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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 243

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 31, 2023 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 243 - Oct/31/23
Mrs. Julie Vignola (Beauport—Limoilou, BQ)
  • Oct/31/23 12:14:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to inform the House that I will be splitting my time with my terrific colleague from Thérèse-De Blainville. Today's subject is a delicate one. We are talking about human beings who were courageous enough to leave everything behind, either voluntarily or because circumstances forced them to. These human beings crossed the globe in search of a new life. Many of them will never again see the people they grew up with or the land where they were born. Many of them experienced traumatic events. We are also talking about human beings who want to give newcomers the best possible welcome. These human beings want to give newcomers a great new life that meets their highest expectations. These human beings wish for a society where all are equal in law and in fact. When we are talking about immigration, we are talking about all of that and more, so much more. Today, we will be talking about immigration, but more specifically about successful immigration. There is one very important question we must answer: What is successful immigration? I could give a simplistic answer by saying that it means making every effort to ensure that people who settle in a given place contribute to the economic prosperity and the linguistic, cultural and social vitality of that place, especially if that place is a francophone environment, a minority in North America. This brief definition raises two other questions. What do we need so that the human beings coming to settle in Quebec and Canada can contribute to our economic prosperity and linguistic, cultural and social vitality? Do the current immigration conditions enable the human beings settling here to contribute to our economic prosperity and linguistic, cultural and social vitality? Before answering these questions, I should bring my colleagues up to date on the situation. According to Statistics Canada, Canada welcomes almost 500,000 new permanent residents every year. The goal is to reach or exceed 500,000 permanent residents a year. However, taking in 500,000 new permanent residents is equivalent to building a new city every year, somewhere between Halifax and Quebec City in size. Have we built such a city in the last year? No. Will we build one each year going forward? No. Add to that students, asylum seekers and temporary workers, and we reach the shocking number of 2.2 million people between July 2022 and July 2023. I am not making this up. I am citing numbers from Statistics Canada. With 2.2 million residents, temporary workers and asylum seekers coming in, we would need to build a city almost as big as Toronto every year to accommodate them properly. Do we have a city the size of Toronto available, particularly in terms of housing? The answer is no. All these people need jobs, as well as housing and various other services. We have not built a new Toronto or a new Quebec City, and the number of people without housing is alarming. Reception centres are overflowing. Sometimes multiple families have to squeeze into a home scarcely big enough for a single family. This leads to disappointment, stress, anger and bewilderment. For months now, the business community has been saying it needs more workers. However, we know that many immigrants end up in jobs where their skills and knowledge are underused. These are minimum-wage jobs. Many have to hold down several jobs to make ends meet. Furthermore, like any other segment of the population, immigrants need public services like education, health care, day care, transportation, integration services, employment supports, and French language training, or English language training as the case may be, depending on the province. None of these things are Ottawa's responsibility, except for day care centres outside Quebec, since the federal government set those up. In Quebec, all these things are managed by the Quebec government. Everyone deserves quality services, whether they are newcomers, permanent residents or citizens. It is easy for someone to say that we will take in 500,000 new permanent residents each year when they are not responsible for the services that the population needs. All of the services that I just mentioned are services that the population needs. These are services that allow people to integrate and feel included in society. These are services that they need to feel good, good enough to contribute to our economic prosperity and linguistic, cultural and social vitality. We know what it takes. These are the conditions for successfully welcoming, integrating and including newcomers. These are the conditions for successful immigration: being able to deliver the same services to everyone, with the same degree of access and the same quality. Are these conditions currently in place? All of the services that I mentioned do exist. However, demand far outstrips supply. Not a week goes by without me getting a call from a parent who needs subsidized day care. Not a week goes by without someone calling to ask if I know any doctors. I do not even have one myself. Every week, I get calls from isolated mothers who have no family here and need support. Every week, I refer them to different agencies in my riding so that these mothers can build a social life here and have someone to talk to. That is not caused by immigrants. It is caused by immigration targets that are not aligned with existing capacity to provide these services. The people who call me come from all over the world, including Quebec. Everyone is aware of these problems. Everyone has these problems, no matter where they were born, how old they are, the colour of their skin or their religion. None of that matters when people have needs that cannot be met. It takes to years to train a carpenter, a plumber, a plasterer or a painter. It takes three years of post-secondary education to train a nurse or an early childhood educator. It takes six to train a teacher or an engineer. In medicine, it takes seven years to train a general practitioner and 11 to train a specialist. Those are just a few examples of the workers we need now and the time it takes to train them. Even skilled immigrants have to adapt what they have learned to their new geographic and social situation, as well as to the laws and regulations governing their trade or profession here. That does not happen overnight. We need these trades and professions in order to create the conditions that a society requires and to allow each person in society to contribute to its economic, social, cultural and linguistic development. These conditions are not being met. For that, we have the government to thank. It is almost slavishly following the recommendations of the Century Initiative and its consortium, including senior McKinsey and BlackRock executives. In Dominic Barton's own words, it never occurred to the Century Initiative people to consider the social impact of a massive increase in Canada's population. Their focus was just on economics. What, therefore, are the possible consequences of failing to meet the conditions necessary for integration, inclusion and immigration to succeed? The shortage of teachers will lead to a decrease in the quality of education, which will lead to learning delays. Children with special needs will be hardest hit. Instead of making progress and overcoming their challenges, they will stagnate. If they stagnate, they will not reach their full potential. The shortage of hospital staff could lead to missed diagnoses or even preventable deaths. The shortage of carpenters will prevent us from building the housing we need. The lack of housing, the difficulties in education and the dangers of deteriorating health care are the ingredients of a problem that everyone will have to live with at the expense of Quebec and the Canadian provinces, because the federal government refuses to listen to basic logic. To illustrate my point, welcoming people does not mean cramming 10 people into a studio apartment with a single bed and a box of Kraft Dinner. When someone wants to achieve a dream, they have to put all the conditions in place to make it come true. Immigrants are answering Canada's invitation to come and fulfill their dream of a better life here. Canada is pocketing the application fees while putting all the pressure on Quebec and the Canadian provinces when it comes to the distribution of services. Thinking about and planning immigration so that everyone can have access to decent housing and quality services is essential. That is exactly what the Government of Quebec is currently doing with consultations on immigration. A mature society is capable of discussing sensitive issues. Quebec is mature and capable of having such discussions. Wanting equality for all is mature and responsible. It is also mature and responsible to want to ensure that human beings get to achieve their dreams and reach their full potential.
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