Asylum seekers
Ottawa shows a “small openness” to the idea of better distributing asylum seekers across the country.
“We felt that there was a little opening on that side,” declared the minister, on the sidelines of a dinner organized by the Eastern Montreal Chamber of Commerce, where she was giving a conference. “For us, it is very important that action is taken because there is disproportionate pressure being exerted on Quebec,” she continued. Federal stakeholders sometimes tell us that Ontario does not want to receive more. On the one hand, there are not only Ontario and Quebec in Canada. There are other territories and provinces that could welcome asylum seekers. I particularly have the maritime provinces in mind. Together, in 2023, they received 380 asylum seekers, while we received 65,000.”
The billion dollars
The federal government has set up a committee to study Quebec’s claim which amounts to one billion dollars for the reception of asylum seekers since 2021.
“We feel that there is a desire to move forward,” said M.me Fréchette, before adding on a less positive note: “I hear at the federal level that we do not have this money at our disposal. Well, imagine that Quebec doesn’t have that possibility either. The federal government seems to be saying, we are going to decide whether or not we want to compensate Quebec. However, we do not have the luxury of having the choice of deciding whether or not to pay for the services provided to asylum seekers. »
Prime Ministers Justin Trudeau and François Legault, who met last Friday, must take stock again by June 30.
“For us, what is important is to accumulate the gains, so that in the end we can have all the powers linked to immigration,” underlined Mr.me Frechette.
Granting of visas
After the return of visas for a large proportion of Mexicans who wish to come to Canada, Ottawa could tighten its policy of granting visas to nationals of other countries, to limit the number of asylum seekers.
“There is also progress to impose the tightening of criteria for access to visas for countries other than Mexico,” said the minister. Which ones, for example? “It is not up to us to define which ones could be subject to tightening since it is the federal government which holds most of the information concerning visas. »
Temporary foreign workers
Quebec could approve temporary foreign workers admitted to its territory under federally managed programs.
Ottawa is also favorable to the imposition of linguistic criteria for federal immigration programs. A working committee has been looking into this matter since the beginning of the year, the minister said. “We are going to accelerate the pace considering that Prime Minister Trudeau has opened up this possibility,” she clarified.