Ottawa has rejected Quebec’s demand for $1 billion in compensation for receiving what Premier François Legault says is over half a million temporary immigrants in the past year.
The Legault government has been asking since February that Ottawa reimburse it for spending on social services to support migrants from 2021 to 2023.
The federal government is offering the province about half that much — $750 million — to support newcomers.
During a news conference after meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Monday in Quebec City, Legault said he was “disappointed” that the federal government did not commit to quantifiable objectives to reduce temporary immigration levels.
He says Quebec is aiming to reduce by 50 per cent the number of asylum seekers in the province within a year.
“I think it’s about time that we put targets with figures,” Legault said. “The problem is urgent so we cannot say we’ll continue working for months and months about the principles.”
“We’ll take the money, but we’ll continue to ask for more,” he added.
Ottawa open to French requirements
However, Legault welcomed that Ottawa is open to imposing French language requirements on certain types of temporary immigrants.
To address Quebec’s concerns, the federal government is considering transferring temporary immigrants to other provinces, tightening the issuance of visas, speeding up process times for refugees and deporting more quickly asylum seekers whose requests were refused.
“At least the federal government recognizes that there is a problem. It even recognizes that it must act in the short term in a meaningful way, but it refuses to put figures,” Legault added.
Quebec is arguing that its public services are being weighed down by 560,000 temporary immigrants in the province — a number the federal government disputes.
When breaking down the impact of their presence in Quebec in the last two years, Legault said the amount of new arrivals requires 120,000 housing units.
“We see that 100 per cent of the housing problem come from the increase in the number of temporary immigrants,” he said.
Quebec says about a third of those temporary immigrants are asylum seekers.
The premier is calling on Ottawa to “significantly and rapidly” reduce their numbers while doing a better job at distributing asylum seekers across the country.
In response, Trudeau told reporters that he was waiting for the premier’s plan before setting targets. He said Quebec controls more than half of the temporary immigrants in the province.
“Mr. Legault is talking about targets that he has without a plan to reduce the numbers that are directly controlled by Quebec,” he said. “We need to do things that are responsible in a responsible way. That means understanding where the levers are and what each party is willing to do.”