Even if François Legault affirmed that he would “force” asylum seekers to move to other provinces, there is no question of moving anyone who is already “rooted” in Quebec, nuanced the Minister of Immigration , Jean-François Roberge, Thursday.
“We do not want to uproot families,” assured the CAQ elected official in a press scrum, one day after the head of his government had argued from Paris that the distribution across the rest of Canada of the 160,000 asylum seekers currently hosted in Quebec should be done in a “compulsory” manner.
“We are human,” Mr. Roberge put things into perspective on Thursday.
Intercepted by the parliamentary press a few minutes before question period, the Minister of Immigration, Integration and Francisation provided a typical portrait of the approximately 80,000 asylum seekers he wanted to see leave Quebec for other provinces.
“We are talking about people who are not rooted, who arrive here, who in certain cases – 40% – do not speak French, who are still housed by the State, do not yet have a work permit or don’t have a job yet. And there are very, very many of them,” he explained.
For several months, François Legault has been asking Justin Trudeau’s government to intervene to reduce asylum requests in Quebec by half. The idea would be to match the number of these non-permanent residents to Quebec’s proportion in Canada — 22%.
However, it was only on Wednesday that he mentioned for the first time an “obligation” to travel. In February, the former Minister of Immigration, Christine Fréchette, responded to a report from the French Language Commissioner recommending that asylum applications be distributed according to language and that this distribution should be done “on a voluntary basis.” .
Further details will follow.