A look at the long-running debate on immigration between Ottawa and Quebec

MONTREAL — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday once again rejected Quebec’s request for additional powers over immigration, following a meeting with Premier François Legault in Montreal. The disagreement between the two leaders is not new: Quebec’s demand for full immigration powers has been part of Legault’s Coalition Avenir Québec platform since 2015. 

Here are some of the key elements of the long-running debate.

Shared jurisdiction: 

Under the terms of a 1991 deal, Quebec controls the volume of entry for economic immigrants — who comprised about 66 per of permanent immigration to the province in 2022 — but shares responsibility with Ottawa over refugees, newcomers who arrive through the family reunification stream, and temporary foreign workers. Legault’s party has long argued it needs greater control in order to ensure it has the ability to properly integrate newcomers and ensure they learn French. 

Asylum seekers: 

Legault wrote to Trudeau in early 2024 to tell him the province was reaching a “breaking point” regarding the number of asylum seekers entering Quebec. In recent years, the province has welcomed a disproportionate share, including more than 65,000 of the 144,000 asylum seekers who came to Canada last year. In 2022, the proportion was even greater, with Quebec taking in more asylum seekers than the rest of Canada combined, despite making up less than a quarter of the population.

Legault has said this volume has put unsustainable pressure on the province’s health, social services, education and housing systems. Quebec has demanded Ottawa reimburse $1 billion — the amount the province says it has cost to care for would-be refugees over the last three years. In response, Ottawa has closed a popular unofficial crossing point used by asylum seekers south of Montreal, said it would impose new visa requirements for Mexican nationals, and pledged about $150 million toward the bill so far.

Family reunification:

Ottawa has said it is willing to disregard Quebec’s cap on family reunification in order to speed up the process of allowing people to bring their foreign family members to Canada. Quebec only allows approximately 10,000 admissions per year in the family reunification category, which means Quebecers wait far longer on average than other Canadians to bring foreign spouses or parents to the country. Federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said earlier this year that he has decided to instruct his department to process about 20,500 pending files over the next three years — even if doing so exceeds the established limits — earning him accusations from Quebec that he is violating provincial jurisdiction.

Temporary immigration:

Quebec has set its official permanent annual immigration number at about 50,000 per year, with Legault famously claiming in 2022 that raising the cap would be “a bit suicidal,” especially for the survival of the French language. But at the same time, the number of temporary immigrants in the province — which include asylum seekers and temporary workers — has skyrocketed to 528,000, including 230,000 that have arrived in the last two years. Legault said Friday that the province is studying its options to get that number down “rapidly.” He said Trudeau was open to some of the province’s suggestions, including processing asylum claims faster and requiring that temporary foreign workers be approved by Quebec before they can come to the province.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 15, 2024.

The Canadian Press