this is dumb. It’ll reduce the number of French, which would make the city less annoying, but these educated types are precisely the ones we want. Especially when we’re talking about 2nd and 3rd cycle graduates. Also, there should be carve outs for STEM like the Americans and others have.
Quebec can’t control family immigration, unfortunately, so they’re stuck tinkering with this, where there’s no real problem, unless you’re legislating for the plateau.
david656 12:09 on 2020-06-28 Permalink
Ah, cool, hadn’t read that Metro article. It seems the government made just the changes I want, namely, a carve out for professionals:
Ils demandent notamment l’annulation des prolongements d’années d’expérience de travail, de *l’exclusion des travailleurs de catégories C et D occupant des emplois peu ou non qualifiés,* de l’allongement du délai de traitement des demandes et de l’introduction d’exigences linguistiques pour les conjointes et conjoints du demandeur.
And this insanely entitled reaction (!):
«On discrimine des emplois, on discrimine des personnes, en fonction de leur statut, en fonction de leur métier pour accéder ou pas à la résidence permanente.», déclare Thibault Camara lors de sa prise de parole.
LOL! Yeah, of course Quebec would discriminate based on jobs. Immigration is based on the needs of the province, not your needs. We don’t need a bunch of semi-employed french working part time in cafes, who then become eligible for solidarity payments with their permanent residence. We want people who’ll actually contribute and grow the Quebec economy in some tangible way, and professional experience is the best metric for that in this context.
Still not a necessary law, but if the public wants action on immigration, I guess it does make sense to cut down on handing out permanent residence to a bunch of deadbeats.
Kate 12:12 on 2020-06-28 Permalink
david∞, has it not sunk in with you that it’s not the doctoral students and artificial intelligence researchers that have pulled our collective ass out of the Covid fire, but people with minimal educational qualifications yet a willingness to work – in many cases, doing work most Canadians are disinclined to do?
david656 12:18 on 2020-06-28 Permalink
This process and the changes these french are protesting concern the educated.
The immigrants in that cohort of “minimal educational qualifications yet a willingness to work” would have come in by family or asylum, or they’re just straight up illegals working under the table. For the most part, that’s all stuff the canucks manage, not Quebec.
J 13:21 on 2020-06-28 Permalink
Does the province not manage all immigration, illegal or not, minimally educated or not, in Quebec?
Kevin 09:37 on 2020-06-29 Permalink
J
Quebec has a non-exclusive path to immigrate into Canada.
Because once you are in the country you can go anywhere you want.
Kate 10:41 on 2020-06-29 Permalink
Kevin, I’ve wondered about that. Supposing someone immigrates to another province, then moves here. Can Quebec deny that person benefits if they don’t have a paper trail showing they were initially approved by Quebec?
david23 14:59 on 2020-06-29 Permalink
No, they can move to Quebec the day after “landing” in Ontario or one of the Atlantic provinces, wherever.
Here’s quick primer on how Canadian immigration works.
There’s a bunch of different “streams,” you have family-based, you can bring people in with certain job offers, there’s a NAFTA visa, all sorts. Then you have the points-based visas. Basically, you can get permanent residence by scoring high enough points in a pool, and points are awarded for a variety of factors. Education and professional experience are greatly valued in this scheme, and Canadian education and Canadian professional score significant bonuses (boni?). The entire point of this is to bring in workers to build the Canadian economy.
Within this scheme, provinces can award bonus points to candidates they nominate, with these nominations coming out of various provincially-administered programs that target workers in short supply, usually nurses, software engineers, etc. but really runs the gamut.
Quebec administers its version of this points based system for this same class of people – people coming in based on what they can offer the country. Quebec doesn’t control family based immigration, can’t deny asylum, can’t deport anyone, nothing.
And if a person is admitted to Canada, they can come to Quebec, and vice versa – this is a charter issue and a fundamental right of Canadians residents.
Obviously, people use the Canadian system to get to Quebec, so as to avoid the French requirements. And the Atlantic provinces can’t keep their people either. But probably the biggest controversy is that Quebec is allowed to run an economic investment program that’s greatly abused by foreign people of means. Essentially, people give an interest free loan to Quebec (I believe the amount is up to $1.2 million now), they’re approved for permanent residence, and they then decamp immediately to Vancouver or Toronto. It’s a backdoor that those places don’t appreciate too much.