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Claude DeBellefeuille

Member of Parliament
Whip of the Bloc Québécois Member of the Board of Internal Economy
Bloc Québécois

Salaberry—Suroît
Quebec
Voting Attendance: 67%
Expenses Last Quarter: $109,425.78

Government Page

Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille (Salaberry—Suroît, BQ)

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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Context: House Hansard - 38 - Mar/1/22

Mrs. Claude DeBellefeuille (Salaberry—Suroît, BQ)

Mar/1/22 12:37:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to listen to my colleague. He is so eloquent and intelligent and has a passion for literature, the great researchers and the great writers. My question is a little more down to earth. He also comes from a region, Jonquière, which is known as the Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean region. Could he explain how people living in sparsely populated, rural and remote areas stand to lose the most if the Canada Elections Act is overhauled? There is also the matter of land use, which is at the heart of our discussions.

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Whip of the Bloc Québécois Member of the Board of Internal Economy

Claude DeBellefeuille