The party’s robotization plan proposes the reduction of the number of temporary foreign workers in Quebec to 40,000 from 270,000.
QUEBEC CITY — The Parti Québécois (PQ) is betting on robots to address a manpower shortage and replace temporary immigrants in the province’s fields and factories.
Presse Canadienne obtained the robotization and automation part of the PQ’s plan to reduce immigration on the eve of its presentation on Monday.
The plan has been expected for several months and is a response the lobby group the Century Initiative, which has been advocating for the increase of Canada’s population to 100 million through immigration.
The PQ plan proposes the reduction of the number of temporary foreign workers in Quebec to 40,000 from 270,000, according to media reports.
“The number of temporary workers has grown at great speed and the challenges of manpower shortages are the same, if not worse in certain sectors,” said PQ Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon in a conversation with Presse Canadienne published Sunday.
The party also wants to dispel “the myth, the crude falsehood, an incorrect affirmation of certain lobbies” whereby immigration addresses the manpower shortage, since the shortage continues despite the massive influx of new arrivals, he said.
To fill vacant posts and the needs of businesses, the PQ prefers to draw on models in countries such as South Korea, Japan or Germany, which are all affected by a manpower shortage, but which have invested massively in research and robotization.
A PQ government would implement a special fund dedicated to robotization to finance companies that are making this shift, said St-Pierre Plamondon. It would mandate the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (National Institute of Scientific Research) to stimulate projects in research and development in industrial, manufacturing and agricultural robotics.
And, finally, should the PQ come to power, it would add an automation component to the province’s program for innovation in investment, targeting firms with labour shortages, along with investment in the 2023-2028 bio-food innovation program.
“For agriculture, it’s really a big challenge,” said St-Pierre Plamondon. “We are aware we cannot suddenly withdraw all temporary workers from a sector that is so dependent on them.”
Quebec’s delay in robotization can be attributed to the presence of abundant and cheap labour, which served over the years as a brake on business automation, the PQ leader said. For example, there are 176 robots for 10,000 employees in Canada, compared with 932 robots for 10,00 workers in South Korea, according to PQ documents.
“It’s a colossal delay,” St-Pierre Plamondon said. “It’s interesting to note countries that did not take the immigration route, such as South Korea and Japan, have ended up being much more robotized than we are.”
More than one-third of vacant posts in Quebec are in three sectors that currently employ temporary immigrants, he said: production, where 16 per cent of positions are vacant and the sector that lends itself the most easily to robotization; wholesale and retail, where 12 per cent of positions are vacant; accommodation and restaurant services, where nine per cent of positions are vacant, but a sector in which the challenge of robotization is more complex to address.
The PQ document does not include information on investment by companies necessary for robotization or the financing by the government that would be required or estimates of the number of robots or devices that would have to be deployed.
The PQ leader said it is a policy document and that his party’s program, which should be ready in two years, on the eve of the provincial elections, will contain precise and up-to-date-facts.
“We have done a number of consultations, but no precise figures were given. We are saying: ‘Here is the change in philosophy and approach and here are the falsehoods we are denouncing.’ In the second phase, we will go sector by sector and evaluate the amounts to invest.”