44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 31, 2023 10:00AM
- Oct/31/23 5:03:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, earlier, during the question and comment period following the speech by my colleague from Montarville, the member for Pontiac said that Quebec is a society with a good integration capacity, and she gave the example of a family that she and her family welcomed and who integrated very well. That example is a bit like saying there is no racism in Quebec because I have a Black friend and things are going very well for him. That is a flimsy argument, especially since our colleague from Pontiac comes from a region where francization of new arrivals is the most difficult and where results are among the worst in Quebec. I think we need to take a step back and look at the big picture. It is about the infrastructure that is needed to properly welcome newcomers, including the health and education systems.
I would like my colleague to slightly adjust the example she gave earlier by simply telling us if she thinks we already have all the necessary resources in health and education infrastructures to welcome as many newcomers as the government is proposing.
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- Oct/31/23 5:08:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be happy to share my time with my friend the member for Berthier—Maskinongé.
I will read the motion again to refocus the debate, but also the intention behind this Bloc Québécois opposition day.
The motion reads as follows:
That the House call on the government to review its immigration targets starting in 2024, after consultation with Quebec, the provinces and territories, based on their integration capacity, particularly in terms of housing, health care, education, French language training and transportation infrastructure, all with a view to successful immigration.
I insist on the last point, because I hear a lot of speeches, debates and questions that are somewhat aimed at some very specific aspects of immigration in general. However, the Bloc Québécois wants to debate and make the House of Commons understand that a piecemeal approach is not appropriate and it is not a matter of having, for example, more doctors to treat people. This is not so much what we need as new hospitals altogether.
Back home in Drummondville, the hospital is outdated and crumbling in many ways. It is not just about a staff shortage. There is also a lack of infrastructure. It is not a problem that can be identified, addressed or resolved by saying that things went well in one area, we managed to bring in a doctor from Algeria and just like that we have services in one specialty or another.
We have to think about Quebec as a whole, Canada as a whole when we talk about immigration. We have to be serious in this debate, which is extremely serious. We are talking about human beings, people who are going to settle in our country, in our communities. They are going to integrate. They will enrich our communities whether in Quebec or in one of Canada's provinces or in the territories.
Successful immigration, since that is what we are talking about today, means turning “them” into “us”, welcoming strangers and making them members of the family. Successful immigration does not mean strictly bringing in additional labour, but bringing more citizens to Quebec and Canada with all the characteristics that define citizenship.
We are talking, for example, about sharing a common language, common values. Newcomers participate in our society and in its growth. They enhance our culture. Newcomers are changed by their membership in their host society, just like the host society itself is changed and improved by their arrival.
We cannot think of immigration from a strictly economic perspective. It goes beyond money. Think about children playing in the park in the summertime and families of all origins who come to sing at the Quebec City summer festival, stuff their faces at the poutine festival in Drummondville, and participate in traditional and square dances at the Village Québécois d'Antan at Christmas time. Think about the artists from other countries who settled in Quebec and who combine their culture of origin with ours to create something new and beautiful. All of those things go beyond money.
However, the federal government sees things differently. Its immigration targets are based solely on economic considerations. By way of evidence, just look at the infamous Century Initiative, whose targets the government copied.
Dominic Barton from McKenzie was clear when he presented his initiative. It was designed based on economic growth only. Integration capacity, French language training, the integration of newcomers, none of that was important. It was ignored, set aside.
I would think that a plan to increase the Canadian population to 100 million people by 2100 deserves to be thought out, deserves a public debate. It seems to me that this should not be decided behind closed doors by consulting engineering firms and a few advisors with ties to the Prime Minister's Office, but instead debated openly with absolute transparency and an attentive ear. However, the government, who gave billions of dollars to this firm, took the McKenzie targets and made them its own.
Do we have housing for newcomers? That is not important, the newcomers will build their own housing. The government said so. The Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship clearly said that the newcomers would build their homes themselves. Picture them at customs being offered a small load of two-by-fours, some insulation and a few shingles. If they need a hammer, one will be provided to them. Honestly.
We may want to demonstrate the fact that immigrants will help solve the labour shortage, but with arguments like this, I would be a little embarrassed. The Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship took the liberty of answering a question from the member for Saint-Jean by saying that the Bloc Québécois's thinking is foolish, or something like that.
Are we able to provide newcomers with the services they will need? They will provide those services to themselves, because we will be welcoming care workers, nurses and carpenters. They will work in day care and they will build their own houses, as if by magic. Regardless of what they want to do, we will decide that they will do all that. They will come here and be straight-out independent, as my son would say. That is a bad joke.
There are immigrants coming to this country. They are not temporary foreign workers, but immigrants with dreams and aspirations. They want to be teachers or have some land to farm, or even teach philosophy—although we could debate that as well. They want to sell cars, be members of the National Assembly or the House of Commons and participate in the democratic life of their new country. They have their own aspirations. No one should develop a century-long immigration policy based on the lack of staff in a hospital at a specific time. We must think long term.
The Bloc Québécois believes that immigration targets must reflect our integration capacity. The Bloc believes that Quebec and the provinces are the ones who know best what this capacity is. How many newcomers can be accommodated, given the current housing stock? How many additional classrooms will be needed to accommodate new students in our schools? How many French teachers will Quebec need to integrate those who do not speak French? I will point out, and I will do so as often as necessary, that French is the only official and common language of Quebec.
These are legitimate and necessary questions, which unfortunately were not taken into consideration at McKinsey's Toronto offices. Over there, they think in terms of numbers rather than people.
Quebec is a welcoming society. No one doubts that. No one questions that, or at least I hope not. We welcome those who want to join us with open arms. It is a privilege to welcome people who want to make their lives here, who want to build a common future. We see this as more than a numbers game. We are going to take in 500,000, said the Liberals. When we asked them how they will manage to do that, they told us that we are anti-immigration.
We want immigration to work, and we want those who come here to be happy, or at least happy enough to want to make their home here. Taking into account French training, access to housing, health care, schools and child care is not being anti-immigration. It is being considerate. It is wanting immigration to succeed, both for those who join us, and for us. I believe that ignoring these factors is very careless.
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- Oct/31/23 5:18:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's question. He raises a good point.
There was a time when our cities were not overcrowded and we did not have major housing problems. The current crisis is extremely worrisome. There was a time when taking care of people was not nearly as difficult. Our health care systems in Quebec and the rest of Canada were robust enough to take people in, but that is no longer the case.
When people immigrated here 30, 40, 50 or 60 years ago, the situation was not the same as it is today. Above all, we did not take in as many newcomers at the time as we plan to going forward. We had the necessary infrastructure to welcome those many people. That is no longer the case.
The responsible thing to do would be to resolve this issue first. Let us ensure that we have the infrastructure, that we have the means to fulfill our ambitions, and that what we have here is enough to properly welcome the people who choose to come and settle here.
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- Oct/31/23 5:20:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my answer to my Liberal colleague's question was somewhat along the same lines.
We have problems to solve here before we open the floodgates. We have young people starting out in life who have brilliant careers ahead of them, but who cannot afford to buy their first home, no matter how modest it may be. Home ownership has become an extraordinary challenge and a privilege truly reserved for the luckiest members of society, and not just the hardest working, unfortunately.
Injustices are being created because of real estate investments by people who had the means to buy homes in the most beautiful places and drive up property values in certain areas. We have some work to do before we start being too ambitious about immigration targets. I think I completely agree with my colleague about the situation he described.
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- Oct/31/23 5:22:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is true that this is a sensitive subject. I think it is irresponsible to immediately stop the debate by hurling epithets.
Today, my parliamentary assistant and I simply tried to bring it down to a level that is a little more accessible to the public. For example, we thought that, for the people of Drummond, it would be like welcoming three more people per household without changing the number of bathrooms, the number of bedrooms or the grocery budget.
Let us imagine that we took in three more people per family. That is what the immigration targets currently being proposed by the government correspond to on a national scale.
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- Oct/31/23 5:44:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will accept your generous offer and request a recorded division.
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