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Member of Parliament

Jean-Denis Garon

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of Parliament
  • Bloc Québécois
  • Mirabel
  • Quebec
  • Voting Attendance: 65%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $114,073.56

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 243 - Oct/31/23
Mr. Jean-Denis Garon (Mirabel, BQ)
  • Oct/31/23 10:30:35 a.m.
  • Watch
Mr. Speaker, first, let me applaud my colleague for her excellent speech, which set the tone for what is sure to be a most peaceful opposition day. We are here today to debate federal immigration targets because we are in never-before-seen circumstances in our history—certainly of our recent history. We have to talk about numbers, but we can do it calmly. If the 2024 federal targets are reached, immigration will account for 1.21% of the Canadian population by 2024. If the 2025 targets are reached, the percentage will increase to 1.24%. The last time rates that high were observed was in 1928-29. Back then, Montreal had a population of 819,000. Toronto was a cornfield with 631,000 residents. We can all agree that our arguments about resources and integration capacity do not come out of left field. In January 2023, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada had nearly 522,000 people waiting for permanent residence. Another 239,500 people were waiting for express entry economic immigration. If we look at historical data and include family members, we arrive at the equivalent of 2.3 million people—yes, I said “people”, and not “cases”—who are waiting. This means that we run the risk of exceeding these historic targets by even more. Quebec was not consulted in all this. No one ever called on Quebec. Quebec stated its wish to be consulted, and today, a consultation process is under way in Quebec City. There can be no denying that immigration has to serve the interests of newcomers and the host society. I would like to add a personal note. The woman I married was born in Algerian; she is Kabyle. She came here with her family in 2001. They are people who made a good living in their country of origin. They made many sacrifices before arriving here. They left behind family, property, home and friends. They started over at the bottom of the ladder. They managed to find a small place to live. It was not very nice, incidentally, because newcomers rarely have access to the nicest homes. Over the years, they met with success in their immigration and integration journeys. One day, my father-in-law and my mother-in-law decided that they wanted to own their own home, which was impossible in Montreal, even back then. It was expensive. They managed to move to a suburb a little ways away. They had a house built. They got on the property ladder to secure the future of their family and children. I recently asked my father-in-law what would have happened if they had arrived here in 2023. His response was a long silence. Then he told me that their dream would have been shattered. These are the people we are thinking about. In 2011, a scientific study co-authored by Fuller showed that the health of immigrants had deteriorated since they arrived in Canada. In 2010, Houle and Schellenberg published a study showing that a large proportion of immigrants said that, if they had to do it all again, they would not choose to come to Canada. McKinsey and the Century Initiative will not tell you that. They are more concerned about the number of people needed to fill the short-term labour demand than they are about the actual people. Immigrants are people. They are people we care about, people who become our friends and family. We marry them. We live with them. They are here for the long term. They will be here until they are 80 or 90 years old. They will have children and be part of our society. The answer that we get when we talk about immigration targets is that we need workers in the short term. There is an incredible disconnect here. Today, if we talk to the government or read what reporters are saying, we see that they are telling us that immigrants will just have to build their own homes and work in the construction industry. They are basically telling us that we are going to give immigrants a kit from Ikea so that they can build their own home. It is difficult to describe. Housing is the elephant in the room. The government is always talking about the housing supply as if it can wave a magic wand and build 50 million housing units a year and offer these people the same quality of life as we have. When we speak to bankers or to people in finance or housing, we are told that if all the bricklayers, electricians, plumbers, carpenters and roofers in Quebec worked full-time, 40 hours a week, winter and summer, we could build 75,000 homes. We recently reached a record in 2021 by building 68,000. This year, in Quebec, we will build approximately 30,000 to 40,000 homes. Before the thresholds were increased, the Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation said we needed a minimum of 100,000 homes. That means people will be left living on the street. That means homelessness. Before, whenever we said things like that, people would say that we were anti-immigration, that we did not like immigrants and that we were racist. Now, all of a sudden, Toronto says there is a homelessness problem, a housing problem, an affordability problem and a problem with resources, especially in the area of health care. All of a sudden, this has become a national crisis and is no longer seen as xenophobia. How come the government can increase targets overnight without notifying Quebec, yet Fatima, a newcomer from Morocco, cannot get a spot in day care for her children the way a Ms. Tremblay whose family has been here for generations can? Where is the gender equality in that situation? This is a major problem with the government's perspective. Now reporters and the government are telling us that the concept of integration capacity is just smoke and mirrors, that it does not exist, that there is no scientific definition for it. Funnily enough, in July, economists from the University of Waterloo wrote a paper on immigration, the conclusions of which I will quote: “Absorptive capacity can be thought of as how quickly the economy can expand private and public capital investments...Quickly expanding the level of immigration may place excessive stress on highly regulated sectors such as healthcare, education, and housing”. I am prepared to table the scientific article by these growth economists from the University of Waterloo. Immigrants are not cases, numbers or figures. When we talk about immigration thresholds and integration capacity, we are talking about success, French language training, the availability of health care and education. We cannot live under the false premise of “us” versus “them”. The immigrants who are here are best placed to say what it takes to live here, to realize their dream and to integrate into employment. People who have been here for many generations have never had to leave their family, friends, home and job behind. They have never had to do this. When I talk to groups in Mirabel that welcome immigrants, and when I talk to friends, family and foreign students at UQAM, where I taught until recently—foreign students who are being stonewalled by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada—these are the people best placed to understand what we want to do, which is to welcome them properly. We want immigration to succeed. We want every person who arrives here to succeed. We want the best for everyone, regardless of where they were born or how many generations they have been here. We plan immigration for us and for them, because they are also part of “us”. This is a collective effort. It is not just a figure or a number. Right now, it is mainly the federal government and the chambers of commerce that are treating them like numbers, because they want short-term unskilled labour. Personally, I want each of these people to succeed, to become richer and to reach their full potential as a person. Immigrants are not votes. They are human beings, neighbours, people we live side by side with every day, full-fledged members of Quebec society. It is in this context, where immigration is part of our vision of society, that Quebec society must be heard. Quebec is not being heard, and it wants to be heard more. This is why we are holding this opposition day. I would like to say to each person who has had the courage to come here, to make Quebec their home, that they are welcome, that we love them, that they are our neighbours and that what we want for them is full equality with those who have been here much longer.
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