Legault: non-French speaking immigration a threat to national cohesion

Incumbent Premier François Legault is once again drawing criticism from many due to comments he made during a speech to supporters and several Coalition Avenir Québec candidates in Drummondville on Sunday, suggesting non-French speaking immigration is a threat to national cohesion in the province.

“Sometimes this cohesion is shaken,” Legault said. “The Premier of Quebec, the only head of state in North America who represents a majority of Francophones, has a duty to stop the decline of French in Quebec.”

Asked afterwards who represented that threat, Legault pointed to the opposition parties like the Liberals and Québec solidaire who are campaigning on immigration levels to be increased if they are elected.

“It’s like math. If we want to stop the decline for a while, we have to better integrate newcomers to French,” Legault said, whose own party wants to cap immigration to 50,000 per year, including 80 per cent who speak French off the bat.

Speaking in St-Lazare on Monday morning, Legault said immigration benefits Quebec, but the province’s capacity to accept immigrants is limited if it wants to protect the French language.

#WATCH: “For the Quebec nation to remain strong, you have to protect French,” says incumbent Premier François Legault. He suggested non-French speaking immigration is a threat to cohesion. He’s drawn criticism from Liberal leader Dominique Anglade.

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— Alyssia (@rubertuccinews) September 12, 2022

Just last week, Legault had stirred controversy with comments that linked immigration to the province with extremism and violence before apologizing. His latest comments were condemned by his opponents.

“The Ukrainians fleeing the bombs, the Italians, the Greeks, the Mexicans, the Portuguese, the Vietnamese, (…) is this a threat to our nation?” Quebec Liberal leader Dominique Anglade responded. “It’s your speech, François Legault, that threatens social cohesion.”

She added on Monday that the comments hurt her personally as her parents immigrated to Quebec from Haiti.

Québec solidaire co-spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois called Sunday’s comments on immigration “clumsy” and “hurtful.”

“I’m tired of François Legault always talking about immigration as a problem, as a threat, as something that weakens us as a nation,” he said.

Quebec Conservative Party leader Éric Duhaime also reacted, saying Legault is not in a position to be making comments about social cohesion in Quebec, adding “he is the man who has divided Quebec.”

Parti Québécois leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon also criticized Legault for making divisive comments that he called irresponsible.

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Federal Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez has waded into the Quebec election campaign, saying it’s time for Legault to stop dividing Quebecers into “us and them.”

The minister told reporters outside a federal Liberal caucus meeting in St. Andrews, N.B., today that he wonders whether Legault would have considered him and his parents threats because they spoke no French when they immigrated to Quebec from Argentina.

Rodriguez, who is the prime minister’s Quebec lieutenant, noted that his family learned French and his parents became professors at the French-language Université de Sherbrooke.

With files from The Canadian Press