Quebec employers group worried 'political' immigration debate will hurt jobs

He said he supports the Legault government's call to reduce the number of asylum seekers in the province because Quebec has received a disproportionate share in recent years.

But he denounced the federal government's "improvised" decision to suddenly reimpose visas on some Mexican nationals earlier this year, a measure Quebec had pushed for as a way of reducing asylum claims.

"It's as if our governments knowingly agreed to cause companies to lose contracts for reasons of political partisanship and not based on economic growth, which is nonsensical in a way," Blackburn said.

Politicians are unfairly blaming immigrants for shortages of housing, daycare spaces and teachers, when the real problem is government failure to invest in those areas, he added.

Emna Braham says the surge in temporary immigrants is due to a combination of factors, including a tight labour market, post-secondary institutions recruiting internationally, and programs by both Ottawa and Quebec to allow companies to bring in more workers.

"If the government of Quebec had set its thresholds at the level they should be to meet the needs of the labour market, we wouldn't be in this situation where [there] is a significant increase in temporary workers," Blackburn said.