Since we have to strike while the iron is hot and we do everything to keep it hot, here we are again. The panic surrounding Roxham Road seems to have set in for good, in the deplorable terms that we know. If it were at least a matter of shining the spotlight on the human drama that is being played out in the liminal space of borders, that would be one thing. However, it is on the “burden” of reception that we focus, while the asylum seekers themselves float on the periphery of the discussion, like a simple variable in a calculation that is done on their backs. , but without them.
Thus, this week, Prime Minister François Legault spoke directly to his federal counterpart, Justin Trudeau, to demand that Ottawa act to relieve Quebec of the pressure exerted by asylum seekers on its society. . The letter is remarkable in that it condenses, in a few paragraphs, several years of meticulous construction of the very Quebec version of the discourse on the migratory peril at the borders.
The United States, Europe too, have a head start in this regard, while these discourses have been constructed, reconfigured and refined for much longer. But as emergency migration intensifies around the world, Quebec too is suddenly facing a plight that was once easier to ignore. Unsurprisingly, we react by importing the ideological mechanisms which, everywhere else, preside over the hardening of borders and the construction of the figure of the migrant as a threat.
François Legault understood this well, and his letter to Justin Trudeau is a formidable x-ray of the migratory panic as it is experienced in our country. The Prime Minister of Quebec first camped his claims on the ground of the defense of public services, stressing that the “massive” arrival of asylum seekers in Quebec weighs heavily on institutions that are already out of breath.
There will be no one to contradict him: public services, like community groups—who are asked to mop up the overflow of the public network with a fraction of the resources—are being pushed to the limit in a structural way. The crisis is chronic, and it has been deliberately manufactured by decades of neoliberal governance.
It is true that resources are lacking to support asylum seekers in a dignified manner. The stories we hear are heartbreaking; families moving from one shelter to another, people forced to sleep on the streets after crossing the border through Roxham, an interminable wait for financial assistance, and the very real overreach of the organizations that provide immediate help. All of this is unbearable, except that we pose the problem backwards: our failure to properly welcome these people is the symptom of pre-existing deficiencies, and not their cause. We point to the moon and look at the finger.
We should rather reverse the question: how is it that Quebec has nothing better to offer than homelessness and dehumanizing administrative maze to people who would like nothing more than to be able to contribute to Quebec society?
François Legault holds up the figure of 39,000 migrants arriving irregularly in 2022, adding that this is in addition to the 20,000 people admitted by regular means. He wants to underline, one imagines, the magnitude of Quebec’s contribution. However, as noted by the Executive Director of Amnesty International Canada Francophone, France-Isabelle Langlois, in a letter published in these pages, there are currently 100 million forcibly displaced people throughout the world. Across the Americas, Colombia alone is home to 1.8 million people. It is further estimated that by 2050, more than 200 million people will be displaced by the global climate crisis.
Never mind, Quebec has already ruled on its responsibility in taking charge of global population movements: “Quebec’s reception capacity is now largely exceeded”, writes the Prime Minister. François Legault says it bluntly: he does not want to improve the reception capacity of Quebec. He is not asking Ottawa for more resources to better accommodate. On the contrary, he affirms that Quebec has already done enough, and that he even hopes to be compensated for the efforts already made.
He then steps aside to mention the decline of French in Montreal, which he associates, incidentally, with the arrival of all migrants, not just asylum seekers — after all, he has a base excite. Then, he calls for the extension of the safe third country agreement to all points of entry into Canada, and the complete closure of Roxham Road. As if the ban on seeking asylum in Canada by land, as well as the closure of a single point of entry that has become emblematic were not simply going to push more people on clandestine routes.
Beyond what this letter says about the present situation, we also read the outline, more troubling, of a longer-term vision. François Legault prepares the ground, he slowly begins the normalization of the watchword which will be that of the nightmarish future of the climate crisis: let them fend for themselves.