Chapter 1 – Conclusion
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While this chapter has clearly shown the need for more Francophone immigrants both inside and outside Quebec, what is equally important is that these newcomers are retained within the communities where they are needed. Particularly for fairly homogeneous, rural communities and communities in smaller centres immigration has an important role to play in ensuring their continued vitality. This is also true for Anglophone minority communities in Quebec outside of Montreal. While Quebec's Anglophone minority community has been able to attract immigrants in fairly large numbers, more and more of these immigrants are heading exclusively to Montreal and thus depriving smaller communities of the benefits of immigration.8
Attract and Retain (Recommendation 1)
The Federal Government has made a commitment to supporting the development and vitality of official language minority communities under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration must establish long-term selection and retention targets for immigrants to official language minority communities. These targets must not only reflect the demographic percentage of these communities within the general population but also compensate for inequitable immigration rates in the past.
8 64% of Anglophone immigrants before 1961 settled in Montreal, between 1991 and 1996 this percentage had risen to 82% (Commissioner 2002).
