44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 11, 2023 10:00AM
- May/11/23 1:21:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, Canada is a concept, one that has changed greatly over time. At first, Canada was the heart of New France. The conquest brutally changed its identity and turned it into a British colony.
Modern Canada arose from another change that took place with the betrayal of the night of the long knives, when the country's DNA was changed in secret, behind closed doors and without Quebec or the first nations.
We are on the eve of another great change. We can rest assured that the very essence of Canada respects the strong tradition of ignoring democracy when it comes to major issues. I am of course referring to the Century Initiative. I am saying this in French in the House, because French was never considered by this initiative, as admitted by one of its authors.
Economists, and I am well positioned to talk about them, do not always think about identity. It is not necessarily the first thing they think of when developing a public policy. French, democracy, political balance, political weight are not necessarily their priorities. They think about GDP, productivity and the cost of labour. It is up to us in the House to reflect on these issues.
However, even in terms of economic issues, the Century Initiative project is poorly designed, poorly thought-out and impossible to implement. I say that the project is poorly designed because this Liberal government sets its economic targets based on false and simplistic economic parameters. If we want to solve the labour shortage, says the government, let us bring people from all over the world to work here.
Although immigration has a role to play in filling specific gaps in the labour market, it is far from being a magic bullet to fix this problem.
As economist Pierre Fortin explained in the report he presented last year to Quebec's ministry of immigration, francization and integration, a sustained increase in immigration creates a bigger workforce, but also increases demand for goods and services. He believes that in taking into consideration the further increase in demand for health services and education, the increase in employment opportunities would be negligible.
Other public policies can be put in place at the same time to address the labour shortage, as the Bloc Québécois has proposed on numerous occasions and in a constructive manner. For instance, tax credits should be granted to people who have reached retirement age but may want to remain in the workforce. Let us think about it. These individuals are trained and want to work. However, ridiculous tax policies prevent them from staying in the workforce. This could be fixed quickly. This is not a long-term solution like immigration.
Rodrigue Tremblay, professor emeritus of economics and a minister in the René Lévesque government, also explained the situation like this:
A rapidly growing population requires additional infrastructure (housing, hospitals, schools, universities and infrastructure of all kinds). Savings and capital are therefore needed to build that infrastructure.
He goes on to say the following:
When a population grows too quickly, this can sometimes lead to a general decline in the standard of living.
Ultimately, the countries that perform the best in terms of standard of living and quality of life are not the most populous countries in the world. They are countries like Norway, Ireland and Switzerland, whose population size is more similar to that of Quebec than Canada.
What makes Quebec unique, in addition to its language and culture, is the quality of its social safety net and its public policy, which are recognized as progressive. I am extremely proud of them. Quebec's low-cost child care system sets the bar. In fact, the federal government is trying to set up something similar, the kind of system we have had for decades. Quebec's affordable education system, its universal health care system and all its other social policies also set the standard.
Here is another example I am very familiar with: Quebec's parental insurance plan, copied by other jurisdictions around the world and head and shoulders above other such programs in Canada. To maintain and even improve that level of service, the Government of Quebec has to make wise economic and demographic decisions that ensure the long-term sustainability of its social services. The National Assembly provides all those social services, so it is up to it to determine Quebec's optimal population level.
It will be up to Quebec to offer and use its own budget to pay for the services and infrastructure that will be specifically offered to the newcomers we welcome with open arms, as everyone knows.
This project is poorly thought-out. Indeed, one has to be extremely out of touch with reality to think that a country like Canada, with such a delicate political balance, could work with this type of immigration policy without even consulting Quebec and the provinces. I really wonder why the Bloc Québécois has to keep reminding the House of this, but Canada is not a unitary country. The onus will be on Quebec and the provinces to deal with this immigration flow. The federal government is not a character in a video game seeking to make Canada an empire. It cannot continue to impose the whims of its preferred consultants on the democratically elected governments throughout Canada.
I have said that the project is poorly crafted and poorly thought-out, and I would like to add that it is impossible to implement. How does the federal government think it can pull off something this big when it is not even able to adequately deliver on any of its missions?
The Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship has a chronic inability to process claims in a timely manner. I will give some brief examples. After the pandemic, there were over 2 million files in the department's backlog. We are talking about the labour shortage, and 25,000 applications for skilled workers in Quebec were on hold on the federal government's desk. Skilled workers wanting to work in Quebec had to wait over 24 months—if they were lucky—while the service standard is 11 months, which itself could be considered to be quite long.
As we can see, the Century Initiative is a bad project. It is politically problematic, economically ill-conceived, and administratively impossible to implement. It has only one great advantage: It forces the people of Quebec to choose between turning into quaint folklore and becoming independent. My choice is obviously independence. I do not think that is news to anyone in the House.
I am an immigrant myself. I was born abroad. The language we speak at home is Spanish, and that is the language I use when I speak to my son. My mother came to Quebec at the age of 37 and passed the bar in her third language. We grew up in a house where the first language was not French, and yet we all chose independence. This is our project. We will build this country together, newcomers to Quebec with old stock Quebeckers, as well as with our brothers and sisters from the first peoples—because anyone who wants to be a Quebecker is a Quebecker.
Canada wants to reach a population of 100 million people and invite immigrants to come and contribute to its economic growth. All my Bloc Québécois colleagues and I can do better. What we can offer immigrants, whom we will always welcome with open arms, is an invitation to the founding of a new country. That is the idea that drives us, and it is the idea of the century.
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- May/11/23 1:30:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate all those like him who were born abroad and want to contribute to Quebec society, if that is what they wish to do. I congratulate everyone who is learning French and helping make Quebec a better society.
I will be very clear: We do not want to put up barriers in their way, quite the opposite. We are for immigration. As we have said, this issue cannot simply be boiled down to being either for or against immigration. We are here to talk about “better”, not “more”. That is very different from wanting less immigration, which is not what we want. That is not our line of thinking at all. We are in favour of immigration like the member described, that is, immigration made up of people who want to contribute to Quebec society. That is what we represent.
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- May/11/23 1:32:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there will indeed be major environmental consequences. Take, for example, water consumption. Water consumption is one of the environmental concerns, but there is also water pollution. Waste water has to be treated. There is also waste management. Waste has to be handled properly and safely stored. There is also atmospheric pollution, air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. There are tons of different forms of pollution and repercussions associated with the presence of humans that will be felt if we increase the population more quickly than what nature can handle.
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- May/11/23 1:34:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to point out that the Bloc Québécois did indeed introduce a bill to try to save Quebec's political weight, and yet those who are now claiming to be the defenders of French in Canada and the defenders of Quebec voted against that bill.
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