Between Ottawa, Quebec and several Canadian provinces, this week, political insults and a war of numbers were exchanged. The talks to lead to a better distribution of asylum seekers to relieve Quebec and Ontario have clearly not progressed. Nor has the dehumanizing tone of the speech, which threatens to color the rest of the fall, when we would have preferred it to finally go out of fashion.
Tired of hoping for months for help from the federal government and its provincial counterparts, who had feigned solidarity at the Council of the Federation this summer, Quebec Premier François Legault finally lost his temper. “We’ve been talking for six months. There’s no result,” he lamented, regarding the work of a federal-provincial committee set up to distribute a portion of the asylum seekers who have found refuge in Quebec. “It seems to be going nowhere,” he chanted, urging federal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was at his side, to take urgent action.
Losing popular affection, Mr. Legault, whose parliamentary return is going from bad to worse, was not going to miss the opportunity to hit out at his counterpart to try to boost his popularity. This tried and tested strategy is not a secret, however. The Canadian provinces were certainly not going to hesitate to adopt it as well.
A proposal to redirect willing asylum seekers to a willing province in exchange for financial compensation has been called a plan “to exploit the kindness and compassion” of Nova Scotia, a “deeply disturbing” suggestion by New Brunswick and something Alberta “simply cannot afford.”
True to his outspokenness, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller called their three prime ministers “nonos conservatives” spreading “bullshit.” A very small contribution to the hope of a constructive dialogue.
The minister’s exasperation is not unjustified. The provinces’ primary considerations are not devoid of electoralism or partisanship. New Brunswick is beginning an election campaign, while Saskatchewan and British Columbia, also resistant to Ottawa’s intentions, should soon do the same. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith will submit to a confidence vote by her party members in November.
But if the federal government truly recognizes that Quebec and Ontario need a helping hand, alienating the provinces likely to relieve them will not help move forward. Especially since the latter are not wrong to point out that it was Ottawa that took too long to convince the United States to tighten up the Roxham Road and that erred by eliminating, at the beginning of its mandate, the visa requirement for Mexican travelers, since reinstated.
François Legault has not helped his cause either. His prophecies of doom about the limits of the capacity to accommodate an overabundance of asylum seekers for education, health or housing, not without foundation, are now fueling the argument of his counterparts to refuse to support him.
As of this summer, only the provinces of Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador had said they were willing to contribute. However, their sister provinces are also failing to do so.
Ottawa’s departure proposal, which National Post obtained a copy, provides for a distribution, in time, in proportion to the population of the provinces. On paper, the leap obviously seems enormous for Alberta – whose reception of asylum seekers would triple – or New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, for whom their number would increase tenfold.
However, the Atlantic provinces and Saskatchewan each currently have only a few hundred asylum seekers waiting for status. That’s less than 1% of the country’s total, for populations that represent approximately 2% and 3% of Canada’s, respectively. Alberta and British Columbia each host around 10,000 asylum seekers, or 4% and 5%, for populations that represent 12% and 14% of Canadians. The provinces of Quebec and Ontario alone host 42% and 45% of asylum seekers, according to Ottawa data.
Welcoming thousands of migrants in search of a better life with respect and dignity is obviously not just a sterile question of numbers. However, the inequity is flagrant. And the lack of solidarity from the provinces, which at the same time deplore fearing the rise of the Parti Québécois for the future of the Canadian federation, is gross.
The impasse seems total, with the incentive to reach an agreement diminishing at the same rate as the time remaining in the Trudeau government. The more than legitimate impatience of the Legault government, which has been stamping its foot in the air for years, unfortunately risks not changing anything.
While political jousting prevails over goodwill, it is these immigrants, among the most vulnerable, who pay the price every day.