Quebec hopes to recruit disenchanted American scientists

Quebec intends to take advantage of the anti-scientific climate emanating from the Trump administration in the United States to loot high-level intellectual talent.

Before an audience of more than 400 people invited to Montreal on Thursday by the Montreal Council on Foreign Relations (CORIM), Immigration Minister Jean-François Roberge said he believes that “every crisis brings opportunities and I am convinced that businesses, but especially our people in higher education, will be able to recruit people who, in the United States, see the somewhat toxic climate, see the climate-skeptic directions that the White House is taking and there are researchers who will want to come here to Quebec,” he said, saying he hopes to attract and keep these researchers here.

In a press scrum after his speech, the minister stated that university rectors had told him that “for several weeks, we have felt that there are researchers, high-level American students who are looking to come and settle in Canada, but particularly in Quebec.” Faced with the fact that this desire for movement comes, ironically, just as he has just reduced the number of foreign students admitted to Quebec, the minister replied that he has “stabilized the numbers in the university environment, but our institutions have the programs and the necessary room for maneuver to attract brains, people who would come and contribute to our scientific research in Quebec, absolutely.” 

No more failures in French language skills

These potential high-level American researchers and students will, of course, have to learn French, as required by law. However, Minister Roberge himself acknowledged to the guests and then to journalists that his government’s francization programs had experienced setbacks over the past year, with some programs being interrupted due to lack of funding before being completed. “We still need to have the capacity to govern well and ensure that the services we deploy during the year are available throughout the year, and I am committed to ensuring that next year, the year of francization in Quebec will be much more stable and predictable than what we had this year,” he promised, while pointing out that Quebec had experienced a record francization in 2024 with 80,000 registered participants.

“It’s a feat. We had a challenge regarding the stability of the offer. There was a lot of offers at the beginning of the year, less offers at the end of the year. (…) We added money, we restarted the machine. We want something much more predictable for next year, teachers who know they can be hired who will have groups throughout the year, students who can start a training program and know they will be able to see it through to the end.”

In a press scrum, he blamed those in the school service centers who had assumed that their budgets were flexible. “At the beginning of the year, we give budgets for the year. We don’t redo the budget two or three times. We have a budget, and we have to govern ourselves according to the budget over 12 months. Last year, that’s not what happened in the school service centers. They had expectations that there would be budget overruns, when in fact they had to govern themselves according to the budgets. There were misunderstandings, there were group closures. We reopened groups, I reinjected money to save student sessions.” 

“We won’t experience this again next year. I promise,” he said.

Protection of French and immigration

Speaking to CORIM guests, he defended the various measures adopted by his government to defend and protect the French language, rejecting the idea that this could be a retreat. Echoing the words of the late separatist Pierre Bourgault, he stated that “defending our language in Quebec means defending all the languages ​​of the world against the hegemony of a single one,” in this case, English. 

On immigration, he argued that Quebec had seen its number of temporary immigrants increase from 200,000 to 600,000 between 2022 and 2024. “There is a reception capacity that is limited and, let’s face it, it has been exceeded in recent years.”

“This meteoric rise is due to several factors. First and foremost, I’ll say, is the federal government’s total loss of control over its immigration policies. But it must also be said that Quebec has a very significant power of attraction.”

He again asked Ottawa to reduce by half the approximately 400,000 temporary immigrants under the federal government, a request repeatedly done by the government of François Legault.

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews