Cap immigration to boost French, former PQ minister says

By Marianne White, Postmedia NEws
August 29, 2011 1:04 PM

QUEBEC — Quebec must reduce immigration for two years while it improves services to help newcomers learn French and find jobs, says former Parti Quebecois minister Francois Legault.

Legault's Coalition for the future of Quebec — a group that could soon become a new provincial political party — tabled its last of four packages of proposals, this time on language and culture, on Monday.

While employer lobby groups are calling on the Quebec government to significantly increase the number of immigrants to make up for the expected loss of manpower as baby boomers retire, Legault insisted the province should do just the opposite.

He said his priority is to protect and promote French and in order to achieve that, he believes Quebec needs to bring down its yearly influx of immigrants to 45,000 for a two-year period.

"Right now, we have to take a step back before going any farther," Legault told reporters in Quebec City. "The unemployment rate of immigrants is about twice the rate of the total population in Quebec. We have a problem with that. It's not good for Quebec and it's not good for the immigrants."

Last year, 54,000 immigrants came to Quebec. The province has lowered its target to 50,000 by 2015, arguing it can't move faster than society's ability to integrate the new arrivals.

Before bringing the number of newcomers back up, Legault wants to double the resources at the Immigration Ministry to implement new measures to facilitate the employment and integration of immigrants to Quebec society. That would cost $125 million on a $400-million price tag for all the proposed measures.

Among other proposals, the group wants Quebec to have complete power over language to continue building a French-speaking nation and increase the number of immigrants fluent in French.

"If new immigrants don't (learn) the French language and integrate (into) the workplace, that will jeopardize in the long term the survival of the French language," said businessman Charles Sirois, who heads the coalition with Legault.

Legault is in favour of allowing the government to use the notwithstanding clause in the Canadian Constitution to protect the French language, notably to put a stop to private bridging schools that allow children whose parents were not educated in English in Canada to enter Quebec's public English schools after as little as one year in a private English school.

The coalition also wants to step up measures to force businesses to offer more service in French, notably in Montreal, and called on Quebecers to ask to be served in French.

A recent poll showed the popularity of Legault's proposals — who has not even formed a political party yet — is riding high at nearly 40 per cent of voters' intentions in Quebec.

Legault, who quit the PQ in 2009, said he is willing to give 10 more years to politics to implement the painful remedy he is proposing for Quebec.

But he reiterated he will make his decision known by the end of the year, after a major tour of Quebec to consult voters, starting in mid-September.

"If I do form a political party I don't want (my team) to focus on re-election but on the changes that need to be done in Quebec," he said.

mwhite@postmedia.com

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