Cut n Paste
Since 1991, Quebec has been the only province to have an exclusive deal with the federal government that allows it to choose about half of its immigrants. Ottawa still handles refugees and has some control over family sponsorships.
Almost half of this year's expected 42,000 immigrants to Quebec already speak French.
But it's migration of another kind that could wreak havoc on the Quebec government's carefully laid plans.
The census figures show that the net loss of Quebecers to other provinces between 1996 and 2001 was 57,300 -- the highest level recorded since the mid-1980s.
There were 53,300 anglophones who left, compared to 39,700 francophones. Two-thirds of the people who moved out of Quebec headed to Ontario.
Those numbers don't change the reality that political measures such as immigration policy and language laws remain necessary until Quebec becomes an independent country, insists Guy Bouthillier, president of the nationalist group, Societe Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Montreal.
"Quebec's linguistic policies were all based on the idea that Quebec would not be simply a province in Canada,'' Bouthillier said.
http://www.canada.com/search/story.aspx?id=f1bccb42-b6c8-40d8-af57-3cdaefbb47f0
