Quebec Immigration Minister Christine Fréchette said she was pleased to learn that federal authorities had transferred to Ontario almost all of the approximately 500 asylum seekers who arrived via Roxham Road last weekend. . According to Mme Fréchette, this is proof that the Government of Quebec “can have results” by constantly expressing its dissatisfaction with Ottawa’s inaction in the face of the growing flow of irregular migrants who have been passing through Roxham Road since its reopening in November. 2021.
Minister Fréchette implored the federal government to continue to send elsewhere in Canada more than three quarters of the asylum seekers who cross this unofficial border crossing so as to leave in Quebec only a proportion of migrants equivalent to its demographic weight within of the Canadian federation. “We hope it will be maintained over time, and that it will be the new approach to border management,” she added.
However, the happiness of some is sometimes the misfortune of others. In the Niagara region of southern Ontario, the arrival of migrants from Roxham Road is causing serious concern among municipal officials and charities. This region has a greater number of hotel rooms than the average due to its tourist vocation, which is active especially in summer. So it is not surprising that Ottawa has chosen it as a destination for the migrants that Quebec says it no longer has the capacity to welcome.
However, while the government is preparing to rent about 2,000 hotel rooms to temporarily house migrants in southern Ontario, some stakeholders are expressing reservations about Ottawa’s new strategy. “Without notice, without preparation, this puts us in a very difficult position,” Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati said in an interview with St. Catharines Standard. How can we handle a situation like this when we already have a housing crisis and a housing affordability crisis? This will absolutely exacerbate an already existing problem. With the start of the spring tourist season just weeks away, he said he foresees “a big problem” on the horizon.
By acting in this way in this file, the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is once again demonstrating its poor crisis management capabilities. He is caught between his progressive base, which would like to open Canada’s borders to all “those fleeing persecution, terror and war” – as Mr. Trudeau himself promised to do in 2017 in a tweet now entered in history — and the contradictions of its own immigration policies.
Genuine refugees are outwitted by smugglers who exploit the vulnerability of migrants fleeing difficult living conditions in Latin America or Africa to take what little money they have. No matter how generous we want to be towards these people, the integrity of our immigration system is taking its toll and Canada is consolidating its reputation as a sieve from which anyone who wants to take advantage of it benefits.
Ottawa finds itself devoid of arguments in the face of an American government which has no interest in acceding to its request to “modernize” the Agreement on Safe Third Countries (ETPS). The approximately 40,000 asylum seekers who arrived in Canada via Roxham Road in 2022 are only a drop in the ocean of American migration. Even Democratic politicians like the Mayor of New York, Eric Adams, do not see why they should deprive themselves of using this “loophole” in the ETPS to somehow alleviate their own migration crisis. Let’s face it, their crisis is infinitely more serious than ours.
So what to do? The transfer of asylum seekers from Roxham Road to other provinces may allow the federal government to reduce pressure on Quebec, but it risks creating tensions elsewhere in the country. It is also possible that smugglers see the federal approach as a gesture that facilitates their work. Quebec’s reception capacity may be reaching its limits, but Ottawa’s transfer of asylum seekers to Ontario creates more opportunities for system profiteers.
Let’s hope that the Trudeau government will have a plan B in case the Supreme Court strikes down the Safe Third Country Agreement. In 2020, the Federal Court found that this agreement violated the right to life, liberty and security of the person guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Federal Court of Appeal later reversed that decision.
However, the notion that the United States is not a “safe” country for asylum seekers enjoys the support of many adherents in Canada. In the event of the invalidation of the ETPS, Canada would have to welcome all asylum seekers arriving from the United States, even those passing through an official border crossing. This would create a nasty dilemma for Mr. Trudeau, to the point of perhaps even forcing him to repudiate the famous tweet of which he still seems so proud.