Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Committee members, my name is Karl Blackburn, and I am the president and CEO of the Quebec Council of Employers. With me today is Denis Hamel, vice president of Workforce Development Policies.
Our organization, created in 1969, is a confederation of nearly 100 sectoral associations and several corporate members, representing the interests of over 70,000 employers, of all sizes and in all regions of Quebec, from the private and parapublic sectors.
This is the second time in recent months that I have had the pleasure of addressing this committee on the role that the Government of Canada should play in promoting French, but this time through immigration.
The immigration picture in general, and francophone economic immigration in particular, is a major concern for employers. As you know, our aging demographics will not allow us to fill all the vacancies over the next 10 years. Even if we succeed in increasing the labour market participation of unemployed people, experienced workers, and people from under‑represented groups, the fact remains that about one‑quarter of job vacancies, now and in the future, can only be filled through immigration.
In this regard, it is clear that the current situation is unsustainable. The number of vacant positions is at an all‑time high. There are currently more jobs to fill than people receiving employment insurance benefits in Quebec. Immigration programs are slowing down, and employers and prospective immigrants are becoming increasingly frustrated by the unprecedented delays.
In April 1991, the governments of Canada and Quebec agreed to share jurisdiction over immigration in order to provide Quebec with new ways of preserving its demographic weight within Canada, while promoting the consolidation and enrichment of Canada's cultural and social heritage, given its federal and bilingual character. It is sad to note that, more than 30 years after the Canada-Quebec Accord relating to Immigration and Temporary Admission of Aliens came into force, immigration has become a political issue that has distanced governments from their respective obligations.
This dual administration creates political friction. Departments are passing the buck in terms of who is responsible for the lengthy processing times. The finger is regularly pointed at Quebec, which is responsible for determining the number of permanent immigrants entering its territory, as the cause of the backlog of files on the desks of federal public servants. At the same time, the federal government recently admitted to voluntarily slowing down the processing of Quebec skilled worker applications, citing a large inventory of applications, while Quebec had also reduced its admission targets.
This inconsistency is strikingly—and I would say shockingly—evident in the case of foreign students. On the one hand, immigration officers routinely refuse study permit applications from francophone students, citing the Immigration Regulations, which stipulate that applicants must leave Canada at the end of their studies. At the same time, Quebec, through its Programme de l'expérience québécoise, the PEQ, encourages international students to apply for permanent status after graduation. How to make sense of it all?
What is especially troubling is that immigration officers seem to be overzealous when reviewing the applications of francophone students. Study permit applications are rejected at a rate of 60% in Quebec, but in the rest of Canada, that rate has never been above 45%. Quebec and Canada's francophone community are being penalized because the pools of francophone student candidates are located mainly in Africa. Algeria, Senegal and Cameroon are among the top six countries from which international students in Quebec hail, and applications from those countries met with a rejection rate of more than 80% in 2020 and 2021. In the other provinces, India accounts for a large share of the international student pool, but applications from Indian students are rejected at a much lower rate than those from students in French-speaking Africa. In fact, your fellow members on the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration flagged the major discrepancy in their May report. They recommended that the government provide additional funding to visa processing centres in French-speaking African countries to increase staffing to speed up the processing of student biometrics and permits.