Question Period Note- Canada-Quebec Accord

Date: September 6, 2023

Classification:

Department: IRCC

Issue:

Canada-Québec Accord and immigration-related issues

Proposed Response:

• The governments of Canada and Quebec have a long history of collaborating to advance shared and respective immigration priorities.
• Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s (IRCC) bilateral relationship with Quebec is defined by the 1991 Canada-Quebec Accord, and is guided by the principle that immigration should support the preservation of Quebec’s demographic weight in Canada and its distinct identity.
• The Accord is designed to ensure collaboration between both governments throughout the immigration process, in all immigration categories and was created at a particular time in Canada’s history.

Responsive – Francophone immigration to Quebec

• IRCC will continue to work with the Quebec government to maintain the vitality of the French language in the province.
• Our official languages are part of our identity; our past, our present and our future. They are meeting points and links between our cultures. They are at the heart of our country's social contract.
• Canada also has a responsibility to attract and facilitate Francophone immigration outside of Quebec. Our official language minority communities, English-speaking in Quebec and French-speaking in the rest of Canada, are entitled to strong institutions, supported by and for them, that ensure their vitality and sustainability. The federal government will stand by them.
• The Quebec initiative called “Francisation Quebec” is intended to facilitate access to government services to learn French for a range of new clients.

Contact:
Heather De Santis
Director General, International and Intergovernmental Relations
Tel. No.: 343-574-7192

Approved By:
Louise Baird
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic and Policy Program
Tel. No.: 613-850-3866

Additional Messaging:

Responsive – Levels

• As established in the Canada-Quebec Accord, Quebec sets its own immigration levels plan, which the Government of Canada takes into account for the overall Immigration Levels plan.
• The Canada-Quebec Accord allows Quebec to set its maximum levels range to the equivalent of its demographic weight, currently at 22%, plus 5%, for a total of 27% of total admissions to the country.

Responsive – Processing times

• By the end of August, the processing times for Quebec Skilled Workers applications were 15 months, compared to the Department’s service standard of 11 months.

Responsive – Temporary Foreign Workers

• IRCC introduced a suite of facilitative measures in response to the pandemic and that continue to be in place to help with Canada’s economic recovery: support foreign nationals already in Canada; allow foreign workers to change employment more quickly; and, enable visitors to apply for work permits without leaving Canada.
• IRCC introduced the International Mobility Plus (IMP+) on May 24, 2022. Under this program, up to 7,350 foreign nationals destined to Quebec may apply for an open work permit valid for up to three years. This allows them to settle in the province before the processing of their application for permanent residence is finalized.
• IRCC continues to prioritize the processing of work permits for critical occupations in the agricultural/agri-food and health care sectors for foreign workers destined to all provinces. 

Responsive – Asylum Claimants

• Quebec has been, and remains a dependable partner in managing the flow of irregular migrants since 2017.
• The Government of Canada put in place measures to manage the high volume of asylum claimants who were arriving between designated ports of entry, including Roxham Road in Quebec, by providing temporary accommodations and support services to asylum claimants who did not have accommodation in place, and transferring claimants requiring temporary accommodation and willing to go to another jurisdiction outside Quebec.
• Since the implementation of the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) Additional Protocol on March 25, 2023, the number of claims made between ports of entry has significantly decreased.
• Through the Interim Housing Assistance Program (IHAP), the federal government provided funding to provincial and municipal governments, on a cost-sharing basis, to address extraordinary interim housing pressures resulting from increased volumes of asylum claimants since 2017.
• The Government of Canada extended the IHAP program until March 31, 2024 with a budget of $212M towards costs incurred by other governments in calendar year 2023.
• To date, the Federal Government has paid $440.9M in compensation to Quebec under IHAP for costs incurred between 2017 and 2022.

Responsive - On Roxham Road and the Safe Third Country Agreement modernization:

• The STCA was expanded to apply not only at designated ports of entry, but across the entire land border, including internal waterways, on March 25, 2023.
• Those seeking to claim asylum must do so at the first safe country of arrival.
• Canada and the United States remain committed to collaborating in support of safe, orderly and regular migration in the Americas.
• Canada will welcome 15,000 migrants on a humanitarian basis from the Western Hemisphere over the course of the year, with a path to economic opportunities to address forced displacement, as an alternative to irregular migration.

Responsive – Panel Physician Capacity and Access

• As of August 28, 2023, 18 out of 18 Panel Physician clinics in Quebec were booking Immigration Medical Exam (IME) appointments within our 10 day service standard.
• To facilitate IME access for those outside of an urban area, IRCC can temporarily authorize a non-designated physician to perform an immigration medical examination for a client in Canada.
• Dispensations are considered when there is no Panel Physician who speaks the client’s official language of choice within 250 km or four hours from the client's residence. Dispensations are also considered for exceptional circumstances or when a client cannot reasonably travel.
• IRCC has introduced a temporary public policy that exempts certain clients in Canada from completing a subsequent IME if their previous IME was assessed as low risk to public health.

Background:

Canada-Quebec Accord: roles and responsibilities

• The Canada-Quebec Accord came into force in 1991. The objectives of the Accord are to preserve Quebec’s demographic weight within Canada and support the integration of immigrants in the province, while respecting its distinct identity.
• Quebec selects economic immigrants, resettled refugees, and individuals applying for permanent residence in Canada under humanitarian and compassionate considerations or a temporary public policy destined to that province, while the federal government selects permanent residents in the family class and protected persons. Both governments jointly administer the International Student Program and the Temporary Foreign Worker Program.
• The federal government remains responsible for determining the admissibility (i.e., health, security, and criminality) of all immigrants to Quebec and for issuing permanent resident visas.
• While the federal government is responsible for establishing annually the total number of immigrants for the country as a whole, it takes Quebec’s advice into consideration on the number of immigrants that it wishes to receive.
• The Accord requires agreement of both parties to amend.

Canada-Quebec Accord: Federal grant to Quebec

• Quebec is the only province that receives an annual grant (compensation) from the federal government. In all other provinces and territories, the Department provides annual settlement funding directly to settlement service providers in their respective jurisdictions through a third-party delivery system.
• The funding formula in the Accord is the percentage increase in total net federal expenditures and the percentage increase in the number of non-Francophone immigrants who arrive in Quebec compared to the previous year.
• Pursuant to the terms of the Canada-Quebec Accord, the grant cannot diminish from one year to the next. It can only increase or remain constant. The amount provided in any given year becomes the baseline for the calculation the following year.
• The 2022-23 Supplementary Estimates (C) last instalment payment for the Canada-Quebec Accord was $29.7M. The total funding included in the 2023-2024 Main Estimates for the grant to Quebec is $726.7M.
• While Quebec is not accountable to the federal government for how it spends the funding it receives under the Accord, Quebec must provide settlement and integration services that are comparable to the rest of the country.
• Under the Canada-Quebec Accord, an ADM level Comité mixte is mandated to "study, at least once a year, reception and integration services provided by Canada and Quebec". The latest comparative study for the years 2020 and 2021 has shown a great deal of alignment of integration services between Canada and Quebec and no fundamental discrepancies between the two integration systems.
• The Quebec government is responsible for the administration, design and delivery of settlement and integration services for permanent residents including pre-arrival, information and orientation, French language training, refugee resettlement services, labour market orientation, foreign credential recognition and support services.

2023 Immigration Levels Plan

• On December 8, 2022, Quebec tabled its 2023 immigration levels plan. Quebec’s immigration levels targets are incorporated into the federal levels plan.
• For 2023, the maximum in the overall admission range in Quebec’s levels plan is 52,500, less than half of what it is allowed under the Accord.
• 65% of Quebec’s overall immigration levels are economic in nature for 2023, compared to 57% in 2023 at the federal level.
• On May 25, 2023, Quebec launched public consultations on its annual immigration targets for the coming years. Two scenarios were presented: to maintain the annual target of 50,000 immigrants per year until 2027, or to gradually increase the target each year until the new target of 60,000 immigrants is reached by 2027, as well as ongoing and uncapped admissions of permanent residence applicants of Quebec graduates through the Québec Experience Program (PEQ).
• Quebec’s two scenarios are below the maximum level range, varying from 14% to 15%. However, if the scenario with the uncapped admissions of permanent residence applicants (Quebec graduates) through the PEQ is retained, the total admissions for each year would be higher, but unknown. 

Processing times

• Processing times for applications for permanent residence can be affected by a number of factors, including available levels space as well as processing capacity within IRCC and its partners. Specifically for Quebec cases, MIFI-set targets influence greatly IRCC’s published processing times. For example, family class applicants from Quebec are experiencing  longer processing times as we have more applications in inventory than what the MIFI targets allow us to process. This results in clients waiting in queue as IRCC must slow down production in order to not go over Quebec’s targets for that class. 

Permanent residents

Admissions, Processing Inventory and Processing Times for Quebec Business and Quebec Skilled Workers: Jan. 2023 to Aug. 2023

Francophone immigration to Quebec

• Following the tabling of the 2023-2025 federal immigration levels plan on November 1, 2022, Quebec expressed concerns and reservations about the considerable increase in levels provided in the plan which could impact the vitality of French and the preservation of Quebec’s demographic weight.
• Since his re-election in the fall of 2022, Premier Legault stated that he wanted to prioritize francophone immigration, eventually reaching 100% francophone economic immigration to Quebec by 2026.
• As a first step in wanting to strengthen permanent immigration of Francophones in the province, in December 2022, Quebec announced that it is suspending the intake of non-Francophone applicants in its entrepreneur and self-employed programs.
• On May 25, 2023, Quebec launched public consultations on its annual immigration targets for the period of 2024 to 2027, with a focus on increasing francophone immigration. Two scenarios were presented. The first scenario is for a gradual increase of the target each year 60,000 immigrants is reached by 2027, as well as constant, uncapped admission of permanent residence applicants (Quebec graduates) under the PEQ that would not be reflected in its targets; and the second scenario is for maintaining the annual target of 50,000 immigrants per year from 2024 to 2027.
• On that date, Quebec also announced a suite of planned regulatory changes, to be implemented by November 16, 2023, that will reinforce the importance of the French language in the province and meet the challenges of labor shortages.

Asylum Claimants

• Asylum claims made at the Montreal-Trudeau International airport increased significantly in 2022, with over 11,600 asylum claims from January 1, 2022 to December 31, 2022 (compared to approximately 1,600 claims for the same period in 2021). From January 1, 2023 to August 31, 2023, approximately 13,600 asylum claims were made at this airport, indicating an ongoing high number of arrivals.
• In 2022, over 38,900 individuals claimed asylum between ports of entry in Quebec. From January 1, 2023 to August 31, 2023, over 14,000 asylum claims were made between the ports in Quebec (compared to approximately 23,100 claims for the same period in 2022).
• Since the implementation of the STCA Additional Protocol on March 25, 2023, the number of claims made between ports of entry has significantly reduced. From March 25, 2023 to August 31, 2023, approximately 805 asylum claims were made between the ports in Quebec.
• While Premier Legault has responded positively to the implementation of the Additional Protocol, Quebec has maintained its stance that Ottawa redirect all asylum seekers entering Canada between the ports near Lacolle, Quebec, whether they speak French or not, to other provinces; and that Quebec obtain reimbursement of all costs related to the reception and integration of asylum seekers for the years 2021 and 2022.
• Since June 2022, IRCC has transferred asylum claimants entering Canada between the ports in Quebec to Ontario, and to other provinces including Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland and Labrador. In addition, given the significant increase of airport arrivals in Quebec in the recent months, IRCC has agreed at Quebec’s request to temporarily house asylum claimants coming from the airport when its shelter system is at full capacity.
• Officials from both IRCC and the province of Quebec meet weekly to discuss contingency planning and asylum claim updates.
• [Redaction] of that amount, In March 2023, IRCC paid Quebec $66.9M under IHAP, the total amount requested for interim housing expenses for 2021 and 2022.

Family reunification

• Under the Canada-Quebec Accord, Canada has sole responsibility for the selection and admission of family class immigrants. Quebec, however, has the authority to determine and assess the financial criteria for family class sponsorship agreements.
• The authority to define who is eligible to immigrate to Canada in the family class has been kept at the national level to ensure that parameters remain the same across the country.
• In fall 2022, Premier Legault said publicly that he may wish to explore prioritizing the processing of francophone sponsored applicants under the Family Reunification program. [Redaction]