The Parti Québécois (PQ) affirmed Monday that if Canada continues its immigration policy, independence is the only way to protect its public services.

The PQ’s “viable immigration model” includes reducing the number of non-permanent residents from 600,000 to 250,000-300,000 after four years, establishing permanent immigration thresholds at 35,000 per year and a moratorium on permanent economic immigration from outside Quebec “in order to select permanent residents from temporary immigration, made up of foreign students and temporary foreign workers.

The PQ also wants to reduce the number of foreign students from 124,000 to 50,000.

Canada, declared the PQ, has failed to develop an effective model on immigration and that it places emphasis on services, notably on the number of daycare places available.

“As long as the federal government controls our borders and exercises most of the power over immigration, Quebec will not be able to develop a viable immigration model,” said Chief Paul St-Pierre Plamondon. “Without independence, Quebec is condemned to an eternal defensive posture. Canada condemns Quebec to an impasse where it must choose between maintaining its political weight or preserving its model of society. This demonstrates that the only way for Quebecers to increase their political weight and protect their language and culture is through independence.

THE the federal liberal government recently abandoned its immigration goals from 500,000 to 395,000 for permanent residents by 2025, in addition to reducing the proportion of temporary residents – both foreign workers and international students – to five percent of the population over the next three years. This figure is down from just over seven percent.

The PQ claims that “astronomical” immigration thresholds have a negative effect on the birth rate in the province.

Other aspects of the PQ plan include:

• Abolish the international mobility program and the federal temporary worker program;
• Strengthen standards for processing asylum applications while speeding up processing times;
• Rapidly process family reunification files for spouses and children;
• Make a list of jobs to be filled and establish a hierarchy of priorities for temporary foreign workers, thus tightening the selection criteria;
• Move towards automation and robotization in sectors of our economy where there are labor shortages;
• Increase French proficiency requirements.
• Set the number of temporary foreign workers at 40,000;
• Increase the number of international students to 50,000, restore equity between French-speaking and English-speaking schools; And
• Review university funding policy relating to international students.

That of François Legault The CAQ government wants to cap the number of international students and reduce the number of temporary immigrants. French-speaking minister Jean-François Roberge did not commit to a figure on October 10, but said the situation needed to be analyzed.

The PQ claims that the CAQ has “lost control of immigration”.

“This is a documented response to an emergency situation: the desire of the federal government for years to impose a new immigration model on us, without our consent, is detrimental to Quebec, in terms of protection of French language, our ability to offer public services, housing and equal opportunities,” declared St-Pierre Plamondon.

With files from The Canadian Press.