Asylum seekers in the region | Reborn in Charlevoix

Fleeing the Ivory Coast for La Malbaie, leaving Djibouti for Baie-Saint-Paul… For several months now, a pilot project has been helping asylum seekers find employment in the tourist industry. Several of them chose to leave Montreal to work in the region. The Press met two of them, who rebuilt their lives in Charlevoix. And who hope to stay there.

(La Malbaie) “If I had not joined this project, would I be littering the streets of Montreal? »

The 41-year-old is taking a break. Sitting in the Manoir Richelieu, Laeticia Gnanki tells how she left the Ivory Coast to land in La Malbaie, a town she had never heard of until a few months ago.

The municipality of Charlevoix now represents his entire world, his colleagues, “his family”, and his job, the opportunity to change his life.

M^me Gnanki is one of some 90,000 asylum seekers in Quebec. The significant increase in their number in recent years is undermining the capacity of the Quebec state to deliver services, insists the Legault government. Many of them rely on social assistance.

Read the article “Update on the number of asylum seekers in Quebec”

It is in this context that Quebec is financing a pilot project of the Quebec Council for Human Resources in Tourism (CQRHT). The goal ? Recruit asylum seekers to fill vacant positions in the tourism industry throughout Quebec.

“It’s a win-win. We are responding to corporate positions for managers looking for workers. And on the other hand, we respond to an urgent financial need, these people arrive with a desire to work. They tell us: “I want a job and I am motivated,” explains Marion Guignet, director of the project for the integration of asylum seekers in tourism at the CQRHT.

Laeticia Gnanki arrived in Canada last October. “I was married for six years, in a relationship with a lot of violence. I still have the after-effects. I was going through hell. My family is modest and the person I was with came from a family with some power. My family’s hands were tied,” she says in a whisper.

Her father’s death, she says, made things worse. “After his death, violence became my daily life. »

So she decided to flee her country. She landed in Montreal. She walked in circles, without reference points, until someone told her about the pilot project.

The pilot project allowed him to find a job at Manoir Richelieu. She arrived by bus in La Malbaie last January. The asylum seeker has since worked as a housekeeping attendant. This is the job for which there are the most vacancies in the tourism industry.

Still modest figures

Officially launched last September, the three-year project is financed to the tune of 10.5 million by Quebec. Its goal is ambitious: to help 1,000 asylum seekers find employment in the tourism industry each year.

The CQRHT has been inundated with applications: more than 3,000. But for the moment, around fifty candidates have been placed, and some 250 others are in the networking process. The organization notes, however, that the project is gaining “velocity”.

He cites in particular the shortage of housing in the region, which can hold back candidates, or the lack of work experience in tourism of many of them. The two asylum seekers met by The Press in the context of this article benefited from help from their employer for accommodation, a common practice in the hotel industry. Laeticia Gnanki recently managed to find her own apartment.

“But we think it’s a project that we must continue, that we must not let go. Especially since the Canadian government has just requested a reduction in temporary foreign workers in companies, and to give priority to asylum seekers. We’re right in it. »

The dad in the camera

While bringing in temporary foreign workers can cost employers thousands of dollars, hiring an asylum seeker who has a work permit is much simpler.

“This program came from heaven. It’s one more opportunity that we didn’t have before,” says Benoit Sirard, general manager of Germain Charlevoix, in Baie-Saint-Paul.

Le Germain, formerly La Ferme, has employed temporary foreign workers for years. The hotel hired its first asylum seeker last September, and the employee has already received a promotion since then.

Unlike many applicants for the pilot project, Mr. Ismaël had experience in tourism. “In Djibouti, we had a hotel with a partner. This is the subject of my request here. It’s a hotel that we lost to the government. It went very badly. It’s the hotel that made me come here,” explains the 35-year-old man.

Hired as a night auditor, Abdek Ismaël was recently promoted to night manager. The nighttime schedule works for him: it allows him to be awake at the best time to call his wife and his 4- and 2-year-old sons.

“At midnight, it’s 8 a.m. for them. I take the opportunity to talk to them, so that the children can see their father, so that they can understand things a little, especially the last one. I left the country when he was only 1 year old. He knows me through the camera, that’s all. For the little one, I am the dad in the camera. »

Abdek, like Laeticia, still has months to go before knowing if his asylum request will be accepted. The process can take years, taking into account a possible appeal. “It can be very long, so they have to work,” notes Xavier Gruet, director of the CQRHT.

The two asylum seekers plan to settle in Charlevoix for good. Abdek Ismaël would like his family to come and join him in Baie-Saint-Paul. He hopes for a favorable decision from Ottawa this summer. ” Fingers crossed. »

Laeticia Gnanki says she loves La Malbaie. Her apartment is a five-minute walk from the hotel. “I’m happy to be here, the setting is peaceful, soothing, it allows me to forget a lot of things. I’m in my element here,” she says.

“For me, it’s a new chance, a new hope. »