DRUMMONDVILLE, Quebec — Hundreds protested here April 12 outside the leadership convention of the province’s governing party, the Coalition for the Future of Quebec (CAQ).
Protesters included ambulance drivers, organized by the Confederation of National Trade Unions (CSN), who have been without a contract for three years and no wage increase since 2022. Supporters of the immigrant rights group “Quebec is us too” took part, along with members of an organization called “the community sector at the breaking point.” It represents groups that provide social services, such as food banks and health care, whose funding has been slashed by the CAQ government.
On Nov. 19 then Premier Francois Legault’s provincial government ended the Quebec Experience Program (PEQ). It brought thousands of workers from abroad to work in the province, providing them a route to permanent residency and, down the road, Canadian citizenship. Thousands of these immigrants now face an uncertain future.
Neither of the candidates for the CAQ leadership, Christine Frechette or Bernard Drainville, have called for reinstating the PEQ. Frechette was elected leader and is now Quebec’s premier.
Marine Koezle, who came from France as an intern under the PEQ, joined the protest. “My boyfriend is sponsoring me to stay in Canada,” she told the Militant. “But not everyone is in that situation, and I am here for them.”
“I wore my union jacket to show that an electrician supports the cause,” her boyfriend, William St-Louis, said.
“I came to Canada six years ago with a work permit,” Khadija Bahi, originally from Morocco, said. “I’m not threatened by the end of the PEQ, but thousands of others are. So I am part of the fight.”
Thousands of immigrants “are living in fear because the government has been organizing their forced departure since the abolition of the PEQ,” Sabrina Kouider, vice president of “Quebec is us too,” told the rally. “All those who meet the requirements must be allowed to obtain permanent residency.”
In November the Quebec government reduced its immigration targets for the next four years to 45,000 new permanent residents annually, a significant drop from 61,000 in 2025.
Alongside this, the Liberal government in Ottawa is refusing to renew work permits granted in recent years. The goal in both cases is not to end immigration but to set native- and foreign-born workers against one another.
Discussion about these attacks is widespread among working people.
As the Quebec government steps up its efforts to scapegoat immigrants, it causes confusion.
“Immigrants shouldn’t come here and say we can’t have Christmas trees and have to take down the cross in the provincial legislature,” Nancy Seguin, an unemployed cashier told Communist League campaigners Katy LeRougetel and Annette Kouri when they knocked on her door in Plessisville about an hour from here the day before the protest.
“No immigrant demands that,” LeRougetel said. “It’s the Quebec government that says this to divide us. They’ve also barred women from wearing the Muslim headscarf to work in day care centers or schools, too.”
“I didn’t know that. That’s not right,” Seguin replied.