“When you harm people without status, you also do it to their children,” says Serge Leclerc, member of the collective The right to live in peace, which defends the rights of Chileans in Canada. Like a few hundred other people, he came to demonstrate Sunday afternoon at Émilie-Gamelin Park in Montreal, in favor of the regularization of undocumented people in the country.
Members and activists of various migrant support organizations were present to demand a regularization program that would include all migrants. Met on the spot, Shahista, originally from India, was accompanied by three of her relatives to demonstrate. “These are three refugees,” she says, pointing to them. They have no status and could be deported at any time. However, they have worked very hard during the pandemic, at Uber in particular. »
Often interrupted by slogans sung with enthusiasm, such as “Good enough to work, good enough to stay” or “Status for all”, a few speakers took turns at the corner of rue de Maisonneuve and rue Berri. “People without status live in constant fear of being arrested by the police authorities and of being deported”, launched the president of the League of Rights and Freedoms, Alexandra Pierre. The one who also published the essay Resistance Footprints, which recounts the experiences of Indigenous, black and racialized women in Quebec, has not evaded the issue of systemic racism. “People without status are largely racialized and it is far from foreign to their situation,” she pleaded.
Met with her barely one-year-old toddler, Inge is a citizen who has decided to get involved in the cause. A volunteer for the Collectif Bienvenue, an organization that helps newcomers, she becomes moved when she talks about the reasons that led her to get involved. “I’ve been a mom for a year, and it touches me to see how much stronger we are collectively,” she articulates, sobs emerging in her voice. She is in contact with a family newly arrived from Africa and helps them with the paperwork, by contacting the nearest CLSC to make appointments so that the family can be vaccinated, for example. “I call them on the phone once a week,” she explains.
Two Québec solidaire candidates for the next provincial elections were also present. Specialized in immigration, lawyer Guillaume Cliche-Rivard is seeking a seat in the riding of Saint-Henri-Sainte-Anne, in Montreal. “All those who gave a boost during the pandemic should be regularized,” he decides alongside his colleague in the riding of Pointe-aux-Trembles, Simon Tremblay-Pepin.
In the oppressive heat, the demonstrators began their march on Berri Street, to the north, under police surveillance.