According to observers, about 18,000 files have not yet been reviewed to determine whether their owners are eligible to come to Quebec or not; some of these files date back to 2005.

Quebec has been suffering for years from problems in processing immigration files for candidates who wish to settle within its territory.

The current Minister of Immigration has called on the anticipated new government after the Quebec elections to urgently find a solution to review all these accumulated files in the immigration offices, especially since the province is in dire need of foreign labor.

On the other hand, with the currently available resources, the Ministry of Immigration can only process 600 files monthly, which means that processing these applications will take about 30 months, not to mention the immigration files that arrive daily.