Thank you, Madam Chair, Mr. Vice-President, Madame la vice-présidente, honourable members of the committee and ladies and gentlemen.

My notes will be in French, but I will be more than happy to take the questions in both official languages in the QP session.

Thank you for the invitation to appear this afternoon before this standing committee as it considers one of the most important issues ensuring the future of our country and the economic development of our regions. It is with great humility that I've accepted this honour to come and share with you, in a personal capacity, my vision of the future on what I believe should be a priority for our public decision-makers to ensure the socio-economic sustainability of our regions. My vision is based on a new approach that would consist of attracting new immigrants in a category, succession of existing businesses, that is all new but not, in itself, a new concept.

As a young immigrant myself who arrived in Canada 45 years ago this year, I have been privileged to live, grow and thrive in one of the best countries in the world after fleeing civil war. In recognition of this second chance that life has given me and in gratitude to my host society, I joined the public service at a young age. I've had the honour and privilege of serving under three Canadian prime ministers from 1993 to 2010, including two immigration ministers as their chief of staff. That experience, coupled with my professional background in the private sector and my recent role as executive vice-president of the Centre de transfert d'entreprise du Québec, CTEQ, have allowed me to see first-hand the strengths and gaps of our Canadian economic immigration programs.

I'm appearing before the honourable committee today to submit an idea based on established facts and to propose an innovative solution to an issue that is of great concern to our society, especially our remote regions, in terms of our country's economic development. I'd like to talk to you about business succession as a new economic vector to attract future Canadian immigrants to our regions so they can contribute directly to the economic development of these regions and to the underlying entrepreneurial communities. Therefore, we must review our immigration programs to promote SME succession via acquisition by immigrants, as well as integrate and help those immigrants to settle in our regions.

As you've already seen these next few points in my summary brief, I will simply name them for you. I'd like to look into the demographic context in Canada, Japan's experience that could serve as an example for Canada, the context of the pandemic and its impact and, of course, I'd like to make a recommendation to you: through this committee, the Government of Canada should implement a new visa program, the entrepreneurial acquisition visa, to encourage business succession and the integration of entrepreneur immigrants in our regions. This visa program could be managed jointly by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and an organization whose mission and activities are similar to those of the CTEQ. I therefore humbly propose to the government, with the support of the CTEQ, a concrete solution to promote economic immigration so that investors can come and settle in Canada, live here and contribute in a concrete and direct way, unlike some who do so only to obtain a Canadian passport.

It's therefore essential that our immigration strategies refer to public policy and initiatives that support business succession, and it's all to ensure that we can maintain and develop the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Canada's regions, as is already being done in Quebec.

Implementing a program like the entrepreneurial acquisition visa would make the succession market more fluid and increase the number of qualified takers, given the growing challenge of our aging population, which also affects the business community. What's more, the entrepreneurial acquisition visa will appeal to many skilled immigrants and encourage them to set up shop in one of Canada's regions and, in doing so, contribute to our economic development.

Thank you for your attention. I sincerely appreciate the invitation, and I remain at your service to work with your committee.

Transcript

Discussions (0)