Quebec is considering a policy change to welcome more immigrants, with one condition: it only wants French speakers.
The Canadian province is under pressure from business groups to loosen its cap on the number of permanent newcomers it lets in, to alleviate a labor shortage. The government of Premier Francois Legault now says one option is to gradually increase the limit to 60,000 people a year — a 20 per cent bump. But knowledge of the province’s dominant language will be mandatory for the majority of them.
The province of 8.8 million people is the only part of Canada where more people use French than English, and its government has unique powers over immigration. Under the nationalist Legault, that has meant a restrictive policy — to the dismay of businesses that are crying out for workers. The province’s capital, Quebec City, has an unemployment rate of just 1.7 per cent, for example.
“The government has realized the obvious by changing the rules of the game to make them more flexible and adapted to the labor market,” said Karl Blackburn, president of the Conseil du Patronat du Quebec, a lobby group representing large companies. “More graduate students and skilled workers who speak French will be able to settle here permanently. This is exactly the vision of businesses.”
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