Prime Minister François Legault formally asked Justin Trudeau on Monday to reduce the number of asylum seekers in Quebec by 50% within one year. What are the possible avenues for such a reduction? Are they possible in the Canadian context? Mireille Paquet, holder of the Research Chair in Immigration Policy at Concordia University, deciphers these questions.
Across the country and in Quebec, arrivals of asylum seekers remain at historically high levels. An increase is increasingly being felt in Ontario, which has surpassed Quebec since the “closure” of Roxham Road in Montérégie.
The CAQ government has made numerous public declarations in recent months to indicate that it considers this number of asylum requests to be too high, particularly in view of public spending and Quebec identity.
However, this is the first time that Mr. Legault has announced a specific target: he wants to see this number halved in the next 12 months.
For political science professor Mireille Paquet, there are two main possibilities for governments to act on these arrivals, but both involve difficulties, even great uncertainties.
Decrease on arrival
“On the one hand, we can try to control arrivals by implementing visas or other types of border control mechanisms,” explains Ms. Paquet.
Since the expansion of the Safe Third Country Agreement in March 2023, only certain exceptions can apply for asylum by arriving by land at the border between Canada and the United States. People seeking protection now tend to arrive through airports.
Mexico ranked at the top of the list of countries of origin for asylum seekers in Quebec for several months, a phenomenon that began before the “closure” of Roxham Road. Faced with pressure, Immigration Minister Marc Miller reinstated the mandatory visitor visa for most Mexican nationals last February.
The number of asylum applications has decreased by around a thousand per month in Quebec since this measure, but it remains at a level comparable to 2023, a record year.
By putting in place “dissuasive modalities”, we can expect a certain reduction in the short term, notes the expert, but “in the long term what we see is that arrivals will start again”.
“We are living in a moment worldwide where there are a record number of asylum seekers and people who are displaced,” she recalls. This “displacement crisis” is being experienced all over the globe. “The needs are so great that people will find a way to circumvent these means of control, whether by legal means or by irregular means,” she analyzes.
Reduce by distributing them
Another way is to set up a distribution mechanism, which a working committee is already looking into.
There could be “incentives” to move or settle in a province other than Quebec, rather than coercive means, notes the professor. “We could, for example, give them access to permanent residence more quickly or access to housing,” she gives as an example. But nothing in the country “allows us to force a person to stay in a region,” she rules.
A distribution mechanism exists in particular in Germany, called the Konigstein key, which calculates quotas of asylum seekers based on tax revenue and the population of each state. But this recipe is not necessarily applicable in Canada and also has pitfalls.
“There are federations where the mobility rights of newcomers are not protected by an instrument like the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms,” illustrates Mme Pack. In these countries, a visa can be given on condition that the person settles in a specific region.
A permanent financial mechanism?
Quebec has been asking Ottawa for several months to pay the bill, estimated at $1 billion over three years (2021, 2022 and 2023). On the other hand, the federal government, part of the discussions between the two prime ministers focused on the financial aspect, with a federal offer of $750 million to cover these expenses.
Issues surrounding this type of humanitarian migration began to emerge around 2017, but since then no formal mechanism for reimbursement of expenses has been created. “We are still in the ad hoc situation, in negotiation and discussion,” remarks the political scientist.
She believes that a fixed funding formula would allow for better planning, like health and social services transfers.
“It’s not that the provinces are not generous, but they remain uncertain about how much they will be reimbursed,” she said.
Such a calculation is already in place for the rest of immigrant services: for the 2023-2024 fiscal year, Quebec can expect to receive a total of $775.1 million in “regular” funding.