Not way back, a handful of African immigrants in Rouyn-Noranda, a remote town in northern Quebec, knew one another.
There was a Nigerian woman who had been married to a Quebec man for a very long time. Strange researchers from Cameroon and Ivory Coast. And, of course, Nestor, the Congolese chemist who first became famous for driving a Zamboni to hockey games.
Today, newcomers from Africa are in every single place – on the streets, in supermarkets, factories, hotels, and even within the boxing club situated within the basement of the church.
A Benin couple has taken over Chez Morasse, the urban institution that introduced the region’s favorite greasy spoon poutine. Women from several corners of West and Central Africa chatted at the brand new African food market, Épicerie Interculturelle.
“Since last year it was like the gate to hell or the gate to heaven, something opened up and everyone started pouring in. I have never seen so many Africans in my life,” Folake Lawanson Savard, 51, a Nigerian whose husband is Québécois, said to loud laughter in the shop.
Rouyn-Noranda’s transformation follows an influx of immigrants that Canada has welcomed as temporary staff in recent times to handle widespread labor shortages. Many people have ultimately been capable of change their temporary status to everlasting residence, the ultimate step before becoming residents.
The influx of immigrants has also raised concerns, contributing to the country’s housing crisis and straining public services in some areas, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government announcing plans contain their numbers.
This growth resulted within the emergence of African communities in probably the most unlikely places within the French-speaking province of Quebec. Some work in logging within the boreal forests. Others, after becoming everlasting residents or residents, are government staff in indigenous towns that may only be reached by boat or small propeller planes.
While African immigrants have long lived within the province’s large cities, the newcomers are a recent phenomenon in rural areas.
Due to an aging population and falling birth rates, labor shortages have drawn many individuals from French-speaking Africa to Quebec, including to Rouyn-Noranda, a mining town of 42,000 situated about 90 minutes by plane north of Montreal.
The number of temporary residents has increased across Canada – a category that features foreign staff but in addition international students and asylum seekers he rose In recent years. In the last two years alone, this number has doubled 2.7 millionof the full population of Canada 41 million.
Canadian immigration policy has traditionally focused on attracting highly educated and expert immigrants.
However, many temporary foreign staff are actually being hired by firms for lower-skilled jobs in manufacturing and services, fueling debates about whether they are going to make the identical contribution to Canada’s economy as former immigrants.
Rouyn-Noranda’s once small African population consisted of people employed in technical positions within the mining industry or as researchers in local university.
“We had professors and engineers,” said Valentin Brin, director of Mosaic, a private organization that helps recent immigrants. “And then there was a change.”
The change is available in part resulting from city officials’ decision in 2021 to extend efforts to assist local firms recruit foreign staff, said Mariève Migneault, director of public relations. Local Development Centerthe town’s economic development arm.
“Our companies suffered from such a shortage of workers that it slowed down the economic development of Rouyn-Noranda,” Ms. Migneault said.
In the case of G5, a family business business which owns and operates hotels and restaurants in the town, the number of local employees has been shrinking for years, said Tatiana Gabrysz, who oversees two of the corporate’s hotels. Young people were more interested by high-paying jobs in mining.
Immigrants, mostly from Colombia, are expected to soon make up about 10 percent of the corporate’s 200-person workforce, Gabrysz said, adding that due to them, the corporate can operate without consistently worrying about staff shortages.
“It changed my life,” Ms. Gabrysz said.
Exact numbers are hard to come back by, but Africans are believed to be the biggest group of temporary foreign staff in the town. According to the Center for Local Development, there are currently around 4,000-4,500 temporary foreign staff employed within the Rouyn-Noranda region, following a sharp increase from 2021.
When Aimé Pingi arrived within the region from the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2008, there have been so few Africans that everybody knew one another.
“If you see one, immediately exchange phone numbers and then call each other to arrange a coffee,” Pingi said. “It was like family back then.”
With a background in chemistry, Mr. Pingi took a job in a mining company. But he also did odd jobs, including operating a Zamboni at hockey games in a town north of Rouyn-Noranda, which attracted a lot of attention and helped him meet people.
“People were curious, in a good way,” he said. “They wanted to know what I was doing here, what brought me here.”
Mr. Pingi eventually married a local woman and even ran unsuccessfully for local office.
Currently, temporary staff from Africa often come as part of a “family project,” said Mohamed Méité, a specialist at Mosaic Member of Parliament from Côte d’Ivoire who’s pursuing a PhD in mining engineering in Rouyn-Noranda.
Supported by prolonged families, they typically come to Quebec on two-year contracts with a single employer. If their visas allow it, when their contracts expire, they will apply for everlasting residence and sponsor families to affix them in Canada.
Because many temporary staff are initially tied to at least one employer, they will sometimes experience abuse, including unfair dismissal and low pay, said Mr. Brin of Mosaic.
Some African immigrants say that even when working conditions are good, isolation in remote places in Quebec and separation from their families are taking a heavy toll.
Cameroonian Metangmo Nji (40) left her husband and kids in 2022 to work as a cook in a fast food chain in Rouyn-Noranda. Although her employer treated her and 4 other Cameroonian kitchen staff well, even providing accommodation, Ms Nji says the loneliness led to “serious depression”.
“Leaving my family and children is the hardest thing I have ever been through,” she said.
Temporary staff, she said, should be “mentally strong” to deal with loneliness and might’t wait until they will get everlasting residency and invite their families over.
Still, the situation has improved, Ms. Nji said. She added that resulting from the rapid growth of the African population in Rouyn-Noranda, the Cameroonian association now has 52 members, up from 10 last 12 months. They meet once a month for Cameroonian dishes akin to fufu with ndolé and spinach stew.
The growing presence of the African community was perhaps most visible when the town’s most famous poutine restaurant, Chez Morasse, passed two years ago into the hands of Carlos Sodji and Sylviane Senou, a young couple from Benin.
Poutine – a caloric combination of French fries layered with cheese and sauce – has turn out to be Quebec’s signature dish all over the world.
But it was introduced to the Rouyn-Noranda region within the Nineteen Seventies after the Morasse family discovered it in one other part of Quebec, said Christian Morasse, a former owner of the restaurant. Generations have grown up devouring poutine at Chez Morasse, cementing its place in the town’s history and culture.
When Mr. Morasse decided to retire in 2022, he considered several purchase offers. Leaving aside the Québécois’ offers to the West African couple, Mr. Morasse said Mr. Sodji worked for him as a supplier and had the “soul of an entrepreneur.”
As a resident of the town, Morasse said he also witnessed how African newcomers revitalized his city.
“Due to labor shortages, our supermarkets were almost closed on weekends and our restaurants were almost closed two or three days a week and in the evenings,” he said. “Now they are open and it is all African workers.”
Chez Morasse’s staff consists of six chefs who recently arrived from Benin and Togo.
To the surprise of Mr. Sodja and Ms. Senou, their purchase of Chez Morasse attracted a lot of media attention. “A brand new era begins at Chez Morasse,” said Radio-Canada, the general public broadcaster. The Globe and Mail described how “Benin immigrants saved Quebec’s famous poutinerie” and the newspaper Le Devoir simply stated that “the best poutine in the world is now beninois“
“We didn’t expect this reaction,” Ms. Senou said. “But we didn’t really have time to enjoy it and even give it some thought. We were too busy working.
