The planned arrival this spring of a cohort of 50 foreign nurses to come and lend a hand to the Gaspésie health network has been postponed due to a lack of available accommodation to accommodate them.
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As elsewhere, the shortage of caregivers is hitting the region hard, far from major centers.
“There is a significant lack of staff here, we are talking about 100 nurses”, underlines the spokesperson for the CISSS de la Gaspésie Lou Landry.
Last fall, a first wave of 38 nurses from Africa set foot on Gaspé soil to help meet labor needs.
Recruited by the Government of Quebec, these newcomers are currently completing refresher training for a few months, after which they will be able to reinforce local health care personnel.
Behind the scenes work
But the second cohort of around fifty nurses from Morocco, Côte d’Ivoire, Benin and Algeria will not arrive as planned in April.
The arrival of the long-awaited caregivers, some of whom are accompanied by their spouse or family, has been postponed until the fall due to the glaring lack of housing.
“It’s a great solution that meets a need for us, but which brings its share of challenges, especially housing,” agrees Lou Landry.
He points out that the CISSS is currently working with municipalities and MRCs to find a solution.
The publicist does not hide that the same problem arose last fall, with the first foreign arrivals.
“Everyone had a roof over their heads, but there were some who stayed in hostels for a while to ensure a transition when they arrived. We had made an appeal to the population to try to stimulate a little, to make the housing offers spring up a little. »
Appetite of the regions
On a tour to measure the interest of the regions for newcomers, Minister Christine Fréchette stopped in Gaspé.
She notes that several corners of the province have “an appetite like never before” to welcome immigrants.
But a keen interest in newcomers is not enough. We must also be able to meet the needs of these people, argues the Minister of Immigration.
“It must be said how limited the reception capacity can be, she underlines. We can’t tell people to live an hour away from Gaspé and come to work every morning, when they don’t have a car, there’s no public transit, there are two taxis in the city of Gaspé, we have no choice but to take that into consideration! »
More immigrants in the regions, but no increase in thresholds
The Legault government is in favor of the regionalization of immigration. But more new arrivals in the regions does not mean that the immigration thresholds should be raised, according to Minister Christine Fréchette.
The latter is currently on tour to take the pulse of the field in view of the consultations aimed at determining the number of immigrants that Quebec will welcome in the coming years.
A parliamentary commission which will not be held before the second half of 2023, she told our Parliamentary Office.
Due to labor needs, the Minister of Immigration admits that a lowering of the thresholds would be “surprising”.
If his government does not close the door to an increase, it does not rule out renewing the current level of immigration, set at 52,500 foreigners per year.
75% in Montreal
“It is not because there are more of them who go to the regions that we are increasing the thresholds. We can distribute the pie differently, there may be a little less in Montreal, a little more in the regions, ”she says.
Currently, 75% of newcomers choose Montreal to settle and work.
Quebec gets only 4%-5% of immigration, and the Gaspé, a meager 1%.
“There is a gap at the moment, it is not representative of the weight of the different regions, the distribution that we have of immigration. If we start to restore that, the balance will be different, but there again, people have to be able [d’] to welcome [les nouveaux arrivants] adequately and to support them,” argues Christine Fréchette.