Agencies: The leaders of the five main parties in Quebec offer differing perspectives on the number of immigrants the province should receive each year as it faces, like other Canadian provinces, a labor shortage.

Paul Saint-Pierre Plamondon, leader of the Parti Québécois (PQ), proposed reducing the number of new immigrants Quebec receives to 35,000 annually to protect the French language and the culture of the only Canadian province with a French-speaking majority.

His plan comes at a time when business groups in the province are urging all political parties to accept more newcomers in order to fill more than 200,000 job vacancies across the province, according to these groups.

However, Saint-Pierre Plamondon, whose party calls for Quebec's independence from Canada, rejects the idea that accepting more immigrants will help ease the labor crisis, pointing out that newcomers are also consumers of goods and services which in turn require more workers.

The leader of the Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ), Dominique Anglade, said it is clear that Saint-Pierre Plamondon is "detached" from field reality and does not listen to business owners struggling to find workers.

Anglade, who is of Haitian origin, proposed an initial immigration target of 70,000 newcomers annually if her party comes to power in the October 3 election, with a Liberal government under her leadership later coordinating with each region in Quebec separately to determine its real immigrant needs.

The Quebec Liberal Party formed the official opposition in the outgoing National Assembly (Legislative Assembly) elected in October 2018, after having been in power in Quebec under Philippe Couillard (2014 - 2018) and before that under Jean Charest (2003 - 2012).

As for François Legault, leader of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), the outgoing Premier, he said in a television interview on Sunday evening that he believes the province can integrate about 50,000 immigrants annually at most if it wants to protect the French language.

Legault pointed out that this figure makes Quebec one of the places in the world receiving the largest number of immigrants relative to its population.
 

Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, co-spokesperson (co-leader) of the left-wing Québec Solidaire (QS) party, said on the same television program that he believes the province can receive between 60,000 and 80,000 permanent immigrants annually.

For his part, Eric Duhaime, leader of the Quebec Conservative Party (PCQ), proposed gradually reducing the number of permanent immigrants concurrently with efforts to increase automation in workplaces in Quebec and raise the birth rate there.

The official levels of permanent immigration to Quebec, as set by provincial authorities in recent years, have ranged between 40,000 and 50,000 annually.

However, Quebec will receive about 70,000 permanent immigrants during 2022 to compensate for the shortage recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic.