“There are some, to be quite honest, who don’t want to know anything about it.” Canada’s Immigration Minister, Marc Miller, sums up the state of interprovincial solidarity in terms of hospitality towards refugees and asylum seekers.
As we know, Quebec and Ontario, which have the misfortune of having two international airports on their territory, receive thousands of new asylum seekers month after month who, by their numbers, clog up their social services and their housing market.
Fortunately, you think, these two provinces are part of a beautiful, large, open and tolerant country, founded on the very idea of immigration and mutual aid. The excess of arrivals in the central provinces will quickly be distributed among hundreds of communities organizing joyful welcoming celebrations for them.
I’m not saying there wasn’t a time when this scenario would have been likely. But it’s 2024. Canada has changed. It’s toughened up. A few years ago, the issue of refugee distribution was not an issue. Ottawa used its power to distribute refugees across the territory, which is what it did with 25,000 Syrian refugees in 2014. We also remember, towards the end of the Roxham Road management fiasco, that Immigration Canada forced Montreal refugees to settle in Ontario, even if they spoke French.
Marc Miller has decided that there is no longer any question of making anyone move without their consent or of forcing a province to do its part if it refuses. A change in policy whose consequence could not be clearer: Quebec and Ontario will continue to suffer an unprecedented demographic waste, for which the Canadian government, the sole master in the matter, is entirely responsible.
Signals from the rest of Canada don’t need any decoding. Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston has a solid argument: his province has its own immigration policy “focused on recruiting for strategic sectors like health care and certain trades.” So refugees? “It’s simply unacceptable that the Trudeau government is trying to force us to accept thousands of asylum seekers.” Its intake capacity is already exceeded, he argues, and “we cannot let the failure of federal policies derail our plan.” He has a choice. Quebec does not.
In Alberta, Danielle Smith is turning off the tap just as vigorously. First, her province has taken in a lot of Ukrainian refugees, the cup is full. So, “we are informing the Government of Canada that until further notice, Alberta is not prepared to receive additional asylum seekers.” Especially since the immigration already established “increases the cost of living and burdens public services.” The culprit for this drift is “the Trudeau government’s unrestrained open border policy, allowing more than a million newcomers to enter Canada each year.” This, she adds, is unsustainable. She has a choice. Quebec does not.
Last Friday, François Legault, in the presence of Justin Trudeau, clearly described the dead end he is stuck in. Trudeau took it without flinching and, answering another question, did not see fit to set the record straight. Probably because Legault was telling the truth.
The closed-door policy now expressed by the other provinces is perfectly understandable, and based on the same observations as those made in Quebec. In immigration, it’s all a question of dosage. The hyper-overdoses deliberately administered by the Trudeau government since it came to power are simply out of proportion with the capacity for integration of society, however post-national it may be.
The evolution of Canadian public opinion—and therefore of the electorate—expresses this clearly. And more broadly than just on the issue of refugees. Last November, 67% of Canadians told the firm Abacus that the objective of 500,000 new permanent workers per year was “too high” (60% in Quebec). Overall, 24% of Canadians said that immigration made Canada “better” and 43% made it “worse” (28% and 32% in Quebec).
On the subject of temporary workers, this month, 56% of Canadians told Angus Reid that Canada welcomes too many of them (only 42% of Quebecers agree). Seventy-five per cent believe that their presence is bad for the housing market (69% in Quebec) and 52% refuse to give them the option of becoming Canadian citizens (49% in Quebec). In fact, 62% of them say, “if a company doesn’t pay high enough wages to attract Canadians, it should close its doors”! (55% in Quebec.)
From all of this data, we can draw a fairly significant picture: Canadians outside Quebec are more resistant to immigration than Quebecers, more exasperated by its impact on their society. We will therefore not find any provincial premier who wants to throw a lifeline to Quebec. That would be electorally disastrous.
The problem is therefore insoluble. Within Canada, that is.