Legault Decision to Cut Immigrants Dooms Quebec

Watching Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May's painful struggle over an impossible successful Brexit strategy, I am reminded that sometimes there is just no good outcome to be had.

And so it seems that Premier Francois Legault's hasty decision to cut immigration to Quebec is a 'damned if you do and damned if you don't' scenario, as well.
There will also be no good outcome.

It is painfully obvious that Quebec needs immigrants but doesn't seem to want any, at least according to the CAQ, lest they pollute and further dilute the linguistic, cultural and historical makeup of Quebec.
But clearly the decision to curtail immigration will have ramifications, both on Quebec's shrinking workforce and its demographic weight in Canada.
For once, regardless of which side of the fence on immigration you sit, the underlying numbers are clear to all.
In 1960 Quebecers gave birth to 144,000 babies a year, a number which has steadily declined to just 84,000 births this last year, a precipitous drop.

Quebec (as well as all successful western democracies) does not produce enough babies to maintain its population base. It takes a reproduction rate of 2.1 births per woman to maintain a stable population, but Quebec's rate has fallen to 1.56.

When it comes to political decisions, voters are clearly incapable of judging the effects of policy over the long term, but raising taxes, cutting benefits or raising tuition or sales tax in the immediate almost certainly results in a visceral negative public reaction. Look what happened to the Liberals over proposed university tuition rises where student demonstrations became violent.
In contrast, Justin Trudeau's decision to goose the deficit through obscene over spending is garnering not a whiff of protest because its effects are in the future, and for voters, out of sight is definitely out of mind. Paradoxically the federal Liberal government's decision to add a hundred or two billion to the federal deficit will cost those same students, the ones who went apeshit over tuition hikes much more in the long run  because of the increased future taxes that they will pay, needed to service that new debt.

The same can be said of Legault's decision to cut immigration to Quebec where the effect will take years to materialize and so its effect on voters today is minimal.

But if Premier Legault believes he can cure Quebec's immigration conundrum with the wave of his hand and with a quick ill-thought out policy, he is as clueless as Doug Ford in believing his rash decision to cut spending on Ontario francophones would pass unchallenged.

First some facts that Premier Legault should understand.
Quebec needs to shore up its population....period.
If the decision to cut immigration stands, then Quebec's population will start to diminish while the rest of Canada's will increase.
That's right, this decision will undermine Quebec's demographic weight in Canada, which is already declining year to year.
I'm not sure that voters who understand this fact will be pleased.

Premier's Legault's decision can be seen as playing to his base, voters outside the greater Montreal region, in the boonies where immigrants seen from afar, are considered a clear and present danger.

The view from the hinterland is that the Quebec that they grew up in, the one they live in, is under attack from barbarians at the gate, bent on imposing Islam upon them and their children.
And let us be honest, all this angst over immigration is based on the fear of Muslims and Muslims alone. If immigration was exclusive of Muslims, the opposition to immigration would collapse.

Paradoxically, the lack of potential workers is sharpest in the boonies, because the immigrants who do come to Quebec, choose to settle almost exclusively in the greater Montreal region.
The lack of manpower is starting to hurt quite a bit and some towns are creating job fairs and bussing in potential workers from the immigrant community in Montreal, perhaps accepting that a small community of immigrants amongst the lily-white pseudo-Catholic Francophone towns is preferable to losing industries wholesale due to labour shortages.

Cutting immigration will only exacerbate the problem and while Legault's immigration edict may be a feel-good policy for his base in the short-term, the effects will be palpable much sooner than later.

As Quebec shrinks and Canada expands, voices in Quebec will shriek that its all unfair.
That Canada chooses to allow sufficient immigration in order to maintain its population while Quebec does not, will be portrayed as a plot to drown out Quebec's demographic weight in Canada.
Perhaps it is.....

What can be done?
I've always been puzzled by the absolute silence over the birthrate in Quebec by politicians and nationalist pundits and spokesman.
Clearly the easiest way out of the demographic problem is for Quebecers to have more babies. If one out of three francophone women had three children and the other two, there would be no need for any immigrants!

Why hasn't one government or any nationalist organization proposed this obvious home-grown solution? Why doesn't the government offer incentives and why don't nationalist organizations militate for loyal Quebecers to accept their national obligation to save their society?

Instead the government and the nationalist media  rail on and on about immigrants not fulfilling their obligation to join native francophone society, giving up their religious faith and embracing poutine and maple syrup.
For Quebecers it is easier to blame the Anglos for the encroachment of English in Quebec society. Bill 101 was in fact designed not only to keep immigrants out of English schools, but Francophones as well.

For Quebecers, the obligation to preserve Quebec society as French falls on the shoulders of the English and immigrants communities with nothing, no effort at all being asked of the native francophone community.

All this to bring me to the point that Quebecers really don't care. They aren't willing to lift a finger to save their own skins.
No politican or nationalist pundit is brave enough to demand action on birth because they understand they will be laughed at.
Even the extremists in the Bloq Quebecois or the PQ fail to call on Quebecers to save themselves through birth. It is taboo.

Is it because the idea that the responsibility to save one's French own culture falls on Quebec francophones themselves is so outrageous and unrealistic?

The sad truth is that francophone Quebecers want to preserve their language and culture, but want 'les autres' to be responsible for doing so.
As for francophones lifting a finger to do so, it is out of the question, they are too selfish to sacrifice and that is the painful truth.
As for an independent Quebec, what a joke.
Should Quebec ever separate and the true personal cost of sovereignty would be felt, Quebec society would implode.
I think most francophones have realized the personal sacrifice sovereignty would entail and decided to take a pass.
The same goes for immigration where francophone Quebecers  aren't willing to accept any responsibility for their own welfare.