The CAQ (and the PQ's) big fat lies on immigration

It's worse than you think.

Jean-François Roberge has finally found a way to backtrack on the issue of the now-defunct Quebec Experience Program, or QEP. (PEQ in French media.)

Basically, Roberge, the Minister of Immigration, Francization, and Integration will bow to the wishes of the person who becomes leader of the CAQ and premier at the end of the party leadership race, in April. If it is Christine Fréchette, the program will be extended for two years, giving those who wish to do so some time to meet its criteria.

If it is Bernard Drainville, a grandfathering clause—or acquired rights clause—will be granted to temporary workers in certain sectors, including health, education, construction, and specialized manufacturing. Other immigrant workers who also came here at our invitation and met the program’s requirements will eventually have to pack their bags. Too bad for them.

Before getting inside the minds of politicians and seeing how some of them have a loose relationship with the truth, it is important to review the main points of the QEP program in order to avoid being taken in by Roberge, who is a first-class snoreau, as we say in Quebec.

The Quebec Experience Program, or QEP, is a highly selective immigration program whose objective was to lead particularly well-integrated immigrants to permanent residence via the Quebec Selection Certificate, or CSQ. Once the CSQ was obtained, the likelihood of obtaining residence—granted by the federal government—was very high. The QEP was entirely managed by Quebec.

Since various—and sometimes fictitious—numbers are circulating about temporary immigration, and politicians are deliberately spreading misinformation (as we will see), it should be noted that not all foreign students or temporary workers want to settle in Quebec and apply for the QEP, and even fewer meet its criteria.

Yet, listening to some politicians, one might get the impression that if the QEP were reactivated, half a million temporary immigrants would magically earn the right to remain in Quebec indefinitely. It’s a wave, an avalanche, a tsunami that will soon engulf Quebec. Is this true?

Not quite. Here is the number of Quebec selection certificates issued in recent years to students or temporary workers under the PEQ program, according to data compiled by Radio-Canada and La Presse, which both media obtained from the Quebec Ministry of Immigration, Francization, and Integration:

· 2020: 16,942

· 2021: 24,391

· 2022: 5,915

· 2023: 9,313

· 2024: 20,201

· 2025: 18,532

So, roughly 15,000 to 20,000 per year. Keep these figures in mind.

Over the years, the QEP requirements, which were already high, have been tightened further by the current government. In its most recent version, workers were required to have at least two years of work experience in Quebec. They were also required to have a job at the time of application. Another component of the program was open to students who attended French-speaking schools or universities in Quebec. In both cases, intermediate to advanced knowledge of French was required. This was a far cry from “bonjour-hi.”

So, these were people who had studied in Quebec, who had worked and were still working in Quebec, who spoke French, and who had been living here for some time.

Many of these exemplary immigrants work in fields where Quebec has a permanent labour shortage, as health care, education, and construction.

The fact that these immigrants are francized and integrated did not move the Minister of Immigration, Francization, and Integration, Jean-François Roberge, who axed the QEP last fall after suspending it earlier in the year (and in 2024 for students). See the strategy at work: first, the program is suspended, so it is no longer possible to apply; then, the plug is pulled, and it is too late.

Thousands of people who had not yet applied for the Quebec Selection Certificate never had the opportunity to do so because the rug was pulled out from under them without warning, after they had been invited to come study, work, learn French, settle, and live here.

Those left behind by the QEP do not have to pack their bags—well, not yet—, but they must submit a new application under the Skilled Worker Selection Program (or PSTQ, in French—I will keep using that acronym). The Quebec Ministry of Immigration will then decide whether these people meet the objectives of the points-based new program. There is no guarantee that they will be chosen: the explicit objective of the program change is to limit the number of permanent immigrants. In short, those people are being asked to jump through bureaucratic hoops, take a deep breath, and hope that everything works out for them.

It is not unreasonable for a program that leads to permanent residence to establish certain criteria. The problem is when the criteria change mid-game, after people have made the difficult decision to change their lives, leaving everything—or nothing—behind to settle here on the basis of the promises we made to them. This is more than a broken moral contract; it is a betrayal.

It is also counterproductive from our own point of view, since thousands of these aspiring Quebecers are doing essential work with our sick, our elderly, our young people, and businesses that need them. In short, they are helping an aging society to function.

Regardless of the merits of the new program (the PSTQ), the government could have granted an automatic grandfathering clause to people who already met the criteria, giving them time to apply if they wished to do so. Minister Roberge said no, which led to growing incomprehension and anger from all concerned parties.

Those are the facts. It was important to establish them because your brain is about to start spinning as one minister tries to twist them.

Because when just about everyone ended up saying that throwing essential, integrated, and French-speaking workers into limbo and possibly deporting them was unfair, inhumane, counterproductive, and contrary to our own interests—from unions to chambers of commerce to the mayors of Quebec City, Montreal, and just about everywhere in La Belle Province—Minister Roberge started telling big fat lies.

Because when you know what you’re saying isn’t true, it’s not a mistake, it’s a lie.

This column is not just a column about the QEP. It is also a column about lying in politics. I have already given a few examples with François Legault and Bill 2 on doctor’s compensation (that one is in French). But Minister Roberge could give his boss lessons in political bullshit.

Do you think I’m being harsh? Please judge for yourselves.

On January 23, in an interview with Radio-Canada, Jean-François Roberge attempted his first sleight of hand by saying that there is a grandfathering clause for those who have already applied for the Quebec Selection Certificate.

It’s rhetorically clever, but what everyone has been talking about for the past few months is a grandfathering clause for those who came here at our invitation and met all the QEP requirements but haven’t yet applied. Roberge knew that. But it did not stop him from trying.

Then he went on with his magic act.

“If we said yes to these people, it would mean that—there are almost 550,000 temporary, non-permanent residents in Quebec, the vast majority of whom were selected by Ottawa, by the Canadian government, without Quebec having any say in the matter—, and all of these people could obtain a kind of free citizenship, without conditions, because that’s what the QEP was all about. So, reinstating the QEP like that, without conditions, giving it away as a free pass, is a bit like offering citizenship to people without conditions”.

Poof! All of a sudden, Minister Roberge conjures up hundreds of thousands of additional QEP candidates, including asylum seekers and foreign workers who fall under the jurisdiction of the federal government. It’s an Olympic-calibre lie. But 550,000 is a huge number, and using it adds a little more gasoline to the fire of our identity fears, already well fuelled by partisan politics in recent years.

The minister then noted that the majority of temporary residents were “selected by Ottawa.” Ah, Ottawa, again! Vile Ottawa!

Nice try, but no. Asylum seekers—of whom there are about 190,000 in Quebec—were not “selected by Ottawa.” Most of them came here with their suitcases and little else, fleeing war or misery. The federal government has to decide whether to grant them refugee status, based on criteria that comply with international law. An independent Quebec would have the same obligations (or at least it should). In any case, the QEP is intended for immigrants who come here primarily to work. Asylum seekers are not eligible. That’s 190,000 fewer than Roberge’s figure. Of the 350,000 economic immigrants or so who remain, half fall under Quebec’s jurisdiction. So, Ottawa does not choose the majority, but rather one third.

The minister pulls one last rabbit out of his hat by suggesting that reinstating the QEP would be tantamount to granting “unconditional citizenship.” This is also false. The Quebec government does not grant citizenship, but rather a selection certificate. And it is permanent residence that is facilitated, not citizenship, which is another matter. Finally, the QEP has criteria that must be met: having attended French schools or universities, studied in French or worked in Quebec, and having good knowledge of written and spoken French. To paraphrase Cyrano de Bergerac, it’s not a rabbit that Minister Roberge pulled out of his hat, it’s an elephant. And a pink one, at that.

Please note that I had to write three paragraphs to refute a single one, not counting all the context that preceded it. That’s why, most of the time, politicians have free rein to say whatever they want: it takes time to correct them, it’s tedious, and most media and journalists are simply not interested in doing that. And when they do, it gets lost in the flood of headlines, which gives liars a clear advantage, especially since they are rarely seriously challenged on the spot.

I’m going to give credit here to Midi-Info host Alec Castonguay, who does everything humanly possible within a ten-minute segment to avoid constantly interrupting Roberge (Alec is more polite than I am). But Roberge took every opportunity to spin his message, even if it means changing reality in the process.

When Castonguay pointed out to the minister that the rules are being changed mid-game for people who came here based on promises made to them, and that those people often had children born in Quebec and who are now attending French-language schools, Minister Roberge stuck to his script.

“We have to be careful about that. First of all, many people arrived over a period of several years, and the old program changed during those years. Not everyone would have the same grandfathering clause.”

Indeed. The program has been tightened. This means that most of those who are still here and eligible under the most recent criteria have studied or worked in Quebec longer, have had more time to put down roots and speak French better. Next.

“People are worried, essentially, not because the new skilled worker selection program is replacing the old program. People are worried because Ottawa has decided to deport tens, hundreds of thousands of people. Ottawa is the one that issues work permits. In Quebec, we can’t issue or revoke work permits. But since the fall of 2024, Ottawa has decided to revoke work permits, and with each passing week, even today, there are businesses that are seeing their workers’ work permits revoked and being deported.”

The minister is attempting a triple axel here, but he is committing a double fault.

First, people are concerned precisely because the new program is replacing the old one. The new program is by invitation only. QEP orphans know that not all of them will be invited, and they wait anxiously for a response, week after week. That is what worries them, and they are saying so.

Second, it is true that Ottawa is looking for ways to reduce the number of non-permanent residents, but this applies to those who fall under federal programs. Quebec has all the tools at its disposal to keep in Quebec QEP orphans who wish to stay.

At any rate, this is what the CSN, the FTQ, the CSQ (big unions here), the mayors of Quebec City, Montreal, Trois-Rivières, and Laval, the Union des municipalités du Québec, chambers of commerce, the Conseil du patronat (and employer association), and all experts and lawyers specializing in immigration understood, as well as the immigrant workers themselves, many of whom recently demonstrated across Quebec. Perhaps Minister Roberge knows something that no one else does.

But let’s hear what Minister Roberge has to say.

“What we’re saying is that we shouldn’t be taking in more and more immigrants, especially in Montreal, where we want to reduce their numbers. But when Ottawa comes along and says, ‘I’m going to take away a work permit from a nurse at the CHU (a university hospital) in Quebec City, or I’m going to take away a work permit from a welder in Beauce,’ we say no, no way. A grandfathering clause, that is, a temporary status renewal for these people, while they decide whether they want to apply and become Canadian citizens, while they complete French language courses, if they need to”.

That’s great. Jean-François Roberge is asking Ottawa to grant temporary workers under his jurisdiction a grandfathering clause. Bravo. He also wants these people to be given time to learn French. Bravo again.

In short, Roberge is saying there should have been a Quebec program specifically targeting essential workers, such as nurses or welders, with the condition that they speak or have learned French. We could call it the “Quebec Experience Program,” or “QEP”… Oh, wait…

“The people who are listening [Patrick’s note: note here the control marker for the message and lines that the minister wants to convey] I don’t think they disagree with the fact that we select people based on their language proficiency, based on the fact that they work in a priority sector or a sector that is experiencing a labour shortage. Do we really want to give automatic, free citizenship to people who have a poor command of French, who work in a sector that is not a priority or in a sector where there is no labour shortage?”

The last sentence is fantastic. Citizenship used to be “free” and “unconditional,” now it is “automatic.”

And this “automatic, free citizenship” would be granted to “people who have a poor command of French, who work in a sector that is not a priority or in a sector where there is no labour shortage.”

Wow.

Here, Roberge pretends that he doesn’t know that the fundamental condition of the QEP is that people speak or have learned French. It’s so dishonest that it defies belief. In fact, those immigrant workers’ command of French is so “poor” that they are given preferential treatment by the federal government if they want to settle elsewhere in Canada, to the point where an immigration lawyer recommends that they “leave Quebec”!

Roberge then suggests that all these people are working en masse in sectors where there is no need for them. This is nonsense in itself: they are working, which shows that there is a need, and Quebec is facing a structural shortage of skilled labour for the next few decades (we are aging fast). In particular, more than 6,000 employees in our health care system were affected by the end of the QEP, which worried one of Roberge’s colleagues, Health Minister Sonia Bélanger. (Roberge ended up promising that they would all be saved.)

See also how the immigrant workers that Quebec has chosen but is now abandoning seem completely superfluous, while those potentially abandoned by the evil federal government are essential. In addition to being liars, were the minister and his predecessors incompetent? Should we have left the management of our immigration to the federal government? (It’s rhetorical. Of course not. But still…)

Why stop here? Roberge kept digging himself deeper:

“Some people arrived saying, ‘I’m coming with a temporary work permit, and there’s a program I can apply for in two years, in three years.’ But governments have full control over their immigration, and the old program was relevant insofar as we had 50,000, 60,000 temporary immigrants in Quebec. When you have 400,000, 500,000, 560,000, to say that all these people are going to have automatic residency, automatic citizenship without consideration of where they live, without any idea of regionalization, that changes everything.”

Minister Roberge is not content to repeat the lie about “automatic citizenship.” He claims that all 560,000 non-permanent residents in Quebec, including asylum seekers, including temporary workers who fall under federal jurisdiction, including all those who do not wish to be here on more than a temporary basis—and some are quite content to do just that—would automatically obtain Canadian citizenship if the QEP were maintained.

That’s crazy. Minister Roberge can’t not know what he’s talking about. And if that’s the case, why is the head of the Immigration Ministry?

The interview continues and Roberge repeats his pre-learned lines of communication, and his nose grows longer each time.

Fast forward a week. Jean-François Roberge is invited to the same show by the same host. First, they discuss Mark Carney’s speech on the Plains of Abraham, then Alec Castonguay brings up the QEP again: will he listen to what virtually the entire province is demanding and grant a grandfathering clause, or will he stay the course come hell or high water?

I won’t repeat the interview verbatim this time—both to spare you and myself—, you can listen to it here. There are a few striking passages, including this one:

“We need to set the record straight. Under the old program, the Quebec Experience Program, the criteria was: ‘after two years, you are eligible to apply’. And people understand that, at that time, it was automatic and that after two years, you filled out the form and a week later, it was settled. No, at the time there were still thresholds or caps each year. For example, if we were accepting 25,000 people in the economic category, we would take 25,000, and then we would stop.”

Well, guess what? It wasn’t automatic after all, unlike the automatic citizenship of the previous week! There were even caps. Imagine that! So, no tsunami of half a million asylum seekers, students and temporary workers naturalized against our collective will through a program we had lost control of.

Are you confused? Please don’t feel bad.

And it goes on:

“(…) there was also no automatic [inaudible] that we invite everyone every year. If there were 25,000 places, we took 25,000. After that, it went to the next year, the next year, the next year… And there are more people who want to come than there are places, so this wait, which the lady talks about with great truth and emotion, was also present in the old program. So, I want to clarify things: it’s not the change from the QEP to the Skilled Worker Selection Program [the PSTQ] that is causing this wait.”

So what has changed? You may have guessed: Ottawa.

“And what they’re saying in Ottawa is that the people who are here, working here right now, maybe they don’t have the level of French required to be selected, like Canadian and Quebec citizens, for permanent residence. Maybe they don’t have the required level of French yet; that’s true, fine. Let’s keep them here, let the Quebec government teach them French. We’ll select them when they reach the required level, but in the meantime, renew their work permits, stop threatening to deport them, because there are employers, both in the CISSS and CLSC sectors and in manufacturing, who are saying, ‘Well, wait a minute, there’s anxiety, there’s concern in my workplace, you’re taking these workers away from me’”.

So, on the one hand, Roberge is ending a program that guaranteed that integrated and French-speaking workers could stay in Quebec. And on the other hand, he is blaming the federal government for not being patient enough with workers who do not necessarily speak French. Quebec’s government has also been asking for at least two years that Ottawa reduces the number of temporary workers under federal programs. And when Ottawa complies, Roberge puts on a show of indignation.

A reasonable person might be tempted to conclude that Jean-François Roberge is trying to muddy the waters by blaming Ottawa for indefensible decisions made by Quebec, hoping that the mud thrown at the federal government will stick, and spare him a little.

Still not convinced? You’re a better person than I am. I’ll let the minister finish his argument. Please strap yourself in:

“But when it comes to foreign workers selected by the Quebec government, can we please renew their permits? Even if they are temporary status, can we remove this sword of Damocles hanging over their heads? And eventually, maybe in January this year, maybe yesterday, maybe in February, maybe in September, or in 2027, when they will have reached a certain level of French, we can give them permanent residence. But why this sword of Damocles hanging over their heads? We don’t need that. Neither does the Quebec government in health and education, nor do businesses in the manufacturing sector, nor the tourism sector.”

In case you are confused (I know I am), recall that it is the Quebec government that decides the fate of the workers it selects, not the federal government. No other province has this much latitude. It’s part of the powers that Quebec has long demanded and obtained more than 30 years ago. Ottawa had to remind us of this just a few days ago. And the QEP was specifically targeting people who had “reached a certain level” in French.

Jean-François Roberge knows all this. But he keeps repeating the same lies.

***

When the issue invariably came up again in Quebec’s National Assembly, some of the 550,000 future automatic citizens had disappeared, and Minister Roberge spoke instead of 350,000 people. Apparently, someone told him that adding asylum seekers to the sum was a bit rich.

Roberge even managed to get a motion passed in the National Assembly asking the federal government to renew the work permits of temporary workers. Yet he is responsible for his own misfortune, since it was he who ended the QEP. And the government he serves is responsible for the rest, since it is Quebec that has been pressuring Ottawa for years to reduce the number of temporary immigrants. The federal government is simply acceding to Quebec’s repeated requests over the past two years. The motion tabled by Minister Roberge is extraordinarily cynical and opportunistic.

Jean-François Roberge is not the only one torn between his talking points and reality when it comes to immigration.

François Legault has weighed in, trying to remind everyone that he is still Quebec’s Premier, even if we tend to forget it. Legault also repeated the absurd figure of 350,000 temporary immigrants who could benefit from the grandfathering clause. He also warned that the permanent presence of these people on Quebec soil would threaten the survival of the French language. The fact that proficiency in French was a condition of eligibility for the QEP seems to have eluded the Premier too. But, as he himself has said, when it comes to immigration, he would not have won “Génies en herbe.” Unfortunately, that has never stopped him from speaking his mind.

Legault and his party have a history of making inflammatory, opportunistic, alarmist, and even defamatory statements when it comes to immigration.

In recent years, the premier has attributed “100%” of the housing crisis to immigrants, even though Quebec has been experiencing a housing shortage for more than 20 years.

During the last election campaign, Legault candidly expressed the opinion that it would be “suicidal” for Quebec to admit more than 50,000 immigrants per year. Then his government did it anyway.

His former Immigration Minister, Jean Boulet, said that “80% of immigrants do not work, do not speak French, or do not adhere to the values of Quebec society.” (In fact, almost 80% of immigrants speak French, and their employment rate is slightly higher than that of native Quebecers. Oops.)

The Parti Québécois was not to be outdone.

MNA Alex Boissonneault claimed on X that the CAQ wants between 250,000 and 350,000 temporary workers to become permanent residents of Quebec. The figures do indeed come from Legault and Roberge, as we have seen. But it was a gross lie to justify the indefensible decision not to grant a grandfathering clause. Instead of refuting the figures inflated by populist rhetoric, Boissonneault, a former journalist, decided to use them to suggest that the CAQ could do exactly what it said it would not do. Let’s just say that this does not shine with intellectual honesty.

The leader of the Parti Québécois, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon—known here as PSPP—, ended up taking a principled position (he also has to count his votes in Quebec’s regions, where elections are won), but he still relayed the figure of 250,000 to 300,000 temporary workers who would benefit from a grandfathering clause under the QEP, even though no one remotely knowledgeable about the issue thinks that this is in line with reality. That was already crude, but PSPP also added to the calculation and waved the spectre of the 190,000 asylum seekers settled in Quebec. These are not eligible for the QEP, as we saw earlier.

It is probably a coincidence that this serves its interests with the more nationalist electorate that the PQ is competing with the CAQ for.

+++++++++++++

Why so many lies and disinformation from people who claim—and should—represent us with integrity?

The first explanation is that they believe what they are saying is true. Even though everyone can make a mistake here and there, this would be surprising. First, because we are talking about intelligent and informed people who have been immersed in these issues for months, even years, and who are supported by an army of advisors and researchers—not to mention ministry staff. Second, because their versions tend to change depending on political or communication objectives.

The second explanation is that they know what they are saying is not true, but they think it is the best thing to do, politically wise. In the case of the CAQ, that would be surprising: the polls speak for themselves. It would probably be better for the CAQ to use the next seven months to do the opposite of what they have been doing for the past seven years. (The PQ, for its part, is playing both sides: it is fiddling with the numbers to scare people, but seems to want to do the right thing when it comes to the QEP orphans. To be continued.)

The third explanation is that CAQ politicians know they are telling lies. They also know that it is unpopular, but they don’t care, regardless of the harm it causes to individuals, businesses, our health care system, patients, parents, children, and civil society as a whole, because it is purely ideological: the majority of CAQ members, including the current premier, want fewer immigrants, whom they consider to be foreigners in the first sense of the word, and also foreign to their romanticized and nostalgic vision of Quebec. Any means are acceptable. And lying is a small price to pay if it is in the best interest of the Nation.

In my humble opinion, this is the explanation that is most consistent with the actions of this government since it came to power, and even more so during its second term.

In short, we are dealing with either incompetent populists, opportunists without morals, or narrow-minded ideologues. And liars, too.

The good news in all this is that the widespread outcry shows that the majority of Quebecers have their heads and hearts in the right place. If only more politicians bet on that.

-30—

This text is 4,711 words long, or about 19 pages of a book. Manually transcribing interview excerpts, tracking down lies, and setting the record straight took me a bit over three days and made me even more disillusioned with our elected officials, if such a thing were possible.

My name is Patrick Déry. I write for a living. I also like to call out politicians who repeat lies because I believe we deserve better. If you enjoyed reading this text, you can encourage me by buying me a coffee. Comments, shares, and likes are always appreciated.

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