Immigration lawyers responsible for injunction against Quebec debate minister in Bill 9 hearings

Immigration lawyers spoke Tuesday at the National Assembly as public hearings into Quebec’s immigration bill continued. As Global’s Raquel Fletcher reports, the presentation comes just one day after the same lawyers were granted an injunction against the government over 18,000 cancelled immigration files.

Things got tense at the National Assembly Tuesday between Quebec’s immigration minister and the lawyers who filed an injunction against the government.

In a strange coincidence, just one day after a judge ruled in favour of that injunction, which forces Quebec to continue to process 18,000 cancelled immigration applications, these same lawyers appeared before the public hearings for Bill 9— the Coalition Avenir Québec’s immigration bill.

Despite winning their case, the immigration lawyers, who were representing the Association québecoise des avocats et avocates en droit de l’immigration (AQAADI) said they are not in Quebec City for a confrontation.

“We’re here to negotiate in good faith with the minister,” said lawyer Ho Sung Kim.

“We’re very much on a collaborative approach this morning,” said Guillaume Cliche-Rivard, AQAADI president.

Things began cordially and the lawyers delivered their presentation where they argued that living in a region should not be a condition of permanent resident status.

“This person is entitled to move, and decide what he wants to do in his life and that’s not only Quebec or Canadian law, that’s the constitution,” Cliche-Rivard said.

But the Immigration Minister denied that forcing people to live in specific regions is part of the proposed law. “We never said that. It’s important to tell people the right things,” chided Simon Jolin-Barrette.

The article in question is 21.1, which reads:

“When selecting a foreign national, the Minister may impose conditions on the foreign national which affect the permanent residence granted under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (Statutes of Canada, 2001, chapter 27) in order to ensure, among other things, the protection of public health, the meeting of regional and sectoral labour needs, the regional or sectoral creation of enterprises or the financing of such enterprises, or the foreign national’s linguistic, social or economic integration. The Government determines, by regulation, the conditions the Minister may impose and the cases in which the Minister may impose, amend, lift or cancel them.”

Jolin-Barrette said this article was lifted almost word for word from Quebec’s immigration law, before it was taken out in 2016. After a tense back and forth over the legal wording of the bill, Cliche-Rivard called on the minister to use a more inclusive approach.

“It is after all, the title of your ministry — the ministry of immigration, diversity and inclusiveness– and not the ministry of coercion,” he said.

It’s unclear if or when the minister will remove article 20 — that’s the article cancelling the 18,000 applications — from the bill. The injunction is only in effect for 10 days and the minister was vague about what will happen after that.

“We respect that decision of the Superior Court, but the will of the government has not changed,” Jolin-Barrette said.

The two parties will head back to court on March 7 unless the minister agrees to process all of the 18,000 outstanding applications.

“At least 25 per cent of the applications are ready to be processed and finalized,” said Ho Sung Kim.

“We’re going to be back in court in 10 days, so if we can come to an agreement in writing, we’ll feel more comfortable about this,” he added.

The Liberal opposition also wants the government to settle without a legal battle.

“It’s not a middle of the ground judgment; it’s a really harsh judgment,” said Liberal MNA Dominique Anglade. “Who’s winning in the end? Nobody really is, so I think what they need to do is to not go back to court.