At the end of a mission in France during which he presented a “preposterous” position on immigration which brought “shame to Quebec” in the eyes of the opposition, Prime Minister François Legault maintained on Tuesday that forcing the transfer of applicants asylum could be done “humanely”.
After a week spent in Paris and its surroundings on the occasion of the Francophonie Summit, Prime Minister Legault was eagerly awaited by the opposition parties on Tuesday at the National Assembly. His proposal to force the relocation of 80,000 asylum seekers to other provinces is shocking, which once again forced him to defend it in the House and in front of the parliamentary press.
“There is a message that is starting to get through. We have had the debate in Europe for a long time, but in Quebec, we are starting to have it,” he said before venturing towards the Salon rouge, where he once again had to answer for his controversial proposal, first issued a week earlier.
In the morning, the interim leader of the Liberal Party of Quebec, Marc Tanguay, took aim at the Prime Minister who, according to him, “has shamed us in Paris”. “These vulnerable people are not merchandise. François Legault lacked humanity, and also lacked responsibility,” he lamented during a press briefing held at the Parliament Building.
According to the leader of the Parti Québécois, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, the operation proposed by Prime Minister Legault is inapplicable, especially in the context where the federal government had already said no to him on several occasions.
“He proposed an improvised and absurd solution to reduce the number of asylum seekers in Quebec, a solution that he knew very well was impossible,” insisted the PQ elected official before asking him in the House to stop “being tell stories.”
“Humane”
In response to questions from Mr. St-Pierre Plamondon on Tuesday, Mr. Legault repeated that he believed he could proceed with the transfer of half of the asylum seekers currently housed in Quebec in a dignified manner. However, he did not want to specify how. “It is possible to do it humanely,” he maintained.
A statement that Quebec solidaire co-spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois does not believe. At a press briefing in the morning, the Montreal elected official urged the Prime Minister to stop venturing down this road. “Quebec is not that,” he said.
“These are scenes that we see in the United States. We don’t want to see that in Quebec, it doesn’t look like us […]. That’s not our history, that’s not our values,” he continued.
François Legault has been asking for months for Ottawa to halve the number of people seeking asylum in Quebec by sending them to other provinces. However, he had never mentioned an “obligation” before last week.
In the eyes of the federal government, forcing anyone to change their place of accommodation is a direct transgression of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Questioned for this purpose last Thursday, François Legault affirmed that he did not have to judge the legality of his proposal.