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The Quebec City and Montreal areas are making another push for the provincial government to make exemptions for applicants of a scrapped pathway to permanent residency, known as the PEQ.
In a rare move, the Communauté métropolitaine de Québec (CMQ) and the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal (CMM) adopted a joint declaration calling on the government to allow immigrants already settled in the province to apply for a selection certificate under the Quebec Experience Program (PEQ).
The two bodies combined represent 110 municipalities or more than five million people.
The province abolished the PEQ last year, replacing it with the Skilled Workers Selection Program, or PSTQ, leaving thousands of newcomers who originally settled in the province in hopes of gaining permanent residency through the PEQ in limbo.
The PSTQ is a more selective program that chooses applicants based on a complex points-based system, and currently prioritizes those outside of Montreal and working in certain sectors like health care and education.
“Despite their territorial, economic and demographic particularities, the CMM and CMQ are facing similar challenges and are united in their wish to keep the workers who arrived in Quebec because of the PEQ,” the municipalities write in a news release.
“These people were educated and trained locally, already housed, speak French and actively contribute to economic and social life.”
They are requesting an exemption be put in place for those who arrived in Quebec before the end of the PEQ and who would have been eligible under the program.
“Yes, we need a planned and co-ordinated approach to immigration, but in the case of the PEQ, can we just keep the promise we’ve made?” said Montreal Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada on Thursday.
Quebec City Mayor Bruno Marchand estimates a maximum of 13,000 people would be eligible to apply through the PEQ in the region if an exemption were put in place.
The future of the PEQ is even more unclear as the government looks for a new leader to replace Premier François Legault.
Christine Fréchette, former economy minister and leadership candidate for the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), has said she would reopen the PEQ for two years to allow those who were already in the province before its abolition to apply.
Opponent Bernard Drainville, former environment minister, has promised, meanwhile, to exempt French-speaking skilled workers in certain sectors.
Immigration Minister Jean-François Roberge recently decided to order a study of the “various transitional measures” for economic immigration pathways in Quebec in light of his ministry abolishing the PEQ.
Findings would be presented to the next CAQ leader and premier, he said. Â