Despite the exodus of many asylum seekers from Quebec to the rest of Canada over the past two years, there are still too many in Quebec, according to the Minister of Immigration, Christine Fréchette.
“We are responsible for fifty-five percent of the reception and support of asylum seekers. And it’s far too much,” the minister declared on Tuesday.
Ms. Fréchette maintains that of the 289,000 asylum seekers present in Canada, 160,000 are still in Quebec.
She was reacting to an article in Duty which revealed that between a quarter and a third of asylum seekers who had come to Quebec since 2015 had subsequently settled in the rest of Canada.
The article also mentioned that taking these movements into account, Quebec had received in 2023 only 35% of all asylum seekers in Canada. In 2022, this proportion rose to 48%, revealed open data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) obtained by The duty.
The minister says she relies on other data.
However, the minister asserts that this data “muddys the waters” and that we must instead stick to another piece of data: the number of applicants currently present on Quebec territory.
“From the moment an asylum seeker is here, they have access to the services that are offered to asylum seekers. And fifty-five percent of all asylum seekers present in Canada are in Quebec,” she argued, emphasizing that the data came from Statistics Canada.
“So whether they are here while they were elsewhere or they are here for a few months. Then, they will leave for another province. »
The Legault government is pressing Ottawa to pay it $470 million to compensate for the services offered to asylum seekers on its territory in 2021 and 2022.
Federal Minister Marc Miller announced a few days ago the payment of $100 million for this purpose. However, the minister describes this amount as a “deposit”.
“What we got last week, the hundred million, is not a response to this request,” she said. “This is a sort of deposit on an invoice that has not yet been sent to the federal government. »