44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 8, 2024 10:00AM
- Feb/8/24 10:59:07 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am having a hard time being objective because, last week, in my absence, the Minister of Immigration blatantly lied in the House when he said that I had compared immigrants to heat pumps—
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- Feb/8/24 10:59:58 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, my first language is neither English nor French. It is Kannada. Due to the requirement to study English, I lost touch with my culture and heritage due to the lack of my language.
Coming to this debate, while I am interested in the century initiative, which is focused on Canada having a population of 100 million, I too am focused on the next three to four years and the immigration that is required for the next three to four years from an economic development point of view.
I would like to ask the member whether he has consulted business owners in Montreal, Quebec City and Gatineau about the problems they are facing. Has he consulted them about the need for skilled workers and immigrants to help them do their business and contribute to the economic development of Canada?
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- Feb/8/24 11:17:39 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the survey in question shows conclusively that immigrants are good for the economy.
There is much left unsaid by the Bloc Québécois. They ask us to revise the targets, but I think what they mean is we should lower them without consulting the government of Quebec. I believe they should make more of an effort if they wish to have a reasoned discussion of the issue.
I ask the members of the Bloc Québécois if they would like to help solve the problem instead of being armchair quarterbacks, and tell me whether the integration capacity covers the labour shortage of some 175,000 workers in Quebec, a shortage that also affects the rest of Canada. They do not seem to consider this factor in their analysis and demands.
I ask this question and I await their answer.
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- Feb/8/24 11:24:49 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to join the debate on a Bloc opposition day motion. To summarize it briefly, it would recall a vote in the House that tied immigration targets in Canada to various areas of capacity in social services, French and English-language training, transportation infrastructure, health care, jobs availability and education. This was voted on at the end of last year, typically when the permanent residents plan is tabled in Parliament, but also the temporary residents plan of the government. A three-year rolling plan is put forward. This motion refers to it and tells the government to do its homework once again, in light of a lot of new announcements that have been made.
This debate involves the Minister of Immigration. My experience on the immigration committee is that often invectives are hurled toward members who simply have questions, concerns and comments. A few members of the Bloc have already said that whenever they expressed a concern about the integration capacity in Quebec, especially on the island of Montreal where there is a lack of capacity, for example, for French-language training, they were quickly called names and insulted by the Minister of Immigration outside of the House quite often. It happened again yesterday at committee and on the minister's Twitter account.
The Conservatives have that same experience very often from Liberal members of Parliament. If the Liberals do not have an argument, they move on to insults. Margaret Thatcher loved to say that quite commonly.
Today, I will outline what I think is a common-sense Conservative proposal to what we should take into account when redoing the targets. A lot of it comes directly from government sources. We see it in government talking points and what different ministers have said. We have the bizarre situation today of there being a junior and senior minister of immigration. The new Minister of Immigration says that the system is out of control, by his own admission. He has said it several times. He was quoted as saying it in the National Post. He said it on CTV's Question Period. He also said, “That volume is really disconcerting. It's really a system that has gotten out of control.”
In an article by journalist Ryan Tumilty, the headline was, “'Out of control': Immigration minister says he wants to reduce international student arrivals”. It goes on to say, “The increase is considered one of many factors leading to housing shortages and rent hikes across the country.” That is the tie-in to housing.
Then there is the senior minister of immigration, who is now the Minister of Housing, and he has a lot of regrets, because for two and a half years he essentially let the system get out of control. That is what the Minister of Immigration is saying today about his predecessor's work. It is not Conservatives, Bloc MPs or New Democrats saying it. Over the last three months, two ministers have been fighting it out in public about whose fault it is that the system became out of control.
The Minister of Housing now, the senior minister of immigration, went even further. In a different article by Touria Izri for Global News, the housing minister was quoted as saying, “temporary immigration programs are putting pressure on the housing system and creating a 'serious issue we need to address.'” Why did he not address it when he was the immigration minister? Why has he only discovered this now?
In fact, the journalists refer to a briefing note that was given to the minister, the new Minister of Housing, the senior minister for immigration, that warned him that the targets the Government of Canada was setting, especially on what it was doing with temporary resident permits for international students, foreign work permits for the temporary foreign worker program and the international mobility program, were going to lead to pressures in rental housing. People were going to have a tough time affording housing, either purchasing or renting a home.
The Bank of Canada said that 60% of newcomers would rent, especially for the first 10 years. I know this for a fact as I was a newcomer. When my father came here in 1983, he rented. When the rest of the family came here in 1985, we rented for many years on the south shore of Montreal. I am very well aware of the newcomer experience. When newcomers first come to Canada, they rent, and rents across the country are going up.
In the last nine years, rents have doubled. Down payments have more than doubled. The price of homes is out of control, and that is not the fault of immigrants or newcomers. That is the fault of the government for vastly overspending during the pandemic, $600 billion of pandemic spending, $205 billion of which had nothing to do with the response to the pandemic.
When a lot of cash is chasing fewer goods, it leads to higher prices. When a briefing note is provided to the minister by his own immigration department that tells the minister about concerns of continuing to allow a lot of newcomers to come to Canada, well over a million last year and I think it will be a million before the same deadline this year, as well as over a million in the next six months, then we have a system that is out of control. I am referencing the junior immigration minister. The system is a mess. I am quoting the senior immigration minister, who is titled as the housing minister.
Of course they have regrets. They are going on different podcasts, complaining about each other's work and drawing attention to whose fault it is. It is the fault of the Liberals. They have been in government for nine years. They bear responsibility for the chaos on our streets today, with crime that is out of control. They are responsible. If we are renewing our leases this year and we see a 20% or 30% increase to them, we have only three people to blame: the Prime Minister, his housing minister and his immigration minister.
Every other minister on the front bench bears cabinet responsibility for the decisions they make. The Conservatives are not making this argument; I am using their own words. They have been in the news. At the end of November, Mia Rabson from the Canadian Press quoted the senior immigration minister, who is now moonlighting as a housing minister.
The current minister said of the student visa system, “It’s a bit of a mess...It’s time to rein it in.” He then went on to talk about Uber drivers. On the international student program, he was making comparisons, saying some of these colleges were behaving like puppy mills. What kind of bizarre commentary is that, to try to insult international students who are here?
I was an international student at one point in the United States and I do not remember being insulted in such a way. If, in fact, for the last two and a half years there were these private colleges and others, which the minister is now accusing of being puppy mills, it was the department that was issuing visas for them. Why were they doing that? They were warned.
A briefing note was circulating somewhere. Some journalists have it, but I do not. I was actually asked by a journalist from the Toronto Star whether I had it. It is the one that ties temporary immigration numbers to the potential for housing crisis. That is not me saying it; that is the department. The immigration department was warning the previous minister, the now housing minister, that this might happen. The articles go on and on.
We have these two ministers who are having a public debate, an argument. I am sure that it started some time in cabinet. There is a Yiddish proverb I am reminded of, because I love Yiddish proverbs, as many members know. My grandmother used to say them in Polish, but Yiddish used to be a common language and culture to eastern Europe. The proverb is that when a fool and a wise man are debating, there are only two fools debating. Sometimes it feels that way when I am watching the debate in public, because—
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- Feb/8/24 11:33:47 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, a Yiddish proverb I love is that if a wise man and a fool are debating, and rabbis love this proverb as well, what we have are two fools debating between each other. Sometimes I feel this is what I am watching. I have listened to the Herle Burly Podcast, and the new Minister of Immigration has appeared on it twice now. He talks a really tough game when he is on the podcast. Then he comes here and sings us a song on how great things are.
We have an immigration system with a backlog of 2.2 million in applications. I have been told everything, including that moving to digital would fix it, that there would be a new system and that there would be more people. This department has more than double the staff and double the money it had in 2015, yet nothing is getting better. It is pretty much static. The backlog was about 2.9 million applications near the end of the pandemic and it is barely any better. A million people are waiting in the queue.
We hear about this constantly. Members of Parliament and their constituency offices are inundated, with 80% to 90% of our case file work related to the immigration department. Families are broken because they cannot be reunited. Small businesses locally are missing that one critical person to fill a gap so they can then start hiring other fellow Canadians to fill the jobs, but they cannot do it. International students, who maybe have changed colleges, or are moving to a different program or are applying for a post-graduate work permit, are being told they cannot do that anymore, or they apply and run out of status and lose the temporary jobs they had. All of this is related to the customer service levels at the immigration department, which have not improved. I rarely hear the minister saying that this is being addressed.
It is a concern for Conservatives, and it continues to be a concern, that service levels are poor and that immigration backlog continues to be very high. Nobody seems to want to take responsibility in the moment when they make the decisions. I believe we are on immigration minister five or six so far after almost nine years, and it still is not getting better. It is still not improving, except for the rhetoric among the cabinet ministers who accuse each other of letting the system get out of control or of making it a mess. Again, I am not the one saying that. I am quoting two ministers who are having this public fight among each other on whose fault it is, pointing fingers at each other. The most incredible part of it all is that they are blaming each other.
In our great country, we of course have two official languages, so I will make some comments in French as well.
We already had this debate in the House, in October or November when we debated another motion during a Bloc Québécois opposition day. It is actually mentioned in today's motion.
Of course, we know that the government did not react to the motion. It did nothing. Going by what we can see, it made a few minor announcements for foreign students who are here in Canada. We know that more than one million international students are already here, according to a question that was answered in the House in October. We also know that the government reacts very slowly when opposition parties offer it solutions to new challenges for which we need to have an answer.
Today, one of these new challenges is asylum seekers who have the right to come to Canada, particularly those from a country in which there is a huge problem. That is an issue we need to address, because in January, the Premier of Quebec, Mr. Legault, had to write a letter almost four pages long that was addressed directly to the government.
If there were any consultations, it is obvious that nobody listened to the Premier of Quebec, since he had to write a letter. His letter says: “Over time, we have welcomed Chilean, Vietnamese, Haitian and Syrian refugees, and more recently Ukrainian nationals, whom we continue to take in”.
We know that we now have problems with one country in particular, because in 2016, this government withdrew the requirement for Mexican citizens to apply for a visa to come to Canada. They can go online and just pay seven or eight dollars to get permission to come to Canada. Now, in Montreal, tens of thousands of people are seeking asylum after not informing the government about their reason for travelling to Canada.
In 2016, about 250 asylum seekers came to this country in this way, back when there was a visa requirement. I have a press release that the government published at the time. It is only in English, unfortunately. I will read the relevant section. It comes from the Prime Minister’s website and is dated June 28, 2016. It may have been taken down, but maybe it is still on the site. Here is an excerpt from the press release:
Closer collaboration between Canada and Mexico on mobility issues will also help encourage travel between the two countries while preventing any increase in asylum claims or other irregular migration. Officials plan to meet regularly to promote these mutual interests.
We have gone from 250 asylum claims in 2016 to tens of thousands in 2023. According to the figures I saw online, 11% of the claims were accepted, which means that 89% of them were rejected. We are not the ones rejecting them; the independent panel is rejecting them. The panel says that it has seen the file and that the rules for becoming a refugee in Canada are not being respected.
The 2016 press release indicated that systems would be put in place to prevent an increase in asylum claims. Yesterday, I asked the minister to give us examples of programs implemented and actions taken to ensure that asylum seekers from one country, in this case Mexico, will not make bogus claims. Of course, 11% of the claims were accepted. Yesterday, the minister said it was much higher, 30%. These are figures given during the debates. Perhaps he can give us the figures in committee. Even with those numbers, that means that 70% of the asylum claims were rejected. These people came here because the visa requirement had been lifted. We have to wonder what the government is doing. It has not created any programs.
The only example the Minister of Immigration was able to give me had to do with programs implemented during the pandemic. However, they were public policies and the minister got rid of them in December, a month and a half ago, because they were no longer useful, he said. I reminded him that there was no pandemic in 2016. It began in early 2020. There was clearly no connection between the two. In committee, he had no other examples to demonstrate what he had done to keep this from happening.
In his letter, Premier Legault talks about the cost of these decisions. We are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars. Then there are also costs in terms of human lives. People have come to Canada, thinking they are eligible to apply for asylum for a variety of reasons. Premier Legault says that in the “first 11 months of 2023, no fewer than 59,735 new asylum seekers were registered in Quebec. Projections show that Quebec will receive a record 65,000 applicants this year”. The trends continues. Of course, with this increase in asylum claims, there is also a human cost. Real people will be affected by the Liberal government's negligence. Two immigration ministers are publicly attacking each other. They are pointing fingers and accusing each other of creating all the problems, damage and mess in the areas of immigration and housing.
I am going to talk about two articles by Romain Schué. In “Immigration Cartels”, he wrote: “Enquête uncovered human smuggling networks and fake passport makers linked to powerful Mexican organized crime syndicates that are becoming more and more heavily involved in human trafficking at the Canada-U.S. border.”
Two Mexican cartels in particular, the Sinaloa cartel and the Jalisco New Generation cartel, have ties to human trafficking.
The government could not even talk about a program. I asked the minister to name one program, any program. One would have been enough, but the minister could not even come up with one name.
In the other article, “South American crime network targets Canadian homes”, the journalist starts describing exactly what is happening now because the government made this change in 2016 and did not follow up. I wanted to share that example because basically the same thing happens with reports to Parliament on permanent immigration, as the minister said earlier. They are tabled in the House every November. They also cover temporary immigration. Lots of people come to Canada as temporary immigrants to work or study. Many of them change their temporary status to permanent after they get here.
According to information provided by the department, about half of temporary immigrants become permanent immigrants through programs such as the provincial nominee program and the immigration program for construction workers. Roughly half of these people are already in Canada and have a home, be it rented or owned. It is simply a matter of changing their status.
What matters to us, the Conservatives, is the experience newcomers have when they come to Canada. Today's newcomers are not having the same experience I had when I came to Canada. I arrived in Quebec, of course, because my father worked at the Sorel shipyard at the time.
The leader of the Bloc Québécois talked about the fact that many immigrants who come to Canada are told that Canada is an English‑speaking country, but when they arrive in Quebec, they realize that French is spoken there, especially at work. That is what happened to my father. I know because he talked about it often.
As we can see, cabinet is unable to decide who is to blame for the mess. The immigration system is out of control, and it is their fault. Even when the government appoints a new Minister of Immigration, it is his fault. In nine years, the government has destroyed the Canadian consensus on immigration.
We need a common-sense government, and that is what we will have when the member for Carleton becomes prime minister in the next election. We will give Canadians hope for the immigration system.
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- Feb/8/24 12:08:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague and I commend the organizations in her riding that work hard to integrate people who arrive there.
That is an excellent question. It is a very complex file. Sometimes there is a tendency to mix apples, oranges and bananas. There are different types of immigrants: economic immigrants, refugees, family members and students. There are also temporary foreign workers. We have not talked about them, but there is a large number of them in Quebec and they are very much needed in many sectors. Of course we think about agriculture, but this can also be in processing, slaughterhouses, and also the health sector. These people are sometimes stuck with closed permits and that creates a host of problems.
There is no doubt that foreign students also make an economic contribution: They spend money here, they work here too. Sometimes, they stay here and share their talents with us. Wanting to reduce their numbers at any cost might hurt our universities. It is a significant source of revenue. If the universities need these foreign students, who pay a lot to come study here, it may be because they are chronically underfunded as a result of the cuts the federal government made for years.
We need to invest in student housing and in our universities. Foreign students must not become scapegoats when they want to benefit from the expertise and knowledge our universities have to offer.
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- Feb/8/24 12:18:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the contributions from newcomers are significant. There are 1.6 million newcomers and immigrants engaged in the health care sector at a time when we have a significant skilled labour shortage in the health care sector. They are doctors, nurses and care aids. They are the people who care for us when we are sick and who care for our families when we need them the most. During COVID, they were there, risking their lives to take care of our loved ones.
Who else are newcomers? They are people who help build houses. Of the immigrant community, 20% are engaged in the construction sector where we need them to build the infrastructure and to build the houses we desperately need. They are people who put food on our tables. They are people who do the farming work where there is a significant skilled labour shortage. I can go on about their contributions, so I will say this: When Canada is faced with a housing crisis, do not blame the immigrant community. Do not blame the migrant workers. They are not at fault.
Who is at fault? It is the successive Liberal and the Conservative governments that failed Canadians by not ensuring that Canada builds the housing that is needed and that is affordable for Canadians. The Conservatives cancelled the co-op housing program, and the Liberals cancelled the national affordable housing program and left the whole thing to the private sector to deal with. When we have, 30 years later, a significant housing crisis, do not blame newcomers for that; blame the governments that failed Canadians in that regard.
I want to add one other thing, in terms of contributions of newcomers. They also create jobs. A third of the businesses in our communities are created by immigrants. They hire Canadians, and they actually create employment as well.
Just so that everybody understands, do not blame immigrants. We need the federal government to also step up to ensure that provinces, Quebec and territories are properly resourced. To that end, for successful resettlement, I am going to move an amendment.
I move:
That the motion be amended by adding the following: “d) call on the government to table in the House, within 100 days, a report on the gap between the resources that are needed to align federal immigration targets in 2024 and the capacity of Quebec, provinces and territories to successfully resettle newcomers; and e) call on the government to table in the House, within 100 days, a plan to ensure adequate resources are provided to Quebec, provinces and territories to support the successful resettlement of newcomers.”
That is what is needed. Do not blame the newcomers. Hold the people to account, and that would be the government that needs to step up and do the job in support of provinces, Quebec and territories.
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- Feb/8/24 12:26:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have listened closely to the member opposite over the last half hour or so. On the issue of immigration, I am very much interested in knowing the NDP's position on overall numbers that they would like to see come to Canada. She indicated, very clearly, that temporary foreign workers who come to Canada should be granted permanent resident status. She also indicated that an unlimited number of international students should be allowed to come to Canada.
I am wondering if she could share with us two things. Should international students also be provided with assurances that they could become permanent residents. If so, when she factors that into the number of permanent residents through the temporary foreign workers program, what is the target goal, the overall number of immigrants in any given year? Does the NDP have one?
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- Feb/8/24 12:42:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to this Bloc Québécois opposition day on the important topic of successful immigration.
What can I add to what has been said by the Bloc Québécois immigration critic, the member for Lac‑Saint‑Jean? Since he has a strong command of this file and detailed knowledge of the problems, I have decided to speak more specifically about successful immigration and what that means, in practical terms, for my riding. In some of the speeches that I heard this morning, members often had a tendency to talk about successful immigration by presenting statistics and numbers, but today I want to talk about people in my riding.
My riding, Salaberry—Suroît, is part urban, part rural. In other words, there are two large industrial towns and several rural municipalities there. When I talk about the rural reality, I am also talking about a lack of transportation options and a lack of access to local services.
I have been an MP since 2019, but I was also an MP from 2006 to 2011. Since returning to politics, I have noticed that, in my riding, the issue of immigration, the large number of newcomers, is relatively new. We did not have that before. We had a few newcomers, mostly temporary workers. Today, we are very happy to see our communities flourishing. People who come to Salaberry—Suroît contribute to the development of the region by settling there, starting a family, getting a job and sharing their culture. We are one big family. This is something relatively new for us, especially in comparison to Montreal or other major cities, such as Toronto or Vancouver.
All these people coming in are shaking things up. As my colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean said, there have been no discussions or conversations between the provincial and federal governments with a view to planning immigration. Successful immigration planning means determining how many people we want to welcome and knowing what our capacity is.
I would like to tell my colleagues a little story. My riding includes an industrial or working-class town called Huntingdon, which is home to a huge processing plant that makes sweet potato fries. This company had to hire temporary workers to keep its plant going. Maison Russet and Les Fermes Valens sought out foreign workers but were very mindful of the quality of their integration. They know that if they welcome temporary foreign workers who want to settle in the community and they help them through the immigration process, these individuals will feel like an integral part of the community and will want to stay in Huntingdon.
Because my riding is in a rural area where immigration is a relatively new phenomenon, we had a collective discusssion about the issue of French integration. Huntingdon has one high school and two elementary schools, but not many local services. Because this huge influx had not been planned or discussed, there were no classes to help the many workers employed at the plant integrate into French-speaking society. When a problem arises, my riding's trademark response is to get together and try to find solutions. We held several meetings and, in the end, it was decided that the best thing to do was to set up French integration services close to where the people were working, so they could access them without needing public transit. That is the challenge we faced. The federal government does not think about planning and has little interest in considering integration capacity, so communities are not equipped to deal with the influx.
We sat down at a table and decided that, since classrooms are usually empty in the evenings, if Arthur Pigeon high school started evening classes, temporary foreign workers could go there at the end of the workday to learn French. We figured that it would take some teachers, some rooms and money to fund the whole thing. We realized that our school had not budgeted for developing a large number of French classes. Again, when we talk about successful immigration, we are mainly talking about discussions around planning immigration levels based on integration capacity.
By having discussions and being innovative, we managed to find rooms and teachers and all of that. Once we had succeeded in setting up French classes thanks to our teamwork, we started thinking about what we would do about the other services these workers and their families need. I am talking about the whole issue of service delivery.
Is there an early childhood centre nearby? Do people have access to transportation to get to these services? It is a complex issue because we are reacting to something that we could have planned for and examined if the government had taken this issue seriously and, above all, if the provinces had been considered major players in analyzing the issue of integration capacity. There is clearly a lack of foresight on the part of the federal government. The provinces do not have enough money to welcome immigrants, but immigrants are the primary victims of this lack of planning.
That is why the Bloc Québécois believes that, in order for immigration to be successful, the federal government must stop acting like the big boss and making all the decisions without considering the provinces, without bringing them to the table. The federal government must agree to listen and find solutions. In today's motion, the Bloc Québécois is proposing a solution. The motion was amended with very specific timelines. We are waiting for the government to come up with concrete proposals to measure the quality of each province's integration capacity and therefore measure the integration capacity of Canada as a whole.
I said that the primary victims of the failure to plan for integration quality or integration capacity are the immigrants themselves. I will provide some statistics. I said I would not, but I cannot help myself.
How long does it take to process an application for permanent residency, say, for someone who shows up at our office and is waiting for permanent residency? Right now, it takes 11 months to obtain permanent residency.
How long does it take to complete the family reunification process? It takes 34 months.
How long does a refugee or asylum seeker have to wait for their work permit? When they arrive here, they do not have a work permit and they cannot work without one. The answer is, it takes too long.
As a federal MP who represents a riding that wants the best for immigrants and wants them to immigrate successfully, I urge all my colleagues in the House to support the Bloc Québécois's opposition motion to revise immigration targets from 2024 onward after consulting with Quebec, the provinces and the territories, based on their own integration capacity in terms of housing, health care, education, French-language learning and transportation infrastructure, to ensure a genuinely successful and respectful immigration process for the human beings we want to welcome to Quebec.
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- Feb/8/24 1:09:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind my colleague that Quebec experienced a phenomenal 46% increase in non-permanent residents this year. Furthermore, the federal government has allocated only $100 million of the $470 million requested by the Government of Quebec, despite this government's many calls.
What is the government actually doing to prevent Quebec's economic and social collapse? What is it doing to ensure that our plea to improve our immigrants' living conditions is heard?
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- Feb/8/24 1:19:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in her speech, my colleague talked about the importance of being able to integrate newcomers. That is precisely the crux of our motion. It is to have consultations that will allow for a bit of predictability. What happens is that Canada sets targets, but then we have to try to meet those targets and we realize that we do not have that capacity.
We are not the only ones saying so. CMHC mentioned the number of housing units that would be needed so that they are not in short supply. Academics have talked about the added pressure. Toronto has sounded the alarm. On the ground, we feel that we are not able to meet these targets because integration capacity was not taken into consideration.
What is it about our motion that my colleague does not agree with? What we want is a comprehensive discussion on integrating immigrants, because it is not just a financial issue. It is a matter of ensuring that we can meet the goals my colleague aims for, namely the proper integration of people who have made the difficult choice to leave their previous lives behind to come and find a welcoming country here.
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- Feb/8/24 1:24:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to say in this House that immigrants are not to be blamed for any challenges our country faces. The challenges are already embedded here, and when immigrants come they also face challenges similar to those Canadians are facing, so they are not to be blamed for health care issues or housing issues. I appreciate my colleague's question, but I think she knows that health care is in the province, and the federal government has made the investments that continue to support provinces to do so.
We have Conservative premiers across the country whom I have not seen at the table to be able to respond to those questions. I think the questions the member is asking are really good questions that I think the Conservative premiers across the country can answer as well.
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- Feb/8/24 1:49:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, once again, I very much appreciated my colleague's speech. I believe it is Montérégie Day today. It is very important to highlight our region and the importance of immigrants in our region. I am going to repeat the question I asked earlier.
My colleague spoke about housing issues. I would like to talk about Quebeckers who are waiting for their spouses, who are abroad. These people do not have housing issues. Often, they even have a job waiting for them here in Canada. I would like my colleague to tell us about this situation. Apparently, Quebec has set a target, and people are stuck. There is a long waiting list because of Quebec's criteria.
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- Feb/8/24 1:51:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when I take a look at the larger picture of immigration, what we have seen over the last 15 or 20 years is a movement towards more provincial participation. To amplify that fact, one only needs to take a look at the provincial nominee program. Over 100,000 people will be coming, targeted, over the next year under that program alone.
I wonder if the member could provide her thoughts in regard to the fact that when we talk about the supports that need to be put into place, provincial jurisdictions also have a role to play, given that they also have an interest in the immigrants who are coming to Canada.
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- Feb/8/24 3:30:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the issue of housing construction is very important, not only for immigrants, but also for every Canadian who wants to be able to buy a home.
We must ensure that our infrastructure here in Canada is robust. We must ensure that builders have those approvals in place, which is what we are doing with the housing accelerator fund, to ensure that they can put shovels in the ground and build the homes that not only newcomers want and need but also Canadians want and need in our communities. We need to make sure we can absorb newcomers and they have a place to call home and so forth.
We know our immigration system is between two different streams, permanent and temporary residents, and we always need to balance the needs of workers and the need to build a better and better country we are all blessed to call home.
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- Feb/8/24 3:59:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I listened attentively to the hon. member's speech. I have the pleasure of working with him in the international trade committee, where I have seen him working very proactively for the economic development of Quebec and raising important topics at the committee for the interests of Quebec.
What is the member's opinion on the number of immigrants needed by the business sectors in Quebec, whether the housing sector, the electrical industry sector or various manufacturing sectors, which are all facing a shortage of skilled workers? What approaches has the Quebec government taken to increase skilled manpower through immigration?
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- Feb/8/24 4:03:13 p.m.
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Uqaqtittiji, I do not normally like to ask questions with respect to other parties. However, I feel compelled to do so in this case. The previous member misstated a fact about the way I voted instead of answering my question on the need for increased investments so that all provinces and territories, including Quebec, could do better to make sure immigrants get the help they deserve. For example, Nunavut wants to welcome more immigrants, but it is unable to do so because of the overcrowded housing situation that exists in all the communities.
What does the member think about this kind of response and what the Liberals always attempt to do, which is to underinvest in any major social issues?
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- Feb/8/24 4:14:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I particularly enjoyed the end of my colleague's speech, the part about compassion.
This is because of not her comments or because of the motion the Bloc is presenting, but in some Quebec media, some columnists are using a sort of intellectual shortcut and conflating higher immigration with the housing crisis we are experiencing, as if immigrants arriving today were responsible for the shortcomings of the past 30 years in terms of investment in social and co-operative housing.
We see the vacancy rates in Montreal and Rimouski. If there is 0% housing available in Rimouski, it is not because of immigration.
I would like my colleague to comment on this shell game that is being played to try to blame immigrants for a crisis that the federal Liberal government caused in 1994 when it stopped investing in social housing.
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- Feb/8/24 4:16:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to ask a question as a follow-up to the question from my NDP colleague.
In fact, the misleading information about how immigrants are partly responsible for Canada's housing problem came from the Liberal Minister of Housing. He said it, not me.
For the past two months, we have witnessed two ministers publicly pass the buck by saying that the other is to blame. There is chaos in immigration, and both are accusing each other of bungling their policies.
I would like to know the member's opinion on that.
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- Feb/8/24 4:17:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have been following the issue of immigration since the early 1990s. I have been very passionate about and have understood many different aspects of immigration over the years, whether at the provincial level or the national level, both when I was in opposition and now while we are in government. I am very passionate about it because I understand and appreciate the true value of immigration and how Canada is what it is today because of sound immigration policy. It would take quite a bit to fool me on some of the things I have been hearing on the immigration file, and I want to quickly make reference to that.
One of the concerns I had was about a comment made by the member for Calgary Shepard. He was talking about immigration, and I actually wrote down the quote.
Before I continue, I will say that I will be sharing my time with the member for Scarborough Centre.
We were debating immigration target numbers and so forth, and the member for Calgary Shepard said, “They bear responsibility for the chaos on our streets today with crime that is out of control.” I do not like whatsoever that the member opposite was trying to imply in any way that immigrants are a problem when it comes to crime and chaos on our streets. That is surely what could be interpreted, based on the manner in which he presented himself.
I then take a look at my New Democratic friends. I want to be kind, but it is hard when one gets statements saying something like if someone is an international student, they should become a permanent resident, and, at the same time, saying we should have no cap on international students. To me, that is irresponsible public policy. Just so the member is aware, I can guarantee that, virtually overnight with that sort of policy, we would exceed, and I will be conservative with my number, well over a million international students applying every year.
Further, the member from the New Democratic Party said that she would like to see temporary residents in the form of workers also automatically becoming permanent residents. That is the reason I posed the question to the NDP. Does it have any cap whatsoever? If one follows the advice or the comments that were provided, we would probably be taking in at least 1.5 million to 2.5 million residents a year. I do not think that would be a practical number. It is important that we be serious.
I will now move to the Bloc. The Bloc brought forward a motion. I will talk about immigration any day of the week, and I asked whether they have done consultation. I know the importance of consultation on this file; as I said, I have been working on the file since the early 1990s. I understand the role and the impact on the Manitoba economy. That is one of the reasons I was a very strong advocate for Jean Chrétien and the provincial nominee program.
History will show us that no province in Canada did better than the province of Manitoba in taking advantage of the provincial nominee program. Our immigration numbers grew rapidly as a direct result of a progressive program, at that point instituted by and signed off on by Jean Chrétien and, in my home province, Gary Filmon. Manitoba has benefited; the program has been gold to the province of Manitoba.
When one thinks of the provincial nominee program, when one takes a look at the unique nature of immigration into the province of Quebec and when one factors in temporary visas, obviously there is a great deal of discussion that takes place at many different levels, whether it is with ministers, deputy ministers, civil servants and so forth. It takes place all of the time and in different ways.
I posed the question to members of the Bloc, and I am of the opinion that they did not do any consultation with the Province of Quebec, in terms of the resolution they are proposing today.
Many would ultimately argue that there is a bit of a hidden agenda with the Bloc whenever immigration matters are raised, but that is for another day.
When we talk about immigration as a whole, let us take a look at the targets and understand and appreciate the actual numbers. When we think about provinces, they are involved in a direct way. I mentioned the provincial nominee program. Let us take a look at the targets that were provided to the House. In 2024, the targeted number is 110,000; in 2025 it is 120,000, and it is followed again, in 2026, by 120,000. That is a very high percentage that is going toward supporting provinces, and that does not take into consideration the number, which I believe is around 35,000 a year, going into Quebec under the skilled worker type of programming.
Let us look at the numbers and at the freedoms the provinces have in terms of recruitment. There is a wonderful opportunity to deal with things such as health care workers and the trades, whether it is the plumbers, electricians or so forth. That program is designed to support them.
Members opposite point the finger and say that Ottawa is to blame for this or that. They talk about the issue of housing, but do they not believe that provincial jurisdictions have the capability to understand what is happening in their local economies? If they really want to get more electricians, plumbers and so forth approved, they have an excellent window through the provincial nominee program, because they are the ones that issue the certificates.
They should not just try to say that it is immigrants who are to blame, because that is not true. What we find is that through the skilled worker program and the nominee program, it is provinces and territories that are identifying what they believe are the priorities in terms of their economic development.
We can look at other numbers. The federal government actually gets fewer than the combined provinces do in terms of skilled workers, but we do process just over 100,000 a year.
Then we also have the spouses. There is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 75,000 to 85,000 spouses and partners on an annual basis. Are we going to start saying no? That is a really important aspect of our immigration policy, which the federal government has complete jurisdiction over.
We can look at how we have actually managed that file. When I was critic, people were waiting for years and years. We are talking three, four or five years to get a spouse to come over. I used to apply under dual intent, to try to get someone a temporary visa while they were waiting. Do members know how many times I applied and the number that were actually approved when Stephen Harper was the prime minister? It was a big goose egg. Nothing.
Since we have been in government, I have been successful. I have talked with immigration officials; I have talked with ministers of immigration; I have explained the situation to caucus, and we have seen significant movement, not only in terms of processing times but also in terms of providing temporary visas for those who are trying to get a spouse here from abroad.
I could talk about parents and grandparents. When I was critic, Jason Kenney cancelled the program. He said people could not sponsor their mom and dad. The response I get when I pose that question to the Conservative critic is that they came up with the super visa. Yes, the super visa is a good thing, but they also cancelled the program.
They also say, “Well, we wanted to deal with processing times, and we improved processing times.” Sure, they did, because it was so bad under Stephen Harper in terms of sponsoring parents and grandparents that people were dying or actually dead by the time they finally got to them.
We do not need a lecture from the Conservative Party on immigration policy. All we have to do is reflect on just how bad the Conservatives were, and that does not include the many different programs in terms of refugees, whether they were from Afghanistan, Syria or Ukraine, or from what is taking place today in the Middle East.
We understand, appreciate and value the role that immigration plays in public policy, and we will continue to work every day on that particular file.
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