“Good enough to work, good enough to stay!” chanted dozens of demonstrators gathered in downtown Montreal on Sunday to demand the regularization of the immigration status of all undocumented people in Canada.
Posted at 4:13 p.m.
The family of Yaya Ndiaye and his wife Bodiel Diaw arrived in Canada from the United States in May 2018. They have since worked in the food industry while hoping to regularize their immigration status.
Sunday afternoon, despite the ambient temperature of around 28 degrees Celsius, Mr. Ndiaye and Mr.me Bodiel joined dozens of others gathered at Place Émilie-Gamelin in downtown Montreal to demand immigration status for all people living in Canada and Quebec.
The federal government estimates that between 20,000 and 500,000 people live undocumented in the country. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) announced this spring that it is exploring a policy to “regularize the status of undocumented workers who contribute to Canadian communities. The Government of Canada is relying on a pilot project deployed in Toronto for non-status construction workers.
Expand program access
“We know that people without status struggle to meet their basic needs, receive health care, are often unable to enroll their children in school or daycare, and live in the fear of being deported”, launches Alexandra Pierre, president of the League of Rights and Freedoms, to the crowd. The organization is co-organizing the event with, among others, Solidarité sans frontières and the Center for Workers and Immigrant Workers (CTI).
“We are asking the federal government to broaden the [futur] regularization program, and we are asking Quebec to be included in it”, explains to The Press CTI’s Cheolki Yoon.
The expanded access to status should also apply to women, even those who are not working or who have failed their hearing with IRCC, says Rita Acosta of the Movement Against Rape and Incest. “We leave out a lot of women [dans le processus d’immigration]and they have often already experienced a lot of persecution,” recalls Ms.me Acosta.
“A lot of people have problems, because the lawyers [en immigration] take their money, but don’t do their job! adds Shahista Hussein, who accompanies many migrants as part of her work at the Parc-Extension Information Office (BIPE).
Wave of solidarity
The solidarity candidate for Mont-Royal–Outremont, the DD Isabelle Leblanc, is present at the event. Her medical practice is in the Côte-des-Neiges district of Montreal, where she rubs shoulders with many undocumented people. “As a doctor, I see the pitfalls that people without status experience on a daily basis,” she explains. We have to fight for them to have the same rights as everyone else. »
A vision shared by Fernand Deschamps, a retired teacher who worked in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighborhood in Montreal. “Families without permanent status caused all sorts of complications,” recalls the retired teacher. All these people contribute to society, so why these restrictions? This is an important question that concerns us all. »