Quebec could welcome 10,000 more permanent immigrants than expected next year

The Legault government is revising upwards its target for permanent immigration that it had set for 2025, an announcement which risks sowing confusion as it has been loudly proclaiming for months that the reception capacity of Quebec is outdated.

La Belle Province could welcome 10,000 more permanent immigrants than expected next year due to the explosion in popularity of the “Graduates” component of the Quebec Experience Program (PEQ).

This is what emerges from the Quebec Immigration Plan 2025, which the Minister of Immigration, Francisation and Integration, Jean-François Roberge, tabled in the National Assembly Thursday morning.

The popularity of PEQ-Graduates is such that the government is forced to put the program on pause until June 30.

This freeze, along with that of the Regular Skilled Worker Program (PRTQ), was the subject of a media leak on Wednesday evening. It was confirmed by press release Thursday morning.

We learn that the Quebec Immigration Plan for 2025 plans to regularly admit up to 51,500 immigrants, to which will be added graduates of the PEQwhose admissions, which were on track to reach 19,000 files, will ultimately be limited to 15,000.

There are therefore 66,500 permanent immigrants who could be admitted to Quebec next year, while the target announced last year for 2024 and 2025 by Jean-François Roberge’s predecessor, Christine Fréchette, was 56,500 people.

In these circumstances, freeze admissions via the PEQ-Graduates was the decision courageous to take, pleaded the minister at a press briefing on Thursday. Without this, we could have come close to 70,000 permanent immigrantshe estimated, affirming that such a level was far too high for Quebec’s reception capacity.

The plan tabled by Mr. Roberge on Thursday also specifies that the province could receive up to 61,450 permanent immigrants this year, in particular due to the flow of 5,000 to 5,300 applications for permanent residence being processed in the subcategory of people business.

Asked about the difference between these thresholds and the declaration made by François Legault in 2022 according to which it would be “suicidal” for Quebec to welcome more than 50,000 immigrants per year, the minister retorted that the context had changed and that the rate of French-speaking immigrants was very high today.

When we change the analysis grid and increase the number of French-speaking people graduated in Quebec and integrated into Quebec, I think we can adjust our governance without in any way denying what has been saidhe pleaded.

The freezing of PEQ-Graduates and PRTQ until June 30, 2025 will give to the Ministry of Immigration, Francisation and Integration (MIFI) room to have a frank discussion [et] honest for the next planning [2026-2028]which will take place next year.

This time it will take temporary immigration into consideration, Mr. Roberge confirmed Thursday, thus yielding to a long-standing request from the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ), Québec solidaire (QS) and the Parti québécois (PQ). .

The opposition also said it was surprised, Thursday, at the change of course made by the Legault government.

This is the ideal recipe for immigration to be a failure in Quebeclamented at a press briefing the liberal spokesperson for Immigration, Francisation and Integration, André A. Morin.

His counterpart from the second opposition group, Guillaume Cliche-Rivard, also declared in an interview on the Montreal show All one morningon ICI Première, that he did not understand why the government had decided to freeze admissions via the PEQ-Graduates and PRTQ.

I find it difficult to explain, however, that we are cutting programs intended for those who are economically integrated, who have Quebec diplomas, who are French-speaking, who are French-speaking and who join and already work in the Quebec communityhe said.

PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, finally, could only point out that Jean-François Roberge’s announcement came only a few days after his party’s response to the Initiative of the Century, a plan including a moratorium on the arrival of economic immigrants.

His statement also stung the minister, who declared upon his arrival at the National Assembly that it was one of the most serious things ridicules that he had heard recently. When the Parti Québécois takes credit for our immigration policies, it gives itself an importance that it does not have.he said.

With information from The Canadian Press