Posted yesterday at 4:13 p.m.
“Good enough to work, good enough to stay!” chanted dozens of demonstrators gathered in downtown Montreal on Sunday to demand the regularization of the immigration status of all undocumented people in Canada.
Yaya Ndiaye, his wife Bodiel Diaw and their family arrived in Canada from the United States in May 2018. Since then, they have worked in the food industry while hoping to regularize their immigration status.
Sunday afternoon, despite the ambient 28°C, Mr. Ndiaye and Mr.me Bodiel joined dozens of others gathered at Place Émilie-Gamelin in downtown Montreal to demand immigration status for all people living in Canada and Quebec.
Although there is no precise data on this number, the federal government estimates that between 20,000 and 500,000 people live without papers in the country. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) announced in the spring that it was exploring to develop a policy to “regularize the status of undocumented workers who contribute to Canadian communities”. The Government of Canada is relying on a pilot project deployed in Toronto for workers without status in the construction industry.
Expand program access
“We know that people without status struggle to meet their basic needs, receive health care, are often unable to enroll their children in school or daycare, and live in the fear of being deported,” Alexandra Pierre, president of the League for Rights and Freedoms, told the crowd. The organization co-organized the demonstration with, among others, Solidarité sans frontières and the Center for Immigrant Workers (CTI).
“We are asking the federal government to broaden the [futur] regularization program, and we are asking Quebec to be included in it”, explains to The Press CTI’s Cheolki Yoon.
Expanded access to status should also apply to women, even those who are not working or who have failed their hearing with IRCC, says Rita Acosta of the Movement Against Rape and Incest. “We leave out a lot of women [dans le processus d’immigration]and they have often already experienced a lot of persecution,” recalls Ms.me Acosta.
“A lot of people have problems, because the lawyers [en immigration] take their money, but don’t do their job! adds Shahista Hussein, who accompanies many migrants as part of her work at the Parc-Extension Information Office (BIPE).
Wave of solidarity
The solidarity candidate for Mont-Royal–Outremont, the DD Isabelle Leblanc, was present at the demonstration. Her medical practice is in the Côte-des-Neiges district of Montreal, where she rubs shoulders with many undocumented immigrants. “As a doctor, I see the pitfalls that people without status experience on a daily basis,” she explains. We have to fight for them to have the same rights as everyone else. »
A vision shared by Fernand Deschamps, a retired teacher who worked in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighborhood in Montreal. “Families without permanent status caused all sorts of complications,” recalls the retired teacher. All these people contribute to society, so why these restrictions? This is an important question that concerns us all. »