ADQ's population policy not so out of line

Citing Quebec's serious inability to properly and efficiently integrate immigrants into society, Dumont proposed that immigration should be frozen at the current levels of 46,000 a year. Depending on what the topic of conversation is in this province, warring political parties wrestle with each other or band together. On this issue, the PQ and the Liberals (who usually have no patience for each other) have chosen to unite over their belief that the ADQ's immigrant-limiting proposal is intolerant and borderline discriminatory. A Gazette editorial even went so far as to state that Dumont's position was based on playing the identity card and appeasing francophones who view immigration as a threat to the primacy of French. Perhaps that is the case or perhaps there is more common sense in Dumont's approach than either the PQ or the Liberals care to see.

There's no question that Quebec hasn't done such a stellar job of integrating immigrants to the province. Unemployment among immigrants is high and while newly arrived immigrants are supposed to have easy access to French language classes, that's not always the case. If economic growth is furthered along by a qualified labour market and the goal of immigration is to boost economic growth, how does that take place when the "winning conditions" (to borrow from the PQ's handbook) are not in place to create that qualified labour market? Until the barriers to the proper integration and utilization of newly arrived immigrants and their skills are removed, there is no reason to advocate increasing immigration.

Furthermore, ADQ policy commission spokesperson Stéphane Le Bouyonnec confirmed that an ADQ government would favour job skills over the ability to speak French as a criterion for further immigration. Imagine favouring job skills over language! What a novel idea…