- 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
- May/21/24 2:50:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the status quo is the Bloc Québécois doing nothing for 30 years, while we make $5.2 billion available to Quebec for French language training, with clear results.
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- May/21/24 2:49:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what we do not invite at these meetings is bickering.
Working together is very important to us. For once, Quebec fully agreed with the news release we issued.
In terms of French language training, we have given Quebec $5.2 billion since 2015. We are committed. We want to ensure, once again, that French, the common language, is strengthened in Quebec.
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- Apr/30/24 2:53:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what is very clear is that we will be there for Quebec to do more more to support the French fact in Quebec. We have contributed $54 billion since 2015. That is a lot of money.
I have a question for the member opposite. If he thinks that we should accept more asylum seekers from Haiti, would he be willing for Quebec to take in more?
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- Apr/30/24 2:46:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, obviously we want to support French integration. We have provided $5.4 billion to Quebec since 2015, specifically for French integration classes in Quebec, and it is working well.
I know that the Bloc Québécois is perceived as a bickering machine, but I would like to acknowledge the contribution of the member opposite, who campaigned to ensure that spouses, partners, people who come here to study nursing will be able to stay here. This will increase the number of people who are here temporarily, but that is the good work we can do because the Quebec government demanded it.
We also worked with the Bloc Québécois to strengthen the health care system in Quebec.
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- Feb/15/24 2:38:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to point out that we are already transferring $5.2 billion to the Quebec government, partly for French-language instruction.
I hope the member opposite is not saying that he wants to deport people who do not speak French in Canada. That would be an illegal, immoral and inhumane thing to do.
We are well aware that more work needs to be done to share the burden that is falling on Quebec. We will continue to do so with the province of Quebec.
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- 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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- Oct/5/23 2:34:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the statistic that the member keeps repeating has to do with one's mother tongue. That excludes me and my family, the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Tourism. What does it take to be a Quebecker in Quebec?
I am a proud Quebecker. I am proud to be a Quebecker and to say that I am a Quebecker, but the statistic that the member keeps quoting refers to one's mother tongue. The fact remains that 94% of people in Quebec can speak French, and we should be proud of that. The member is shaming the people who drafted the Charter of the French Language with the statistic he is quoting. He should be ashamed of himself. I am proud.
With regard to immigration in Canada, we will ensure that French speakers come to Quebec.
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