Last week, the outgoing Minister of Labour, Employment and Social Solidarity as well as Immigration, Francisation and Integration, saw fit, in the midst of an election, to declare that 80% of immigrants do not work, do not speak French and do not adhere to the values of Quebec society.
Posted yesterday at 12:00 p.m.
Besides being misleading1the statements – having surfaced on Wednesday – of Minister Jean Boulet overshadowed a day of commemoration in memory of Joyce Echaquan, Atikamekw woman, victim of systemic racism, on September 28, 2020.
His remarks also add to those he has already made in December 2021, making an association between COVID-19 and migrants passing through Roxham Road by urging Ottawa to close it, when no outbreak in the establishments of temporary accommodation for asylum seekers had been reported. He apologized at the time too, saying he did not recognize himself in his tweet.
Distress
Although the boss of Minister Boulet announced the disqualification of the function, the day after an assured victory, the latter François Legault himself has a curriculum of dangerous and erroneous remarks about immigrants.
While he tells the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal that it would be “suicidal” for French Quebec to welcome more than 50,000 immigrants a year, it is time he recognized that it is our integration systems which create cultural psychological distress in Quebec, in particular those which produce the equivalent of an interminable waiting room for immigrants already present, requiring a status giving full access to schools, work, health services.
It is time for those who run Quebec to stop serving us a culture of gaffe-apologies, against a backdrop of the production of discriminatory policies, practices and processes: Bill 96, Bill 21, Bill 9, appeal of the Superior Court’s decision on access to daycare for the children of asylum seekers and so on.
We understand that the blunders of the current government are part of an international rise of the right, but history will judge us. Moreover, following the recommendations of Louise Arbour, former High Commissioner for Human Rights of the United Nations, we should consider a generalized regularization of people who are in the country in an irregular situation, in accordance with the recommendations of the Global Compact on Migration, of which Canada was a signatory in 2018.
Calculated blunders, with electoral aims, do not help to solve the fractures of our health, education, safety and integration systems at work. On the contrary, they sow confusion and are the backdrop to discriminatory policies. Children see their parents being considered either as suspects or as goods to be regionalized, in a context of labor shortages and the production of profusion of temporary permits calling for a deep reflection on the economic reality of Quebec. The serious regularization of families already present in the territory therefore echoes the campaign A status for all2 supported by more than 300 organizations across the country and previously proposed solutions.
The prevailing discourses on immigration are too often dangerous and contribute to the normalization of the dehumanization, the invisibilization and the instrumentalization of people who have the right to dignity and real equality of opportunity.
We no longer want, through our silence, that a government elected by a problematic voting system take advantage of the privilege of its position to utter false information with disastrous implications.
We believe that it is human and responsible to recognize the existence of the thousands of people without status who are already present in Quebec, and who, like many other immigrants, support our economy and our quality of life.
We, people living in the territory of Quebec and members of the artistic community, believe that if we want to consider ourselves distinct, we must be so in our high level of welcome and ability to produce solidarity.
*Co-signatories: Aïsha Vertus, music and TV; Alice Morel-Michaud, comedian and actress; Anas Hassouna, comedian; Catherine Brunet, actress and mountebank; Cayo Wilner; Coralie LaPerrière, humorist and author; Denis Bouchard, actor; Emmanuel Paul-Blain; Emna Achour, humorist and columnist; Éric Charland, music and song; Gioberti François, marketing; Jean-François Provençal, humorist; Jérôme 50, singer-songwriter; Jocelyn Bruno, music; Katherine Levac, comedian; Kevin Raphaël, TV host; Leidina Bruno, transportation coordinator; Louis-Julien Gratton, recruitment agent, For 3 Points; Melissa Loiseau, teaching; Naomi Hilaire, singer-songwriter; Renzel Dashington, comedian and executive producer; Sara Valcourt; Simon Kearney, musician