Distribution of asylum seekers | Ottawa develops a plan for more fairness between provinces

(Ottawa) The Trudeau government readily acknowledges the need to better distribute asylum seekers across the country in order to reduce the pressure that their increasing arrival is putting on Quebec and Ontario. It is also working on a plan that could include “incentives” to encourage other provinces to push the wheel, according to information obtained by The PressFederal Immigration Minister Marc Miller is expected to unveil the details of the plan within a few weeks.

Currently, nearly 80% of asylum seekers end up in these two provinces. Quebec alone claims that approximately 52% of them landed on its territory. This explains the Legault government’s insistence for several months that Ottawa take the necessary steps to ensure that these new arrivals seeking asylum in the country are more equitably redirected to other provinces.

On Thursday, Minister Miller and his provincial counterparts scrutinized a recent proposal put forward by Quebec Immigration Minister Christine Fréchette regarding the equitable distribution of asylum seekers during a virtual meeting.

Ottawa’s opening was welcomed by Mr.^me Fréchette. “Today’s meeting is a step in the right direction. The federal government is demonstrating a firm desire to arrive at a mechanism for distributing asylum seekers coordinated by the federal government by the end of September, in order to reduce the pressure on Quebec and Ontario,” the minister said on the X network.

Quebec’s proposal would see Ottawa establish a Canada-wide temporary accommodation network under which “place quotas” would be established for each province and territory based on their respective demographic weight in order to accommodate asylum seekers, according to a summary of Quebec’s proposal obtained by The Press.

Some proposals questioned

Language skills and the presence of direct family members in a province should be among the factors used by the federal government in this allocation exercise.

Ottawa should also ensure that if asylum seekers decide to settle in a place other than the one initially assigned to them, they should assume the costs of their accommodation upon arrival.

In addition, Quebec is proposing to impose “a geographic limitation” on the work permit issued to asylum seekers. In this way, an asylum seeker would be informed upon arrival that territorial conditions apply to his or her work permit. In this regard, some experts have expressed doubts about the possibility of imposing such a constraint that could violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Finally, the Legault government also considers it essential that the federal government establish a new transfer to the provinces to offset part of the significant costs associated with services offered to asylum seekers.

According to Quebec, this package of measures “would allow asylum seekers to be welcomed with dignity and ensure that they can contribute to the economic vitality of all regions of Canada.”

After the virtual meeting, Marc Miller’s office said the minister had taken note of Quebec’s proposal and planned to carefully assess it with officials from his department. A spokesperson for the minister, Aissa Diop, also said Miller is fully aware of the importance of better distributing asylum seekers across the country.

“We are aware that Quebec and Ontario receive a large proportion of asylum seekers. We have heard the requests of Quebec and those of the other provinces and territories. We are in the process of developing a plan, a road map, to see how, together, we can redistribute asylum seekers. What will that look like? I don’t have the answer. It’s something we are in the process of developing,” said the spokesperson for the Minister of Immigration.

A necessary consensus

While incentives are in the works, Minister Miller dismisses the idea that any pan-Canadian plan to better distribute asylum seekers across the country should be imposed on all provinces. He believes it is essential to build at least a consensus among the provinces to ensure the success of any plan.

She said another meeting is planned in a few weeks.

At the last Council of the Federation, Premier François Legault succeeded in creating a common front of the provinces to demand that Ottawa distribute asylum seekers more fairly across Canadian territory, taking into account in particular their capacity to provide housing and services.

In its crusade, the Legault government, more particularly the Minister of Immigration, Christine Fréchette, has also taken care to forge strategic ties with the Ontario government, which must also deal with a significant number of asylum seekers in the Toronto region, a situation that is worsening the housing crisis and causing the number of homeless people in the Queen City to soar.

“Ontario is an important ally in this matter. We have seen that when the province of Ontario is affected, things move faster in Ottawa,” said a government source in Quebec, who requested anonymity in order to speak more freely.

Let us recall that in June, the Trudeau government offered $750 million in compensation to Quebec for its efforts to welcome asylum seekers. The Legault government was demanding $1 billion.