Nurse from France accuses Quebec of breaking ‘moral contract’ when it cancelled immigration stream

Sabrina Kouider feels like the Quebec government pulled the rug out from under her.

The Sherbrooke-based nurse came to Quebec from France in 2024 after she says she was promised the ability to apply for permanent residency.

“‘After two years of working in our hospital, you will be able to ask for the permanent residency.’ And that was the contract, the moral contract,” Kouider said.

But when Quebec decided to shut down the province’s fast-track route to permanent residency known as the PEQ, Kouider became one of many temporary foreign workers whose lives are now in limbo.

The palliative care nurse at the CIUSSS de l’Estrie says her future plans vanished overnight.

“We are very worried by all these situations and we are not confident at all for our future,” she told CityNews.

Contributing to the frustration for Kouider is what she left behind when she chose to move her family to Quebec.

“Our first child is autistic,” she explained. “And in France, there was a whole team around him who supported him, who supported our family. And so it was a great sacrifice to move to Quebec and to start from scratch for him.”

With the PEQ no longer an option, immigrants hoping to settle in Quebec through work are now funnelled into a single pathway called the Skilled Worker Selection Program (PSTQ.)

Unlike the PEQ, the PSTQ uses a points-based system, ranking candidates on education, French-language skills and work experience.

Immigration experts say the PSTQ puts the ball in the government’s court, meaning top-scoring applicants are selected by the Legault government based on the economic needs of Quebec.

“The government today can invite doctors, the government tomorrow can invite nurses,” sad immigration lawyer Viviane Albuquerque.

“It’s a gatekeeper program, but we don’t know when the gates are going to be open.”

Albuquerque, with law firm Mobilitys, warns that even workers who once felt secure – because of their profession or French-language skills – are now facing deep uncertainty, with no timeline for selection.

“You have lots of pens and the government is choosing which one to use, but you don’t know when the government’s going to be picking, which colour the government’s going to be picking in terms of the profession and how many people,” Albuquerque said.

Activists say that uncertainty is taking a heavy toll on workers who have already built lives in Quebec.

They’re urging affected workers not to stay silent in the hopes their stories will lead to change.

“We will make the government hear our calls, and not to just think that everything is forgotten, and they should just move on with their life. Don’t give up,” said Nadir Belaid, a spokesperson for Le Québec, C’est Nous Aussi.