Charest says Dumont wants to close Quebec

Charest says Dumont wants to close Quebec
Province needs immigration to prosper, Liberal chief tells party's youth wing
MARIANNE WHITE, CanWest News Service
Published: 5 hours ago
Premier Jean Charest yesterday accused Quebec's opposition leader, Mario Dumont, of wanting to isolate Quebec by closing the door on immigration at a time when the province needs more workers and faces the problem of an aging population.
In a newspaper interview published yesterday, the Action démocratique du Québec leader said that Quebec has reached its limit on welcoming new immigrants.
"Your number of immigrants should not exceed your capacity to welcome them and integrate them, otherwise they create ghettos," Dumont told Montreal's daily La Presse.
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When asked whether Quebec had reached that limit, he replied: "Quite so."
Charest accused his opponent of working to "isolate" Quebec from the rest of the world.
"Immigration is indispensable for Quebec's future," Charest said in a speech to his party's youth wing convention.
"I want an open and blooming Quebec, as opposed to going into our shell."
"His (Dumont's) declaration does not match our vision of Quebec," Charest said.
"We have to open Quebec's horizons."
During the weekend convention, high-ranking Liberals took every opportunity to lambaste Dumont, who revived the issue of ethnic nationalism in the March 26 Quebec election, and in so doing, gained the support of many francophone voters.
That pushed the ADQ ahead of the Parti Québécois in National Assembly seats.
On Saturday, Quebec minister of Canadian intergovernmental affairs Benoit Pelletier qualified Dumont's vision of Quebec's nationhood as being "too ethnic."
Liberal Party policy commission president Christian Ouellet said, for his part, that Mario Dumont had a "dictatorial" attitude when he was a leader of the young Liberals in 1992.
Dumont left the party that same year to helped found the ADQ.
"Free speech is not a common practice among ADQ representatives. Dumont keeps them under tight surveillance," Charest added.
The premier said his government will keep pushing for more immigration, and he will do so by negotiating agreements with other Canadian provinces as well as European states to allow mobility of residents.
Charest went to France in July to meet with government officials and has announced his intention of working with them to increase mobility between workforces.
He said yesterday that talks will start in September.
"It will be an agreement on the recognition of diplomas and competencies. So that a doctor in France is a doctor in Quebec and that an engineer in Quebec is an engineer in France," Charest said.
"We want to create a whole new space for Quebecers to live, work and study," he said.
The agreement will be negotiated separately from an eventual global free trade accord between Canada and the European Union and should be ready in time for next year's celebrations of Quebec City's 400th anniversary.
Charest also repeated his plan to cut a specific trade deal with neighbouring Ontario to eliminate barriers between the two provinces.
"Our central interest lies in free trade," Charest pledged.
"It's essential if we want to keep our level of prosperity."