Proposed French language rules could become a 'nightmare' for Quebec's small businesses

financialpost.com:

The Quebec government is looking at new French proficiency rules for temporary workers, but business leaders say the program should be left alone since they are already struggling to cope with a severe labour shortage.

“They should look at it, but they should not implement it,” said François Vincent, vice-president for Quebec at the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses.

The province’s immigration system is already complex enough, he said, so adding new barriers to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program will only cause people to look to other provinces where they might stand a better and quicker chance of getting permanent residency.

Quebec can’t afford to lose access to more workers, business leaders said. Temporary workers are helping to fill the gap in the province’s labour shortage of nearly 202,095 positions. They’re a “safety valve,” a way to relieve pressure on a labour market fit to burst, Michel Leblanc, president of the Montreal Chamber of Commerce, said.

The number of temporary workers is high — 38,500 people in 2022, up from 23,300 in 2019 — but Leblanc said this is only because the immigration process is too slow.

“The system is not functioning as it should. It’s not efficient,” Leblanc said, adding that prospective citizens are trapped in a process that takes years, forcing business owners to rely on temporary workers.

The temporary foreign worker program is one of the key topics of debate in the Quebec provincial government’s ongoing public consultations to help devise its immigration strategy for the next three years. The government is also trying to decide whether the annual number of immigrants should be kept at 50,000 or gradually increase to 60,000 by 2027.

Vincent, Leblanc and officials in