When they land in Greater Montreal, migrants and refugees are not at the end of their troubles. Our community organizations, responsible for most of the reception work, do everything they can to help these people who too often find themselves in very difficult situations. But these organizations are also at the limit of their resources and their strength, and deserve that we fund them commensurate with their importance.
Manuela* arrived at Roxham Road with her 4-year-old child under her arm. She had previously traveled through Mexico and the United States, after fleeing a country in South America where her husband was murdered.
Canada is the light at the end of the tunnel for her, and she applied for asylum as soon as she arrived.
But even here, Manuela continues to be harassed by those who forced her into exile. As she fears that the geo-tracking system of her cell phone will betray her, she has no contact with her parents, who are left behind.
She currently lives in a residence that helps women in distress, since it is impossible for her to find accommodation and food properly. Her only income comes from the last-resort financial assistance she was granted.
Her daily life is typical of anyone in this situation: francization courses, work permit procedures, follow-up with legal aid on her application for refugee status, constant efforts to ensure her child’s safety. Despite everything, she finds the courage to smile.
A community organization offered her a place in daycare. In this way, she can participate in her francization courses. It’s that there is no government assistance for child care spaces for the children of refugees.
(Allow me a naive question: what do you do with your child during French lessons? Second naive question: considering the quality of the support offered there, why don’t we support the presence of refugee children daycare, in order to promote their educational and social integration? )
Breathless
To have a real chance of integrating with us with dignity, the refugees who arrive at our borders need help, and a good part of this support comes from the community sector.
For example, francization organizations have become, despite themselves, experts in government forms. After all, if immigrants and refugees call on them, it’s because social services and health services have referred them! These organizations are not paid for this work. They do it because their stakeholders, even out of breath, are incapable of abandoning these people to their fate.
Community organizations are constantly adapting to the people they serve. This has always been true, but it has been particularly so for three years.
A manager recently told me to use all possible means to recruit staff, in a context of labor shortage. The idea that a reduction in the services of his organization would create a hole in the social safety net is unbearable to him.
I have noticed it for several months: this great sense of duty and responsibility makes community workers crack not only under the volume of cases, but also under their complexity.
“If only words could heal our wounds,” one refugee told a community worker. A wish that expresses both gratitude for the help received and the certainty that nothing can make us forget the difficulties of exile. These words remind me of this other person who summed up his migratory journey for me in one short, powerful sentence: “I’m fine here, but I’ll always be the other. »
For Manuela and more than 40,000 people like her across Greater Montreal, the traumas are multiple. Here we have all the ingredients for a humanitarian crisis.
An intolerable situation
Last week, a pregnant refugee showed up for her francization course with contractions every five minutes. Destitute, she did not know where else to go.
Leaving everything takes a lot of courage. We too must show courage to ensure that these people receive a welcome worthy of the society we aspire to form. Let’s stop continually tossing the ball about a collective responsibility. Improve the funding of institutional and community organizations already in place.
And above all, let’s get to it as soon as possible.
* For privacy reasons, his name has been changed.