Premier François Legault is right to be impatient with the federal government’s indolence in the Roxham Road file. This land entry point has become a real bypass for tens of thousands of asylum seekers turned away at the borders because of an outdated agreement linking Canada to the United States. This situation must change.
Should Roxham Road be closed? If Quebec arrives at this somewhat draconian request, to which Ottawa, moreover, immediately opposed a plea of inadmissibility, it is because the way of reason does not succeed. Indeed, the renegotiation of the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) is dragging on, which has resulted in the refoulement of asylum seekers at the gates of Canada. The ETPS, in force since 2004, allows Canada to refuse requests made at an official Canada-US border crossing, and to return refugees to the United States, considered a “safe” country.
Result ? At the unofficial border post located not far from the Lacolle crossing, around a hundred irregular entries per day are made in Quebec, according to data provided by the Quebec Minister of Immigration, Jean Boulet. If the Minister pleads for the closing of the floodgates, it is because he has before his eyes data which announces an outbreak of passages. Since the reopening of Roxham Road on November 21, 13,600 people have crossed into Quebec to escape the United States and the fear of being returned to their country of origin. Of this number, 10,800 have made last-resort financial assistance, according to data from Quebec.
Quebec is therefore deploying energy and financial resources to provide refugees with all the basics of survival — a roof, food, a minimum income, medical care. If only the process of regularizing the status of these newcomers was smooth and efficient! But no, Quebec claims to have to wait an average of 11 months each time a work permit is requested. In the midst of a worker shortage, he cannot even benefit immediately from a workforce that is nevertheless available. The situation is doubly absurd.
In 2018, 18,500 people passed through Roxham Road. The following year, some 16,000. After two years of closure of the path due to a pandemic, the reopening in the fall has already allowed the passage of more than 7,000 people. Quebec extrapolates that it may have to open its door to 35,000 people this year, although we are not sure.
In the delicate and complex issue of immigration, where Quebec and Canada do not live together on perfect harmony, it is easy to pit humanitarian virtues against arguments of an economic nature: not enough financial support, no enough housing, no work permit will not weigh heavily in the balance next to a death threat hovering over some asylum seekers in their native country. The uncertain fate of these people, if by chance they were returned to where they came from, is concerning, as Judge Ann Marie McDonald demonstrated in a July 2020 Federal Court judgment.
By asking for the closure of this unofficial road, which has become a bogus border post by default, Quebec is in fact campaigning for a return to the rules of the art. It does not announce the closing of the doors, but rather a framework which will be able to avoid that it finds itself with an uncontrollable flow of citizens whom it must take care of, the time that their request is analyzed in good and due form. This is also where the shoe pinches, because the immigration processes supervised by the federal government are slowed down by a lack of resources and unacceptable red tape.
Although Canada’s reputation is enviable around the world for the fair process for processing asylum applications, these concrete shortcomings have ended up creating a waiting corridor with serious consequences both for individuals and for the responsible authorities, such as the Quebec. For years now, the global migration crisis has created almost everywhere zones of refugees positioned at the borders of the host country awaiting a status, an answer, a future. The parallel track created on Roxham Road, in response to an outdated bilateral agreement, is not so different.
There remains in the background a historic quarrel between Quebec and Canada around the immigration file, which is a shared jurisdiction, no offense to François Legault. His hope of possessing “full powers” in this matter has suffered a recent rebuff, but his concern to be more in control, if only by virtue of a desire to safeguard French, is justified. Just like his wish to see the Roxham road file settled.