Quebec Government Passes Legislation to "Improve the Regulatory Scheme Governing International Students"
The Quebec National Assembly on December 5 passed into law Bill 74, An Act mainly to improve the regulatory scheme governing international students.
The draft legislation was introduced in the National Assembly on October 10 by Jean-François Roberge, the newly-minted Minister of Immigration, Francization and Integration, named to this post September 5. Some of the other offices Roberge holds are Minister of the French Language, Minister Responsible for Canadian Relations and the Canadian Francophonie, Minister Responsible for Democratic Institutions, Minister Responsible for Access to Information and the Protection of Personal Information, and Minister Responsible for Laicity.
Most of the focus on the bill has been on international students and correcting a situation where so-called bad actors (including certain institutions) are taking them to the cleaners financially, while offering them false hope of studying in Quebec and settling there permanently. The legislation, however, does much more than that. It affects temporary and permanent immigration overall, which includes not only international students, but also refugee claimants, temporary foreign workers and others.
The operative words in the law's title are "mainly" and "regulatory scheme." Through the legislation, the Legault government is seeking to strengthen executive rule by bypassing the National Assembly with regard to temporary immigration and permanent residency. In certain cases, it will not even publish some of its decisions through regulation in the Gazette officielle du Québec.[1]
At a press conference when Roberge introduced the bill, he presented it within the context that there are over 600,000 officially recorded non-permanent or temporary immigrants in Quebec (not to mention all the undocumented persons of which there is no official record).
He informed that between 2014 and 2024, the number of foreign students in Quebec had jumped from 50,000 to over 120,000, a 140 per cent increase. He did not mention that his own government allowed them all in. Some 80 per cent of all these students in Quebec are attending post-secondary education establishments, such as CEGEPs and universities; 10 per cent are in vocational training; and the remainder (the sons and daughters of temporary immigrants) are in elementary and high schools.
The Immigration Minister then dived into examples. Within a period of a year and a half, each of two smaller private establishments had increased their international student component by over 245 per cent. He explained how the legislation would assist in eliminating certain bad actors who prey on international students by holding out the promise of permanent residence [as if his or the federal government are not past masters at such practices -- TML Ed. Note].
Roberge also raised the need to preserve the vitality of the French language. He revealed that in 2023, 58.7 per cent of all international students in Quebec resided in the Greater Montreal area, with the remainder broadly spread across various Quebec regions. While ever the protector of the French language in words, Roberge continues to cut French courses for temporary immigrants while at the same time denying this is the case.
The Minister has no qualms about his government having no plan in place to provide the services and housing required to address the impact of the influx of international students and temporary foreign workers on Quebec society. Nor do they consider this manna from heaven for the rich a problem, even though they are being forced by real life itself to face the crisis in health care, education, and housing, etc. for the whole society. They cannot even imagine that the large corporations, who end up hiring international students, should be part of the equation to pay for their fees, as it is they who are the prime benefactors of their acquired knowledge. Instead, they blame temporary migrants, mainly asylum seekers, for the crisis in social programs that is the direct result of their own anti-social agenda of cuts and privatization.
The Minister described the legislation as providing his government more leeway in its choices, with new levers enabling it to obtain more information regarding students, and setting the number of applications and acceptances with more agility, based on regions, learning levels, institutions, programs, the "vitality of institutions," and the preservation of study programs for the regions. He did not provide any information as to the number of international students who would be cut, saying only that it would be "adequate" and that the government must act quickly, with a first reduction in September 2025.
Rather than acknowledge that his own government also bears responsibility for the dramatic increase in international students, he claimed his government was missing "the legislative tools" to deal with the issue properly and with precision.
Although Roberge's introductory remarks focused on international students, one journalist pointed to a proposed amendment to the Québec Immigration Act. It reads in part, "A decision is made taking into account, in particular, the guidelines and objectives set out in the annual immigration plan, economic and labour needs, the need to promote diversity in the origin of applications for selection, humanitarian considerations, any situation that could compromise the health, safety or well-being of immigrants, Quebec's capacity to receive and integrate immigrants or the public interest." The journalist then gave the example of people coming here to study who then make a refugee claim.
Roberge said that once the "legislative tools" are in place, the government wants to ensure that people coming to Quebec do not do so under a false pretext. Specifically with regard to students, he added: "We want to admit foreign students who will come here to help us address our issues in public services and allow us to maintain programs in the regions." He said they are to "enable us to maintain our fields of excellence" as well as "to go into sectors where we have huge shortages" and "reinforce the quality of the French language."
"We want students who are foreign students," he exclaimed, "not refugee claimants who use student visas to claim asylum!"
When asked if such practices could be banned, the Minister responded that things would be analyzed, with part of that falling under federal government responsibility. He said that he has been in talks on this with the federal ministers of Immigration, Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs.
Notes
1. Under Section 104 of the Quebec Immigration Act, a regulation made under certain sections of the Act "is not subject to the publication requirement set out in section 8 of the Regulations Act that "Every proposed regulation shall be published in the Gazette officielle du Québec." As well, regulations made under such sections, are not subject to section 17 of the Regulations Act that "A regulation comes into force 15 days after the date of its publication in the Gazette officielle du Québec or on any later date indicated in the regulation or in the Act under which it is made or approved." Instead, under Section 104, such a section comes "into force on the date of its publication in the Gazette officielle du Québec or any later date set in the regulation."
Through Bill 74, Sections 9 and 10 of the Quebec Immigration Act are now included with those under the provisions of Section 104.
Section 9 states that "For each class, the Government may, by regulation, determine immigration programs and, for each program, the selection conditions and any selection criteria applicable to foreign nationals." Section 10 states, "To stay or settle in Quebec, foreign nationals belonging to one of the classes listed in sections 6 and 7 of the Quebec Immigration Act must file an application with the Minister under an immigration program, unless they are covered by an exemption provided for by government regulation." Section 6 includes temporary foreign workers and international students as classes of foreign nationals wishing to stay temporarily in Quebec. Section 7 enumerates classes of foreign nationals wishing to settle permanently in Québec as the economic class, the family class and the humanitarian class.
(Source: National Assembly of Québec, LégisQuébec)
This article was published in
Volume 54 Number 12 - December 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/M540129.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca