“Fed up” with immigrants being targeted

(Ottawa) For Marc Miller, it is François Legault’s government that is fanning the flames of intolerance by making amalgamations in the immigration file. For Bloc Québécois MP Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, it is rather Marc Miller who is exacerbating the polarization by throwing oil on the fire.

The next few months for the federal Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship will not be easy. Because according to François Legault (and Paul St-Pierre Plamondon), immigration will remain a key issue, even a referendum issue, ahead of the next election in Quebec.

He is “tired” of people blaming immigrants, “bashing them,” he also lets slip here and there. It is the kind of statement that Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, as the Bloc Québécois’ critic for immigration, is now used to making.

“The reality is that the Liberals have lost control over immigration thresholds, and we unfortunately find ourselves today with an extremely polarized debate. And for that, I am a little angry with him, because he likes to add fuel to the fire publicly,” explains the MP.

And if it is certainly possible to ignore the “sloppy and condescending” side of Marc Miller to advance certain issues, one observation remains, implacable: “We have diametrically opposed visions of what immigration should be,” says Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe.

Reconciliation behind closed doors

Quebec’s Minister of Immigration, Francisation and Integration, Christine Fréchette, declined our interview request. She and Marc Miller had a spat, with the former accusing the latter of “continuing[r] to obstinately focus on numbers instead of acting” and to “play with numbers” on the X network.

This was before their first meeting in person, last May. Since then, the tone between the two has been more serene, it is reported on both hills. “She is someone who works hard, she is diligent […]. We get along well, we talked about our summers at [bar] Dagobert in Quebec,” relates the federal minister.

Between the two approaches, the general director of Maison d’Haïti, Marjorie Villefranche, prefers that – more pragmatic, according to her – of Marc Miller.

Tightening of programs

Since his arrival, Marc Miller has tightened the screws several times in terms of migration policies.

In a flurry of speeches, he announced a cap on the admission of foreign students, reinstated the mandatory visa for travelers from Mexico and outlined plans to reduce the proportion of temporary residents in the Canadian population from 6.2% to 5% by 2027.

This “string” of measures is too timid and the Quebec government is therefore not wrong to resist federal pushes, argues economist Pierre Fortin. “These are not big reforms,” he pleads, speaking with a grain of salt, for fear of “coming across as a crypto-racist.”

But “the Canadian experience is unique,” he explains. Because “the total immigration rate of 3.2% of Canada’s population in 2023 was 8 times higher than the median immigration rate (0.4%) of the 25 largest advanced OECD countries,” he explains.

100% agree (that it is not 100%)

The professor emeritus of economics at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM) is also of the opinion that the immigrants that Canada welcomes to its soil are the first to pay the price for the failures of immigration programs.

Like Marc Miller.

Like Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe.

And where the political opponents also agree is on the share of responsibility that can be attributed to temporary immigrants regarding the housing crisis. In short, they are at odds with François Legault on this subject.

“I’m not saying that it’s 100% because of immigration, the housing crisis. We can’t point fingers and we can’t use people,” maintains the Bloc Québécois MP.

Enough to make Marc Miller smile.