MONTREAL – Opposition parties are calling for concrete action in the face of the coalition avenir Québec government’s glaring failure to recruit nurses abroad.

On the part of the official opposition, health spokesman André Fortin speaks of a “particularly depressing” situation, since the number one issue in the health network is recruiting qualified personnel.

“All jurisdictions understood that! That’s why Ontario and New Brunswick are conducting aggressive recruitment campaigns for our Quebec professionals,” protested the Pontiac MP.

“And during that time, it looks like the CAQ is watching the train go by,” he adds.

André Fortin also denounces the fact that the government did not publicly say a word about the failure of the permanent immigration pilot program for beneficiary companions before The Canadian Press released the data on Monday morning.

This program, launched with great fanfare in 2020, should make it possible to recruit 550 beneficiary escorts from abroad every year. As of January 20, 2023, only 78 applications have been selected since the program went into effect.

“If we have to change the program, we change it. If we need to change the criteria, we change them. If we need to target different countries, let’s target elsewhere. But Christian Dubé and Christine Fréchette cannot stand by and do nothing,” demands the liberal spokesman.

Mr. Fortin reminds the government that this omission has resulted in Quebecers being deprived of the services they need.

Caught up by its inconsistency

In the Quebec Solidaire camp, Vincent Marissal believes that “the CAQ is being overtaken by its inconsistency on immigration and health.”

“On the one hand, we say that we want to recruit the people we need internationally on a massive scale and very quickly,” says the health spokesman. At the same time, he points out that the CAQ continues to “always suspect immigration to be the main cause of social and linguistic problems in Quebec”.

To add to the inconsistencies, you have to have attractive jobs to attract a skilled workforce, continues Mr. Marissal.

“To recruit people, to uproot them, to sort of exile them, it still takes good sales pitches. Obviously the arguments aren’t there,” he stresses.

The supporting MP for Rosemont also points out that immigration is mired in “all sorts of bureaucratic problems” that the constituency offices of elected officials have to grapple with on a daily basis.

Vincent Marissal also criticizes the CAQ for once again creating a “miracle solution” to a complex problem.

“It had all the qualities on paper but none on the floor,” he says.

For the Parti Québécois, this program is “a deplorable failure,” commented its health spokesman, Joël Arseneau.

“If the mediocre working conditions don’t change and the immigration processing times are still the same, we can’t hope that foreign workers will want to come and work in the health network in Quebec,” he believes.

The MNA for Îles-de-la-Madeleine also believes that the government should quickly focus on the challenge of retaining professionals in the health network in order to stem the brain drain into the private sector.

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