2 weeks Ago By Hugo O’Doherty, Special to Montreal Gazette
Article content I have a confession: I was a temporary foreign worker in Quebec. Not only that, I was a triple-whammy fifth columnist: temporary, anglophone, working primarily in English in Montreal. Now, in a plan tabled Monday , the Parti Québécois proposes to fill some labour shortages with robots should it form the next government , as part of its aim to reduce the number of temporary foreign workers in Quebec to 40,000 from 270,000 and the overall number of non-permanent residents by at least half.
But anyone who thinks this is some progressive pivot to welcoming people permanently instead will be disappointed. The party proposes to slash permanent immigration to a level even lower than that under the incumbent caquistes : 35,000, less than 0.4 per cent of the population.
And the kicker? A moratorium on permanent economic immigration from outside Quebec. To compare, even after last week’s federal about-face on immigration , Canada’s annual permanent approvals will hover just short of one per cent of the national population. Fortunately, at least for me, post-temporary status I became a Canadian citizen.
Can’t catch me now! But when the possible government-in-waiting outflanks the actual government on disdain for immigrants, I reflect on all the would-be Quebecers who will not have the same opportunities I enjoyed to call this place their forever home. Because this place — Montreal, Quebec, Canada — is wonderful. Here’s just one example: Along the way I learned French, thanks in part to government-funded classes.
I pick up my bilingual child from $9.10-a-day daycare (this, as much as anything else, makes Quebec Québec ) and get the mise à jour on her progress before taking her to practise roulades at gym class. Immigrants and foreign workers are not the Trojan horse of de-francization, covertly distributed by a nefarious federal government bent on diluting Quebec.
For starters, that would give the feds too much credit. Odysseus they ain’t. And international students and temporary workers alike typically need to obtain a Certificat d’acceptation du Québec anyway.
Immigrants are Quebec’s next generation, or a good chunk of it. The fertility rate has plummeted to below 1.4, far short of the natural replacement rate of 2.
1. Sure, there’s a ramp-up to joining the Quebec club. Some might ask if a hockey game is divided into halves or quarters.
Despite their best efforts, some struggle with a harsh winter, networking, or labyrinthine pathways to permanent residence. And some struggle to master French while juggling family and work commitments. Learning a language in adulthood is tough.
But have you ever seen a robot order a coffee or pay tax? Immigrants are not just a demand on housing and health care. (Indeed, many work to provide housing or care.) They are also consumers, paying income and sales taxes.
How would replacing many of them with robots square with a rapidly aging population that places increasing demand on expensive public services, not least health care? The PQ’s suggestion to mirror the likes of Japan and South Korea in terms of robotization flies in the face of the lived experience of those countries. Just last year, then-prime minister of Japan Fumio Kishida, speaking on the country’s collapsing birthrate , stated that “Japan is standing on the verge of whether we can continue to function as a society.” Kishida added: “Focusing attention on policies regarding children and child-rearing is an issue that cannot wait and cannot be postponed.
” More than half a century after the Quiet Revolution, no Quebec politician would win their nomination papers, let alone the keys to the National Assembly, with that pitch. Canada’s worker-to-retiree ratio is closing in on 3 to 1, having been 7 to 1 just 50 years ago, and the average age in Quebec is fully two years older than the national average: 42.6 versus 40.
6. Who or what would provide the tax base to fund the kind of generational wealth transfer programs sought by the Bloc Québécois, the PQ’s cousins in Ottawa, if nothing is done to combat the stark demographic challenges faced by Quebec and the rest of Canada? Like Canada at large, Quebec needs immigrants now. Hugo O’Doherty is the director of partnerships for Moving2Canada .
A dual citizen of Canada and Ireland, he lives in Montreal..
