Around a hundred demonstrators and members of the Quebec Campaign for the regularization of people without migratory status gathered on Saturday at 11:00 a.m. in front of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s constituency office in Montreal.
The procession, made up largely of migrants without status, presented itself in front of the office where banners had been hung. “So-so-so-solidarity, with, with, with the undocumented,” they could be heard chanting.
Campaign spokespersons then made speeches urging the Prime Minister to keep his word.
At the end of 2021, the Liberal government committed to “exploring ways to regularize the status of undocumented workers who contribute to Canadian communities”, without however specifying when this could come into force.
“We are here to say “enough is enough”. We are tired of waiting. We want regularization now, inclusive, complete, no language requirements, no work experience requirements,” summarized Viviana Medina, community organizer at the Immigrant Workers Center.
“We work here, we live here, we stay here. Regularization for everyone! “, she then said.
Living on borrowed time
At the microphone, the spokespersons — including the Regroupement des committees logement et associations de tenants du Québec and several union organizations — took turns, recalling the harsh reality of people without status, vulnerable both in terms of housing and in their work where they are often poorly paid and more at risk of moral or sexual harassment.
“Sometimes we don’t receive our full paychecks. We cannot turn to the CNESST and the employer threatens to report us to the immigration services,” testifies Amel, an immigrant without status who arrived in Canada in 2012.
Since the rejection of her asylum application in 2015, the young woman has also seen her health deteriorate: “I live with anxiety, I have suffered depression and anxiety attacks several times. Sometimes, when I get sick, I can’t get treatment.”
Also without status, Mamadou Konaté, who fled the civil war raging in Ivory Coast, hopes that the government will keep its word. After working as a housekeeping attendant in CHSLDs during the pandemic, he was arrested in 2020 and threatened with deportation for lack of regular status before the Federal Court intervened and suspended the deportation.
“We work like everyone else, we contribute to society, but our rights are limited and ignored. We work left and right and we are easily exploited,” he relates.
Temporary immigration in question
If regularization is indeed a crucial issue, Marisa Berry Méndez, head of campaigns at Amnesty International Canada francophone — also a member of the Campaign — believes that the problem is rooted in the government’s very approach to immigration.
“This is largely an issue that has been created by the government’s immigration policies which have prioritized and favored for two decades a multiplication of statuses, and statuses which are temporary and precarious. […] which are easy to lose,” she explains.
Other measures could therefore be taken, according to her. Based on the conclusions of the United Nations special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, she would particularly like closed work permits, that is to say linked to a single employer, to be abolished since they encourage abuses.
Minister Miller’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.