Quebec must apply tougher regulations to fight discrimination against immigrants in workplace

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The president of the province’s largest trade union says the government, workers and unions themselves need to do more to fight racism and discrimination against immigrants in the workplace.

Daniel Boyer, president of the 600,000-members of Quebec Federation of Labour (FTQ), told a legislature committee those studying immigration reforms that Canada and Quebec are good at selling themselves internationally as an open society looking for immigrant workers but when those workers arrive it’s another story. The fact is that this amounts to a form of “false representation,” which needs to be corrected, he said.

Not only, immigrant doctors and dentists, do have trouble getting their foreign credentials recognized by professional associations once they arrive, but also trained and experienced plumbers and electricians , who already speak French , are facing the same issue .

There are an estimated 41,000 available jobs in Quebec which need to be filled but due to racism issue , they are not open to new immigrants . For example “People of Maghreb in origin are well educated, often francophone, yet they don’t find work in the province.”

Boyer’s comments came on the same day as a new study, leaked to Le Devoir, revealed as many as 200,000 new Quebecers, about 20 per cent of the immigrant population, don’t speak French. The 130-page study was produced by the Institute de recherche en économie contemporaine (IREC).

The researchers argued the results show how immigration is contributing to the decline of French, especially in Montreal.

According to the minister of Quebec Immigration the study cannot get full credit because, the vast majority of immigrants, over 80 per cent, who arrive now speak French already, she said. One third of immigrants are children who are automatically steered into the French education system.

The bill, in fact, is part of a long drawn-out process to reform Quebec’s antiquated immigration act which, due to backlogs, red tape and bureaucracy, deters good candidates from picking Quebec.

The fundamental change in Quebec immigration eligibility criteria and accepting new immigrants is necessarily therefore the province is aiming to gather information from different industries in order to apply changes to its old immigration programs and create a system whereby potential immigrants fill out a declaration of interest, allowing immigration officials to pre-match them with available work.

It’s not the first time the government has been told about the discrimination problem. The Quebec Human Rights Commission presented data a year ago showing the unemployment rate in Quebec for immigrants is twice as high as for the rest of the population and three times as high for immigrants who are visible minorities.

Studies have shown a Quebecer with a Franco-Quebec-sounding name like Simard or Trémblay has a 60 per cent better chance of getting a job interview than someone named Ahmed or Carlos.

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