A Quebec employers’ group says a reduction in temporary workers will have negative impact on businesses.

Karl Blackburn, president and CEO of the Conseil du patronat du Québec, called the situation “deplorable,” denying an overpopulation of temporary workers, who are instead “working in our businesses producing goods and services.”

Their numbers, he said, reflect the needs of the labour market and of an aging society.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Quebec Premier Francois Legault met in March, when the former rejected the latter’s call for the Quebec government to have full say over who can immigrate to the province.

Since then, Legault has been threatening to hold a referendum on immigration if the federal government does not pay heed to his demands to reduce the number of temporary immigrants, including foreign workers, international students, and refugee claimants.

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He said that the 560,000 temporary immigrants in Quebec are straining social services and putting the French language in Quebec at risk.

“What I want to tell Mr. Trudeau is that the majority of Quebecers think that 560,000 temporary immigrants, it’s too much,” Legault said.

Christine Frechette, who is Quebec’s immigration minister, said that Quebec demands stronger French language requirements in immigration programs managed by Ottawa and a reduction in the number of asylum seekers and temporary workers.

Blackburn agreed with Legault in saying that Quebec receives a disproportionate number of asylum seekers, he denounced Ottawa’s “improvised” decision to reimpose visas on some Mexican nationals earlier this year. Quebec had pushed for this measure to reduce asylum seeker numbers.

According to Blackburn, businesses are already feeling the “direct effects” of restrictions on foreign workers. The provincial economy will be hurt if more measures are imposed toward that aim.

“It’s as if our governments knowingly agreed to cause companies to lose contracts for reasons of political partisanship and not based on economic growth, which is nonsensical in a way,” Blackburn said.

Quebec has demanded that the federal government reimburse them $1 billion, which is the amount Quebec has spent on caring for asylum seekers in the last three years.

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Emna Braham asserts that a tight labor market, post-secondary institutions recruiting internationally, and programs by Ottawa and Quebec allowing companies to let in more workers are the reason temporary immigrant numbers have surged.

Numbers have gone higher than both governments’ expectations, possibly because temporary immigration works through programs that work separately from each other.

As per The Canadian Press, Braham and Blackburn agree that temporary worker numbers are high in Quebec because the province decided to cap new PR acceptances at around 50,000, which created a backlog of people awaiting their permanent status in Canada.

“If the government of Quebec had set its thresholds at the level they should be to meet the needs of the labour market, we wouldn’t be in this situation where (there) is a significant increase in temporary workers,” Blackburn said.