Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to address you today.
I'd like to emphasize that I am joining you from the traditional territory of the Algonquin people.
I am accompanied by Corinne Prince, acting assistant deputy minister, settlement and integration sector.
We are pleased to provide you with information on the Canada–Quebec Accord Relating to Immigration and Temporary Admission of Aliens and on francophone immigration outside Quebec.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, or IRCC, works closely with its Quebec government counterpart, the Ministère de l'Immigration, de la Francisation et de l'Intégration, and acknowledges the respective roles and responsibilities of the two levels of government as defined in the 1991 Canada-Quebec accord. The main objectives of the accord are to preserve Quebec’s demographic weight within Canada and to integrate immigrants to the province in a manner that respects the distinct identity of the province.
As a result of the accord, Quebec is the only province that publishes its immigration objectives and targets every year. However, the onus is on the Canadian government to establish the total annual number of immigrants for the country as a whole, taking into account Quebec's position on the number of immigrants it wishes to accept in all classes.
Quebec is also assigned other responsibilities under the accord, such as establishing its own economic immigrant selection criteria, setting and assessing financial criteria for sponsoring in the family reunification class, selecting refugees taken in by the government or through collective sponsorship and providing intake and integration services in the province.
With respect to federal responsibilities, IRCC administers the family reunification program and the protected persons program in Canada. Protected persons are persons whom the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada has recognized as refugees in need of Canada's protection.
The Government of Canada is also responsible for determining the eligibility of all immigration applicants to Canada. Evaluating eligibility includes health, security and criminal checks to determine whether applicants meet statutory requirements for admission to the country.
Now I would like to discuss francophone immigration outside Quebec.
The federal government recognizes that immigration plays an important role in supporting the vitality of francophone minority communities across the country. In March 2019, IRCC launched Meeting Our Objectives: Francophone Immigration Strategy, in which it outlined the government's vision for francophone immigration and reaffirmed a target of 4.4% of French-speaking immigrants outside Quebec by 2023.
IRCC has since launched new initiatives to reach that 4.4% target, notably by awarding additional points to French-speaking and bilingual applicants in the express entry system, which we use to manage permanent residence applications from skilled workers outside Quebec.
The strategy has yielded positive results. Admissions have constantly increased from less than 2% in 2017 to 3.6% in 2020. However, pandemic-related restrictions, particularly border restrictions, have had a significant impact on immigration in general and have affected francophone immigration in particular. As a result, francophones represented only 2% of admissions in 2021.
In 2020 and 2021, the department introduced a number of measures in response to the pandemic to ensure that Canada remained a top destination for French-speaking immigrants, including a pathway from temporary to permanent residence. By the time the pathway closed on November 5, 2021, the department had received 2,300 applications in the two components reserved for French-speaking essential workers and approximately 4,700 applications in the component reserved for recently graduated francophone international students.
Mr. Chair, we will be pleased to answer your questions.