Over the past few days, two journalists from Duty gave a human face to the raw statistics of temporary immigration and non-status migrants. Sarah R. Champagne and Lisa-Marie Gervais told the stories of Henry, Yony, Rudy, Yasser, Mariana and Mamadou.
The former—temporary foreign workers—have been injured on the job and are fighting not only for their recovery, but also for the defense of their rights in an administrative maze that looks like a dead end. The second – those without status – arrived in our country by a regularized route, but then fell into the pool of “sans-papiers”; they fight to survive, but in hiding. Behind the coldness of the numbers are their forgotten vulnerabilities.
Our entire migration system revolves around the coveted notion of “permanent residence”. The reform just launched by the Minister of Immigration, Christine Fréchette, is based around this concept. This is, let us repeat, spectacular hypocrisy, because under targets now raised to 60,000 “permanent” people, the royal road to entry into Quebec is in fact “temporary”, and its permanent character cannot be never materialize for the thousands of people who work every day to keep our economy running.
In 2022, there were nearly three times as many immigrants entering through a temporary route as permanent ones recorded over the same 11-month period. The real way to enter Quebec is temporary, but we continue to treat this issue as if it were secondary, even marginal. Quebec did not include the issue of temporary foreign workers in its recent reform, although it was loudly called for. This workforce scrutinized under the sole axis of its usefulness, without regard to its humanity, nevertheless accounted for nearly 40,000 people in Quebec in 2022.
This is the sad paradox suffered by these tens of thousands of people deemed essential. They have been doing hard work for many years, away from their families, but they rarely achieve the coveted status of permanence, which would get them out of an overwhelming in-between.
Since their main tool is their body, we will not be surprised to learn that the number of occupational injuries suffered by these workers has been increasing rapidly over the past few years, as evidenced by the data compiled by the Commission des normes, de la equity, health and safety at work (CNESST). The stories told by our reporters show the painful limits of temporary status when workers are injured or sick: even if they have access to proper health care while they work, these services hang by the thread employment. When employment ends or is interrupted, for lack of being able to provide work, the employee must normally leave Québec. But some disabilities simply do not allow it: a work accident that requires long rehabilitation or cancer that requires treatment, for example.
These precious workers often find themselves alone in the ordeal, without the means to allow their families who have remained in their country of origin to even come and visit them after an operation. Since they can no longer work, they also lose the accommodation that comes with employment, which guarantees them a status. In some cases, the discretionary power of the Minister of Health, who can stretch health insurance coverage on humanitarian grounds, will save the day. But these sometimes hopeless administrative battles underline the unacceptable nature of the treatment inflicted on people who are said to be indispensable: we prefer to forget their vulnerabilities, as if they were second-class workers. This is what Quebec offers them as a thank you.
In these gloomy conditions, we are not surprised that some slip into the last of the zones, that of clandestinity, by becoming undocumented. It’s the ultimate retreat — and the most painful, because it forces a life of hiding and illegality.
Canada, which is said to be home to between 80,000 and 500,000 undocumented migrants, pledged 18 months ago to launch a regularization program, which could somehow reset the counters, like this was already done in 1973. However, the number of migrants without status is much greater than 50 years ago, which could complicate the task of elected officials when defining the criteria for the program, which is still awaited.
The status quo is not possible. Both Canada and Quebec must come to terms with this constantly growing temporary population: they alone hold the keys that will open the way to statutes endowed with a little more humanity.