The federal government is reducing the amount of permanent and temporary immigrants that admits to Canada, but among the currents that are not only saved but are encouraged to grow significantly are the Francophones that settle outside Quebec.
Prime Minister Mark Carney promised during the last electoral campaign to raise the goal of Francophone immigration to 12 percent of all permanent residents admitted outside Quebec by 2029.
That new goal, announced with little fanfare, is higher than 10 percent that the liberals were planning under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and well above the annual rate of less than two percent that the country had been achieving for years.
In fact, it took 19 years, until 2022, for Canada to reach its objective of 4.4 percent of permanent residents admitted outside Quebec as French speakers. The government adopted that goal in 2003 to avoid the greater decrease in the French language.
Liane Roy, president of Fédération des Communtautés Francophones et aco -acienne du canadaIt represents Francophone associations outside Quebec, said that Francophone minority communities must welcome more French speakers, otherwise “many of our communities may disappear … especially in rural areas”, and labor shortage will get worse as the population ages.
Bilingualism worth protecting: defender
At one point in history, when the president of the United States, Canada’s sovereignty, is threatened by the president of the United States, Roy said that Canada’s bilingualism must be defended and improved.
“A greater proportion of immigrants who know English and French means better services for the population in key sectors such as medical care and education,” he said.
Although the population of Canada has constantly increased mainly due to immigration, the size of the Francophone population outside Quebec, measured by the first official spoken language, has fallen from 6.1 percent in 1971 to 3.5 percent in 2021, according to a federal Official Language Plan.
Since Canada repeatedly lost its annual Francophone admission objective for almost two decades, Roy said that greater increases are needed to compensate for the tens of thousands that could have been established in Canada if the government had met its previous objectives.
Immigration, refugees and citizenship of Canada said in a statement that is promoting Francophone immigration because “strengthens and promotes the vitality of Francophone minority communities, supports their economic prosperity and helps move towards restoration and increased population weight.”
In recent months, the department has held immigration raffles specifically for French speakers through its express program, which recruits workers in demand to Canada.
Liberals promise to limit admissions
While Ottawa is increasing the number of French speakers that thanks, the Carney government is marking the setback of theNumber of permanent residents, promising to limit annual admissions to less than one percent of the population, and limit the number of temporary foreign students and workers in less than five percent of the Canada population by 2027.
Those limits, together with a renovation of the Canadian immigration system to make economic immigrants, including French speakers, a greater proportion of admissions, continue a recent change in liberal policy that significantly reduce the immigration number in 2024 as public concerns about housing scarcity and the increase in the cost of intensified life.
The country aims to admit 395,000 permanent residents in 2025, a decrease of the 500,000 that was initially planning for the year.
The new immigration restrictions seem to work as planned: Statistics Canada reported Zero population growth in the first quarter of this yearThe second consecutive trimester with a net fall in non -permanent residents.
Given the general decrease in immigration numbers, Raymond Théberge, Commissioner of Official Languages of Canada, said that “sustained efforts will be required throughout the Francophone immigration continuum, from promotion to complete integration and retention”, to ensure that the highest objective is reached in 2029.
His statement also asked the Immigration Department to establish “the media, resources and the timeline” to ensure that Canada complies with the other objective, established in the Modernized Official Language Law, to restore the demographic weight of the Francophones outside of Quebec to 6.1 percent.
Citing recent trends, Roy is confident that Canada will get there. The Federal Government exceeded its six percent objective in 2024 when 7.2 percent of the admissions of permanent residents out of Quebec had fluid French (30,550 people).
She wants Canada to eventually reach a 20 percent target.
The conservative criticism of Immigration Michelle Rempel Garner did not respond a request for comments, but the leader of his party, Pierre Poilievre, has pressed the liberals for deeper immigration cuts, saying that he wants more people to get to arrive “while we catch up.”
A measure that Ottawa is now using to improve immigration among French speakers is the Francophone community immigration pilot.
The Acadeian Peninsula in northern New Brunswick has registered in the pilot program, which offers permanent residence to qualified workers, and a distillery of Sébastien Roy is participating in Petit-Paquetville, NB.
“Much of our [customers] He speaks French, that is his first language and, often, the only language they speak, “he said about the clientele of Distillerie Fils du Roy.
Roy said immigration has revitalized his hometown, which he was losing his young people. He said that he recently hired three French -speaking newcomers who graduated from a local university, and is looking to hire three more through a pilot program that provides 10 to 20 applications per day.
“Having the newcomers Francophones we can continue to be Francophones, we can continue to operate our businesses, and bring some young adults in our community,” Roy said.
In Timmins, Ontario, where almost half of the population of more than 41,000 of the city speaks French and English, realizes that the decrease in French speakers must be reversed, according to a leader with a post -secondary institution that provides support to the newcomers Francophones.
Mélanie Dufresne with Collège Boréal said that recruiting French speakers is important for public services, especially medical care where many patients only speak French.
“They want to be able to communicate in their mother tongue,” said the director of the Timmins Campus of the University.
Timminins is part of several immigration programs trying to reverse the French decline, including the Francophone community immigration pilot.
