Parti Québécois leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon says the province must adopt hardline immigration policies similar to Denmark to save social programs.Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press
From the moment of its founding, in 1968, the Parti Québécois looked to Scandinavia as the model for the social-democratic society it hoped to create in an independent Quebec.
Replicating the postwar Swedish model of pro-worker welfare state policies was at the heart of the PQ’s 1980 referendum platform, just as much as the protection of Quebec’s language and culture, helping the party win the loyalty of the province’s union movement.
In 1995, as right-leaning governments in Alberta and Ontario cracked down on welfare recipients, the PQ once again put its social-democratic ideology at the forefront of that year’s referendum campaign. The Yes side’s manifesto cited Norway’s job-training programs as the template for the full-employment policies that a sovereign Quebec would adopt.
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Under current PQ Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, the party is once again taking its cue from Scandinavian social democrats – only this time, it’s not to promise a more expansive welfare state, but rather to save existing social programs by mimicking the hardline immigration policies adopted by Denmark’s Social Democratic-led government.
Indeed, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen – whose party lost ground but finished first in Tuesday’s national elections, leaving her poised to hold on to her job for a third term – campaigned on maintaining restrictions on asylum seekers that she has insisted are necessary to preserve the financial viability of the country’s social safety net.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen speaks to members of her Social Democratic Party on Tuesday.Sergei Grits/The Associated Press
“Being a traditional Social Democratic thinker means you cannot allow everyone who wants to join your society to come,” Ms. Frederiksen said last year. Otherwise, “it’s impossible to have a sustainable society, especially if you are a welfare society, as we are.”
The PQ first hailed Denmark’s tough immigration policies, including its “anti-ghetto” law that allows for the relocation of non-Western immigrants from neighbourhoods with high unemployment and crime, when it released the party’s immigration platform in 2024.
“The proper functioning of a social democracy, which aims to be generous in terms of social services, is incompatible with massive immigration,” the PQ insisted in unveiling its plan to slash immigration levels in Quebec, which are already much lower than in the rest of Canada.
Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon returned to the Danish example this month after the Supreme Court of Canada struck down a Quebec government regulation that denies access to the province’s subsidized daycare centres to asylum seekers with children. The court ruled 8-1 that the regulation violates equality rights guaranteed under Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by placing an undue burden on women.
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The PQ Leader warned that the court ruling would threaten the financial sustainability of the province’s cherished public daycare system under which parents currently pay $9.65 a day for a space in a subsidized child care facility, known as a Centre de la petite enfance (CPE).
“I advocate for an end to uncontrolled immigration and an open bar of public services for every person who arrives at [Montreal’s] Trudeau Airport claiming a right to asylum BECAUSE I care about services for children and the most disadvantaged,” Mr. St. Pierre Plamondon wrote on X. “It is particularly and precisely in following the example of Denmark … a country that since 2019 is led by the Social Democratic Party government of Mette Frederiksen.”
The PQ is not alone in Canada in wanting to limit public services provided to asylum seekers and temporary residents. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party government is planning to put the immigration question to voters in an October referendum. “[T]hrowing the doors wide open to anyone and everyone across the globe has flooded our classrooms, emergency rooms, and social support systems with far too many people, far too quickly,” Ms. Smith charged last month as she announced the fall plebiscite.
Critics rightly accuse Ms. Smith of scapegoating temporary foreign workers and asylum seekers without providing hard data on the cost of providing public services to them and their dependents. The PQ has similarly offered no evidence that obeying the Supreme Court on asylum seekers with children would break the bank. Already long waiting lists for CPE spaces would serve to limit the financial impact of the ruling.
Still, with an October provincial election on the horizon, the PQ’s immigration platform could be a vote-getter among Quebeckers who bemoan the deterioration of health and education services as the province struggles with surging demand and finite budgets. That the PQ can point to social democratic governments in Europe as the inspiration for its proposed immigration crackdown may serve to ease the consciences of voters who do not see themselves as right-wing sympathizers but worry about the future of social programs.
Promising Denmark on the St. Lawrence River may be a winning strategy for the PQ.