PQ Victory Strikes A Major Blow Against Mass Immigration

The victory of the Parti Québécois (PQ) on Monday night will cut immigration flows into Quebec and act as a counterbalance against any potential move by the federal government to raise national immigration levels.

PQ Leader Paul Saint-Pierre Plamondon, known colloquially by his initials PSPP, ran on a platform that included staunch immigration restrictionism, correctly linking mass immigration to classroom overcrowding and the province’s housing crisis. Plamondon has gone on the record against high immigration long before the current election cycle. notably by forcefully criticizing the Century Initiative, which he described as “based on the very stupid assumption that growing the GDP makes you richer”.

Immigration is an important issue in Quebec politics because the province was given significant (though not total) immigration powers under an agreement with Ottawa that came into force in 1991. Unlike the rest of Canada, the province has significant power over the selection of immigrants and sets its own annual permanent resident levels. Quebec’s immigration policy is endlessly and passionately debated within the province, with discussion centring on practical considerations such as infrastructure, housing, and school capacity, but also on the less concrete but no less important factors like the province’s cultural and linguistic character, social cohesion, and assimilation capacity.

What can we expect in particular from the new government? Below are just some of the immigration pledges in the PQ platform:

• Reduce temporary immigration by at least half, to a target of 250,000 to 300,000 non-permanent residents by the end of a four-year term
• Lower annual permanent resident admissions to 35,000
• Declare a moratorium on permanent economic immigration from outside Quebec in order to select permanent residents from among the pool of international students and foreign workers already on Quebec soil.
• Tighten selection criteria for temporary foreign workers while formally acknowledging the agricultural sector’s reliance on these workers.
• Shift towards the automation and robotization of sectors of our economy facing labour shortages.
• Require a higher level of French proficiency

These policies, especially the imposition of a moratorium on economic immigration from outside the province, will throttle immigration levels in Quebec, helping to preserve the French language and French Canadian culture, while easing the strain on schools, healthcare, transit, and infrastructure. This will make life better not only for the old stock Quebecois population but for all residents of the province, including the foreign-born and their children.

One group who will be substantially worse off because of the reduced immigration levels will be the vested interests that profit financially from high immigration. We should expect to see major pushback from the business lobby, which benefits from easy access to cheap foreign labour and an infinite inflow of new customers.

A PQ crackdown on immigration may well be a boon for Canadian nationalists in English Canada. This is because Plamondon has pledged to use his power as premier of Quebec to influence national immigration policy.

This promise came after Prime Minister Carney told the New York Times that an increase in immigration may be on Canada’s horizon. In an interview, Carney explained to the American publication that his government had reduced immigration significantly, but then went on to say that immigration levels could rise in the future: “…and now the question starts to become: When do we resume some controlled increase in the population, which is the nature of Canada. So that will happen, and we just want to make sure that we’ve got it under control”.

Plamondon swiftly issued a denunciation: “A PQ government will oppose from day 1 any increase in immigration thresholds imposed by the federal government and any attempt to circumvent Quebec democracy to achieve it.” This statement was issued while Plamondon was still on the campaign trail, but in a press conference after his party’s victory Plamondon stated that he had spoken with Prime Minister Carney, who had confirmed to him that any increase in immigration was a future project rather than an immediate decision.

To be sure, the PQ government of Quebec will not oppose federal mass immigration policies out of love for English Canada – they do want to separate from Confederation, after all. They will do so out of self-interest for Quebec, but in this case their self-interest coincides with ours splendidly.

Let us hope that one day the PQ drops the idea of secession, and decides to work together with nationalists in English Canada for the mutual preservation of our peoples in the face of the threats of mass immigration, multiculturalism, and Americanization. For now, we should be glad of the arrival of a new ally that will aid us in advocating against Ottawa’s open-door immigration policy.