CIMM – Francophone Immigration Outside Québec – May 12, 2022
Key Messages
The Government recognizes that immigration plays an important role in supporting the vitality of Francophone minority communities across the country and is a contributing factor to the demographic weight of these communities.
In 2019, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) announced a comprehensive Francophone Immigration Strategy that aims to reach a 4.4% target of French-speaking immigrant admissions outside Québec by 2023. This target was established in consultation with community stakeholders.
The Strategy has yielded increases in French-speaking immigration admissions outside Québec:
In 2021, IRCC introduced temporary, uncapped, dedicated streams for French-speaking and bilingual candidates as part of the Temporary Resident to Permanent Resident pathway. The time-limited pathway targeted essential workers, including in health care, and recent international graduates from a Canadian institution, who were already in Canada.
IRCC continues to work towards reaching the target by leveraging several tools, including the introduction of additional points allocated to French-speaking and bilingual candidates under the Express Entry system in 2020 and the improvement of promotional activities in Canada and abroad.
Supplementary Messages
Francophone Immigration Target Outside Québec by 2023
The Government is working to achieve the 4.4% target. While 2020 projections suggested that IRCC would reach the target by 2023, the pandemic slowed the arrival of French-speaking permanent residents, many of whom come from abroad.
Settlement and Integration
In 2019, IRCC implemented the Francophone Integration Pathway, which offers tailored support to French-speaking newcomers from pre-arrival to citizenship. It also ensures that newcomers, of all linguistic backgrounds, are aware of these services and the possibilities for settlement services in French outside Québec.
The Francophone Integration Pathway is implemented by Francophone organizations in alignment with the “by and for Francophones” approach, which supports the vitality of Francophone minority communities.
Promotional Activities
My Department is pursuing year-round targeted promotional activities in Canada and abroad, to expand the pool of potential, qualified French-speaking and bilingual candidates.
In 2021, over 450 in-Canada promotional activities took place where Francophone Immigration was discussed, with audiences such as employers, community and economic development agencies, and Designated Learning Institutions. IRCC will continue these by supporting events like the Tournée de Liaison, as well as other outreach activities.
With the recent shift to more virtual promotional activities, a broader pool of French-speaking and bilingual talent can now be reached more easily, including from Africa.
The 17th edition of the Destination Canada Mobility Forum was held virtually in November 2021. The highest recorded number of requests for participation were received, with more than 178,000 requests and over 4,000 advertised employment opportunities.
In 2022, IRCC plans to participate in more than 250 activities to promote Francophone immigration, including at events such as the Francophonie Summit in Djerba, Tunisia and the Expo Dubai 2020.
Supporting Facts and Figures
From 2003 to 2021, more than 70,000 French-speaking immigrants were admitted to Canada in communities outside Québec. 7,650 were admitted from January 2021 to January 2022.
From January 2021 to January 2022, 4,640 (61%) French-speaking permanent residents outside Québec were admitted via the Economic Class, 43% (3,280) via Express Entry. The Canadian Experience Class became the main driver, accounting for close to a third (28%) of all admissions and slightly less than half (47%). As processing shifts back towards overseas clients in 2022, the processing of lines of business such as Federal Skilled Workers with high Francophone proportions will resume, resulting in a higher proportion of Francophone admissions than what was realized during 2021.
In 2021, IRCC created a new time-limited Temporary Resident to Permanent Resident Pathway, which was open to applications from May 6 to November 5, 2021. This included uncapped streams for French-speaking and bilingual essential workers, including those in health care, and recent international graduates from a Canadian institution who were already in Canada and who possessed the skills and experience to support economic growth and recovery. When the Pathway closed, IRCC had received more than 2,300 applications to the two streams dedicated to French-speaking essential workers and approximately 4,700 applications for the stream dedicated to French-speaking international graduates.
As of March 28, 2022, there are an estimated 28,900 Francophone permanent resident clients in the processing inventory destined outside Québec. Certain lines of business have higher Francophone proportions than others; for example, the Federal Skilled Worker stream has the highest at 12.7% (5,100 clients). The aforementioned Temporary Resident to Permanent Resident Pathway also had a high proportion of Francophone clients with 10.8% (7,900 clients) of the processing inventory estimated to be Francophone.
Background
IRCC’s Meeting Our Objectives: Francophone Immigration Strategy published in 2019, reaffirmed the goal to achieve a target of 4.4% of French-speaking immigrants outside Québec by 2023. This target reflects the proportion of the Francophone population in Canada outside Québec as per the 2001 Census. The Strategy covers the continuum of immigration, from attraction to selection and retention of French-speaking newcomers outside Québec.
Immigration plays a role in maintaining the demographic weight of Francophone minority communities in Canada, but a number of factors contributed to its decline, including a low fertility rate and incomplete transmission of French as a mother tongue to the children of French-speaking parents.
In collaboration with provinces and territories, IRCC is advancing the federal/provincial/territorial (FPT) Action Plan to increase Francophone immigration outside Quebec, which enables FPT governments, in collaboration with stakeholders, to improve the promotion, selection, settlement, integration and retention of French-speaking immigrants in official language-minority communities.
Additional points to candidates with strong French-speaking skills under Express Entry (EE) were introduced in June 2017, and further increased in October 2020. Since then, the share of invitations issued to these candidates increased from 2.9% in 2017 to 5.2% in 2020. In 2020, the majority of French-speaking admissions outside Québec overall were under EE, making it the most promising tool to increase the former. However, in 2021, the share of invitations declined to 3% given that IRCC targeted invitations to individuals already in Canada due to the pandemic by limiting most invitations to individuals who qualified under the Canadian Experience Class, which has a smaller proportion of French-speaking candidates.
The Mobilité Francophone stream under the International Mobility Program was launched in 2016 to promote Francophone immigration in Francophone minority communities outside Québec. This program exempts employers outside Québec from the need to have a Labour Market Impact Assessment when they hire French-speaking foreign workers in managerial, professional and technical positions. From its inception in 2016 to January 31, 2022, around 5,400 work permit applications and 3,180 work permit extensions were approved.
