Roxham Road | Ottawa feared a health crisis and a wave of homelessness

(Ottawa) Summer 2022. Six months after the reopening of Roxham Road, in the midst of a pandemic, the federal Department of Immigration feared a crisis on two fronts: a health crisis and a homelessness crisis.

Result: the Trudeau government discreetly began, in July, the transfer of hundreds of asylum seekers to Ontario to avoid overtaxing the Quebec accommodation network and reduce tensions between Ottawa and the Legault government on this delicate issue. .

In a warning given to Immigration Minister Sean Fraser at the beginning of last summer, senior officials feared that a makeshift camp would emerge on the Canada-US border. Such a situation could have been catastrophic in health terms while the COVID-19 pandemic was still raging and asylum seekers had to undergo a period of quarantine.

Remember that Roxham Road was closed in March 2020, like the entire Canada-US border, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was reopened 18 months later, in November 2021, before being completely closed again following an agreement between Ottawa and Washington reached in March during the visit of President Joe Biden.

The fears of the Canadian authorities were such that the Department of Public Services and Supply invoked, at the request of the Department of Immigration, “the extreme urgency clause” of the purchasing policy which gives it discretionary powers to award untendered contracts of up to $15 million.

Maximum hotel rooms

With the country’s tourist season in full swing, the Department of Immigration was already in a race against time to secure as many hotel rooms as possible in Cornwall and Niagara Falls to accommodate the record number asylum seekers crossing the border following the reopening of Roxham Road in November 2021.

The Ministry had also tried to reserve additional hotel rooms in Montreal and Ottawa, but without success.

Between November 21, 2021 and July 10, 2022, 20,951 asylum seekers were intercepted by Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officers on Roxham Road, which had then become the route of choice for migrants wishing to cross the Canada-US border in an irregular manner.

Canadian authorities, who were also trying at the time to convince the Biden administration to renegotiate the safe third country agreement, expected to break new records for irregular entry into Canadian territory during the second half of the year.

Handjob fight

Radio-Canada reported last July the federal government’s intention to transfer asylum seekers who so wish to other provinces. But documents obtained by The Press under the Access to Information Act show all the turmoil caused by the reopening of Roxham Road.

At the same time, the Trudeau government had to deal with an increased number of asylum seekers arriving at Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau International Airport.

In six days, i.e. between 1^er and on July 6, 2022, the Department of Immigration transferred more than 575 asylum seekers by bus to Ottawa and Niagara Falls.

“Due to the increase in the number of asylum seekers arriving at the airport and the accommodation network in Quebec which is already at maximum capacity […]the situation has become untenable,” says a briefing note to Immigration Minister Sean Fraser, dated July 14, 2022.

“Due to the urgency of the situation, and the limited number of suppliers able to offer the services, normal tendering procedures cannot be followed. […] If we are unable to hold [suffisamment de chambres]there will be an increase in the number of homeless people and there is a risk [qu]a makeshift camp is springing up near the Canada-US border and in Montreal, which could have consequences for public health. If we cannot provide accommodation for those who do not have an adequate quarantine plan, the public health risks will increase.”

Safe Third Country Agreement

In 2022, a record 39,171 asylum seekers were intercepted at Roxham Road by the RCMP. In February, Quebec Immigration Minister Christine Fréchette was pleased to see that the federal government had transferred to Ontario the vast majority of asylum seekers who had crossed the border via Roxham Road over a weekend. end. She then expressed the wish that Ottawa maintain this practice in the weeks to come, on the grounds that Quebec had reached its limits in terms of reception capacity.

However, six weeks later, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and US President Joe Biden, on an official visit to Ottawa, announced the closure of Roxham Road by amending the safe third country agreement. Under these changes, asylum seekers must make their claim in the first of the two countries where they set foot, regardless of the port of entry.

In exchange for these changes extracted from Washington, Canada has agreed to welcome 15,000 additional asylum seekers, mainly from Haiti.

With William Leclerc, The Press