When it comes naturally, I like to make connections between two writings that appear in the newspaper. The Duty […]. Exactly, here is one.
“The credibility of regulatory processes is often undermined by this detestable tendency towards fussy application, often devoid of concern for the issues that justify its existence.”
This sentence in quotation marks, taken from the edition of Tuesday, September 17, written by the columnist at Duty and professor of law at the University of Montreal Pierre Trudel, seems to me very relevant in the face of the despair shown by a family of Mexican origin threatened with expulsion, noted by journalist Lisa-Marie Gervais in the same edition.
This family of five, including three children, who have been here with us for six years, and whose model of integration into Quebec society is exemplary, according to multiple testimonies, petitions and letters of support, risks being sent back to Mexico, their country of origin. The family members fear for their lives if they are returned to a place where mafia cartels rule. For example, they force small business owners, like the father, to pay them a “protection” or “welcome” fee. Money taken from an anxious family that was already not living rich. The children, little Quebecers at heart, are upset, without reference points, and do not understand.
Here, the family lives happily, speaks French, pays its taxes, and thus participates in the economy and in the life of the community; and better, often, than a good proportion of native Quebecers, who quibble over their fate in the name of xenophobic remarks.
This family is an inspiration to us all, a role model; a reminder, too, that our situation as well-off people in the Northern Hemisphere has, in large part, always depended on the countries of the South, which have too often been bled dry to satisfy the comfort needs of the inhabitants of the North.
This, in my view, is a blatant example of immigration regulation that is fussy, without nuance, and makes no sense. A case in point where the issues are humanitarian and the survival of the people concerned is at risk.