Canada's official affirmative action immigration policy for francophones

[ionelv]

Apparently, Canada is overweighting francophone Express Entry immigrants over anglophone ones (despite the equal scoring on language profficiency in their general skilled immigrant point system). Excerpts from the Toronto Star article (with my emphasis in order to underscore the contradictions):

French-speaking candidates made up 42 per cent of the people invited for permanent residence last year via Canada’s flagship skilled immigration selection system, which favours applicants fluent in French and is upsetting those who aren’t.

In total, 48,000 of the 113,998 applicants picked under the Express Entry system were chosen for their ability in French. They were selected in periodic draws from the talent pool where candidates post their profiles, and are awarded points out of a 1,200 maximum and ranked based on age, education, work experience and other attributes.

The deliberate effort is in part to redress the decline in the demographic weight of French-speaking Canadians outside Quebec — down from 6.1 per cent in 1971 to about four per cent today — and ensure the long-term vitality of these minority communities that are key to “Canada’s bilingual and multicultural character.”

Ottawa has reduced its permanent resident intakes from 485,000 in 2024 to 380,000 in 2026, while raising the portion of the French-speaking newcomers outside Quebec in the mix from six per cent to nine per cent, and to 12 per cent in 2029.

“We have an ambitious francophone immigration plan, which we will attain,” Immigration Minister Lena Metlege Diab told a news conference in November on new funding to support francophone immigration.

Personally, I had a much higher score on my English skills than my rudimentary French skills when I was awarded a skilled immigrant visa by the Canadian government back in 2006.

PS (added 2026.01.12): Here is a summary of all EE rounds I compiled from the official data. One might notice that the francophone program's minimum lowest score is below the weighted average and only above the Trades program (if one discounts the Provincial program which is very opaque).

PPS (added 2026.01.12): It is much worse: Ontario's PNP/OINP includes a French-speaking stream in addition to the generic EE francophone stream and Quebec's own. Is that what Canada really needs: a glut of francophone immigrants that jump the queue ahead of more qualified candidates and not more STEM, healthcare and tradespeople?? Really?

Comments

[ioplokon]

That is how all PR is done now. They have different categories and yiu are only ranked vs people in that category. This is how I got in (though I had enough points to qualify for most general draws as well - just happened to get French first). I think part of why this smarts right now is because they've not done any general draws for over a year, so if you aren't in healthcare or Canadian Experience/PNP, you're not getting PR no matter how many points you have unless you speak French.

Idk I feel a bit bad about it because obviously I don't deserve to be here, but I couldn't stay in the States.

[ionelv]

I played with the Express Entry points calculator and something seems way off: if you master either of the two official languages, having French as your primary language can only give you an extra 50 points out of a max 1200 points. Given that 42% of those 114k gained express entry due to their French abilities, something does not add up: either the Star’s reporting is really bad or CIC is really underhanded and unfair in some way towards anglophone applicants. I do not understand.

[ioplokon]

You get like 600 points for provincial nomination, so there's a big jump from the mid-500s range to that. But they get picked in the PNP category draws, so aren't in the pool when they do the French draw. That's what I'm saying, they do category draws for only people in specific categories (Provincial Nomination, Canadian Experience, Healthcare, Education, etc) & one of those is French. They used to have a "General" draw as well, which is pure points, but they haven't done one since 2024.

I do think the Star's reporting is a bit off, though. They don't have any actual response from the government - just a speech from November & I think the comment about poor human capital is out of line; scores in the mid 300s were getting PR in like 2021 & it wasn't a disaster.

[ionelv]

I think I understand what you're saying but I am seeing a big disconnect between what you are saying and what the Govt of Canada is advertising that borders on false advertising. Looking closer at the EE admissions in 2025, it looks like the francophone and especially PNP candidates are half of the total and much less qualified that the rest. That smells like a serious corruption of the original skilled worker visa scheme. Am I wrong? As a side note, I found a website that tracks all Express Entry admissions since its start in 2015: https://www.canadavisa.com/express-entry-invitations-to-apply-issued.html

[ioplokon]

I don't think it is false advertising, the government is open about how the category system works & it has been like this for years, tho it was only in 2024 that they dropped the general draws altogether. You are basically only competing against your category.

And yeah the whole point of the categories is to select for specific skills (so Provincial nominees are most advantaged because they fill a particular niche & are tied to the province that nominated them). French is also a skill, so from that perspective, not so different, I guess.

[ionelv]

It is definitely false advertising:
1. I completed two different official CIC calculators for EE program (general eligibility calculator and CRS calculator) and neither mentioned at any point that being an anglophone or an IT worker decreases my chances to get a PR EE visa to ZERO since April 2024 and with no hint as to when and how much that will change in the future.
2. I looked around the EE info at canada.ca and again, the government is not forthcoming about the current skewed system save for the page about Rounds of Invitation (which is basically a raw data dump of the skewed system) long after the calculators, the profile creation and other minutia. There is no explicit mention of the suspension of General category admission (for almost two years now) with no hint as to when it would be resumed and at what level. https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/rounds-invitations.html
3. Quebec has already its own immigration program that allocated it 35k visas in addition to the 48k francophone program out of 112k in ex-Quebec EE program. That seems very unfair to anglophones. https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/news/notices/supplementary-immigration-levels-2025-2027.html

[ionelv]

As to French being a skill, I would counter that is a very low-level skill that does not improve one's chances of scoring a job by much (i.e. only 2.7% of jobs outside Quebec require French and many actually require bilingualism). Prioritizing francophones in the EE scheme by overweighting their language skills over their more generic skills, Canada is actually doing ex-Quebec francophones a disservice by throwing them into a job market that is predominantly anglophone outside Quebec (and even in Quebec French is losing ground in the workplace apparently despite the provincial govt's ham-fisted attempts to punish anglophones in the province).

[ionelv]

On the poor human capital thing, the issue might be that Canada could get better skilled EE candidates overall, but by choosing to award 42% of the EE visas only to francophones (ex-Quebec mind you), it commits a double fault: it waters down the skilled immigrant pool and it either sets up ex-Quebec francophones with a handicap or it (un)intentionally nudges them to move to Quebec eventually if they can't learn English fast enough.

PS: Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. I half-seriously wonder what secret deal did the federal liberals make with francophone liberals or NDPers to warrant such a corruption of the EE scheme and if it had anything to do with propping up Trudeau's government (beyond the officially stated concessions). I actually expect Carney to chop off this francophone thumb on the EE scale as soon as he gets a clean parliamentary majority (which shall happen sometime this spring by my calculations).