A historic April for Quebec: a new Premier and a different conversation for foreign workers
In just a few weeks, Quebec experienced two leadership changes with direct consequences for those who work or plan to work in the province. At the federal level, Mark Carney, former Governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, came to power in 2025 with a mandate to rebalance an immigration system that had expanded rapidly under the previous government. At the provincial level, François Legault announced his resignation in January 2026 after years of declining poll numbers, and on April 12th, the Coalition Avenir Québec elected Christine Fréchette as its new leader and Premier. She unveiled her full cabinet on April 21st. Two distinct political scenarios, but both pointing in the same direction for Quebec’s construction and landscaping sectors.
Fréchette arrives with a different stance on immigration
What makes Christine Fréchette’s arrival particularly significant is not just the change of face, but the change of tone. In her speech following the cabinet presentation, she declared her intention to pursue a “more humane” approach to immigration than her predecessor’s, and announced plans to reopen the Quebec Experience Program (PEQ) for a two-year period while respecting the annual threshold of 45,000 immigrants. The new Premier does not arrive without context: before serving as Minister of Economy, she was precisely Quebec’s Minister of Immigration under Legault’s government, making her one of the most knowledgeable figures in the province’s immigration landscape. François Bonnardel took over as the new Minister of Immigration in the cabinet unveiled on April 21st.
In Ottawa, priority sectors remain the focus
At the federal level, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Lena Metlege Diab, appointed by Carney in May 2025, has focused her tenure on stabilizing admission levels and refining pathways to permanent residence for those already working in Canada. The federal budget approved under the Carney government was explicit: agricultural workers and those in food manufacturing are excluded from cuts to temporary immigration. The same logic applies to construction, a sector the government officially recognizes as facing documented structural labour shortages. Selectivity has increased, but channels for qualified candidates in critical sectors remain open.
What this shift means in practice
For a construction or landscaping worker evaluating their prospects in Quebec, the political landscape of April 2026 offers more positive signals than the headlines suggest. Fréchette’s arrival opens the possibility that certain processes that had closed or tightened during the Legault era may begin to ease, at least at the margins. At the same time, the continuity of key figures in portfolios like finance and health provides institutional stability. International recruitment missions such as Journées Québec remain active, and the Délégation générale du Québec in Mexico has not modified its operations. The change of government is not a warning sign: it is a signal of movement, and those who understand which direction that movement is heading hold a real advantage.
Demographics do not negotiate with political calendars
Beyond the changes in names and portfolios, there is a reality no government can ignore: Quebec has an aging population, construction projects that cannot wait, and a landscaping industry that kicks off every spring with the same urgency as always. That structural need for skilled labour does not disappear with a provincial election or a federal policy adjustment. What does change with governments is the regulatory environment in which that need is managed, and understanding it precisely makes all the difference between arriving at the right market at the right moment, or arriving with outdated information.
