The federal government’s lieutenant for Quebec, Pablo Rodriguez, believes that Quebec already has “all the tools” at its disposal to further select its newcomers and protect French.
The one who is also Minister of Heritage nevertheless said on Tuesday that he was open to discussing the demands of the government of François Legault, freshly re-elected the day before.
“We can discuss the subject of immigration eventually, but I think that Quebec currently has all the tools to choose the vast majority of its immigrants,” said Mr. Rodriguez in the foyer of the House of Commons.
He asserted that the province has the powers to select up to 28% of the immigrants it welcomes and that it only selects 13%.
“Which means there is another [pourcentage d’immigrants] that Quebec could choose and which would be entirely French-speaking,” added the lieutenant for Quebec of the Trudeau government.
The Canadian Press had not immediately verified the accuracy of the data given by Mr. Rodriguez.
During the Quebec election campaign that has just ended, the leader of the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ), François Legault, raised the idea of holding a sectoral referendum on immigration with the aim of repatriating more powers to the fold. provincial.
Currently, immigration is a jurisdiction shared between Quebec and Ottawa. The idea of the popular consultation would be to ask voters to support the process aimed at ensuring that Quebec has more control over its immigration.
Asked to specify if he considers that such an exercise would be “doomed to failure”, Mr. Rodriguez replied that he had never heard of Quebec’s intention to hold a referendum.
“I was never approached with this proposal,” he said.
Regarding Roxham Road
The Minister also assured that Ottawa will work in collaboration with Quebec to find a solution to the irregular passage of migrants through Roxham Road, in Montérégie.
He said that negotiations are progressing with the Americans to modernize the safe third country agreement, which is at the heart of these passages. Questioned on this point during question period by the Bloc, the Liberals avoided providing any details on the progress of the discussions.
“Roxham Road has been going on for five years. The federal government has been negotiating for years. […] At this point, we are entitled to wonder how the negotiations are progressing, ”said Bloc Québécois immigration spokesperson Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe.
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration, Marie-France Lalonde, did not provide any information on the status of the negotiations. “Canada shares the longest demilitarized border in the world. Roxham Road allows officials to collect identity documents from these asylum seekers and prevent dangerous crossings. What we need to do is modernize the agreement and that’s what we are doing,” she said.
Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe saw in this answer a confirmation that Ottawa had indeed the intention to make passages by the way Roxham a thing permanent. “Seriously, they just told us! “, he protested.
Minister Rodriguez replied to call on the Bloc Québécois to “lower the tone a little”. According to him, the party must be careful about what it says to avoid “doing petty politics on the backs of men, women and children who, more often than not, leave extremely difficult situations”.
The Safe Third Country Agreement ensures that a potential refugee who presents himself at an official Canadian border crossing and who has first set foot on American soil is turned away, since he must pursue his asylum application in the first “safe place” he arrived.
Thus, people still wishing to seek asylum in Canada cross the Canada-US border through makeshift crossings, such as Roxham Road. Once they are in Canada, their refugee claim can be processed.
The Bloc and New Democrats have long called for the suspension of this agreement. For their part, the Conservatives want the agreement to be applied uniformly, official entry point or not.