SoVote

Hon. Marc Miller

Member of Parliament
Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship
Liberal

Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs
Quebec
Voting Attendance: 66%
Expenses Last Quarter: $97,404.09

Government Page

Context: House Hansard - 321 - May/30/24

Hon. Marc Miller (Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Lib.)

May/30/24 2:43:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, once again, it appears that the member opposite is asking the question of the wrong legislature. It should be noted that under the Canada-Quebec agreement, Quebec holds the majority of the power to select francophone immigrants. It has the power and the ability to do so. Considering the $5.2 billion it has received in transfers since 2015, it also has the financial capacity to do it all and without accountability, either. When it comes to accountability, Quebeckers are the ones who need to demand answers.

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Context: House Hansard - 321 - May/30/24

Hon. Marc Miller (Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Lib.)

May/30/24 2:42:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is precisely what we are doing in the task force with Minister Fréchette and other provincial ministers. The member across the way seems to forget that Bill 101 has been around for a long time. He also seems to forget that we have been transferring $5.2 billion since 2015 to Quebec, without accountability, for francization. Obviously, if Quebec needs more francophone immigrants, we are here to help.

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Context: House Hansard - 243 - Oct/31/23

Hon. Marc Miller

Oct/31/23 11:09:10 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would love to transfer myself from being a minister to a deputy minister in this context, but the devil is in the details and the logistics with which my department administers the program. We have not done a very good job in the past of increasing francophone immigration in our own sphere of jurisdiction. It has landed us a lot of rightful criticism about ensuring we are doing immigration in a proper way to reflect the bilingual nature of our country. The 4.4% that we reached represented an increase of 450% in those numbers, but it is not enough. If we need to ensure and re-establish some level of parity with respect to our communities, we need to get up to a permanent number of about 6%, which would require increases of 6% to 8%, or perhaps even more, over the next years. We need to put in place the mechanisms to ensure that this is permanent, including ensuring that we have funding, that provinces are providing funding and that we are putting in place structures that favour francophone speakers as they come to our country. This might include moving from a situation where francophone students could have a pathway to permanent residence, ensuring we are doing missions abroad and that we are tackling the challenges to get French teachers. This is a need that exists outside Quebec as much as it exists inside Quebec. It is work that we have not done, structured or well, in the past. I look forward in the next year being able to show the House of Commons, our colleagues in government and Canadians that we can do this job and that we can put in place a system that favours and encourages francophone migration. I cannot conclude my comments without talking about the importance of combatting systemic racism. We know that systemic racism has impacted our ability to recruit French talent in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in West Africa, and that needs to be fixed as well.

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