Honourable senators, I rise today in support of Bill S-286, introduced by my colleague, Senator Amina Gerba, to create a national immigration month in Canada.

It’s often said that Canada is a country of immigrants, and that’s certainly true when you look at the diversity of our population from coast to coast to coast.

Creating a national immigration month would highlight the important contributions made by immigrants to our history, both in the past and more recently.

However, I would also like this celebration to become a time for reflection on the issues at stake. Immigration is a crucial issue today. A century ago, when our country was very young, one couldn’t set off from Mexico City or Casablanca and land a few hours later in Montreal or Toronto. A century ago, no one was talking about climate refugees, narco-states or the systematic violence suffered by women in many countries.

Immigration to Canada has often come in waves: British, Chinese, Japanese and Italian, for example. However, these waves were often accompanied by high and low tides. At high tide, we accepted a lot of Chinese immigrants because we needed labourers, but if we thought there were too many, we imposed astronomical immigration costs on them. Chinese immigrants were shamefully discriminated against.

Many Jews wanted to flee Germany or Austria just before the Second World War, but the ships that were carrying them were refused permission to dock in our ports. That is also shameful.

On the other hand, when Russia invaded Hungary, we opened our doors to the Hungarians. When the Vietnamese boat people were condemned to hell, we welcomed them. For the past two years, we’ve been welcoming thousands of Ukrainians.

Since Canada’s inception, there have always been people who believed that there were too many or too few immigrants. In Quebec, we’ve had a slightly different history.

Between 1840 and 1930, a million francophones, the vast majority from Quebec, emigrated to the United States, mainly to New England. At first, they were farmers who could no longer survive, but at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, Americans were coming to Quebec to recruit labour for their textile industry. They needed workers.

That didn’t stop the Ku Klux Klan from opposing the immigration of these Catholic francophones. Thousands of KKK members went so far as to go to Washington, wearing hoods and carrying torches, to protest against the so-called “Chinese of the Eastern States.” Today, it is estimated that there are more descendants of these Franco-Americans in the United States than there are francophones in Quebec.

Let’s come back to today. The current Quebec government feels that there are too many immigrants, asylum seekers and international students. In short, there are too many foreigners on its territory. Unfortunately, these newcomers have become scapegoats for all of the province’s problems.

The Quebec government’s ceaseless, aggressive rhetoric about the evils of immigration troubles me deeply. Might it reduce Quebecers’ openness to newcomers? Are immigrants really responsible, as is so often repeated, for the housing crisis and the overburdened social and health services? They are undoubtedly one factor, but they are not the only factor.

Yes, the federal government has set immigration thresholds too high, but Quebec also controls some aspects, including temporary immigration. Le Devoir editorialist Marie-Andrée Chouinard believes that there is some degree of bad faith in the CAQ government’s rhetoric. I quote:

Quebec can call this a national emergency and blame newcomers for many ills, but you don’t have to look very far back in time to see that Quebec itself contributed to the problem, then knowingly chose to ignore its impact.

The use of identity-based arguments is even more harmful. They say asylum seekers and temporary immigrants are a threat to the French language in Quebec. Are they really? Do they have any numbers to back up this claim? Does anyone really believe that the thousands of temporary workers who make up the agricultural workforce harvesting crops on Quebec farms are a threat to our language?

Isn’t one of the most obvious threats to young francophones the omnipresence of the internet, of social media, of a very English-speaking virtual world?

Don’t get me wrong, I think our language needs constant, positive promotion, but not at the expense of newcomers, who are already living in precarious, dislocated conditions.

Quebec nationalism hasn’t always been a vehicle for divisive speech about immigration. I still have vivid memories of the outstretched hand that PQ member Gérald Godin held out to the cultural communities of the 1970s. He met with them. He was inclusive and attentive. He helped shape the Parti Québécois’s vision at the time.

Let’s face it: It’s clear that in Quebec, like elsewhere in Canada, we need immigrants and temporary workers. Quebec’s two major newspapers, the Journal de Montreal and La Presse, ran articles in August on Latin Americans who, in several small towns in Quebec, are ensuring the survival of businesses, starting up new businesses themselves and providing a much-needed demographic boost. It’s true, Quebec women aren’t having a lot of children. Thetford Mines, which is not a large city, now has an international soccer league. The players are temporary workers who play on Saturday for their home country, either Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala, Senegal or Cameroon. These are wonderful integration success stories.

If our handling of newcomers’ files were quicker and more efficient, whether by federal and provincial officials or by commissioners, we might not be where we are today. In short, the world is changing rapidly, and our position on immigration must evolve just as quickly, not according to the ideologies of political parties, but rather with great pragmatism. I also believe that this delicate debate calls for tact, moderation and kindness, all of which are sorely lacking.

I’m among those who believe that Canada must remain a generous country. We must never forget that an Iranian, an Afghan, a Sudanese or a Colombian must first and foremost be regarded as a human being who wants to come and settle here to improve their situation or that of their family. We have to ask ourselves this question: What would we do if we had a family and there were no future for them in our country, either because of poverty, desertification or other untenable conditions? That should be our compass in this debate. Thank you.