All party leaders should go together to Ottawa to demand the “permanent closure” of Roxham Road, according to Éric Duhaime.
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This is what the Conservative leader proposed in a letter sent to Prime Minister Legault on Thursday.
Deploring a situation that has become “simply untenable” on Roxham Road, Éric Duhaime writes that “the time is no longer for consultation, study or the exchange of formal letters”.
He suggests “taking a day as quickly as possible”, so that the leaders of all the parties leave together “to meet the leaders and the Quebec caucus of the federal political parties in the House of Commons”.
“We must send a strong message that Quebec speaks with one voice and demand the permanent closure of Roxham Road now,” writes the Conservative leader, who believes that “all the other avenues have still done nothing to fix the problem”.
Last year, a record number of 39,171 asylum seekers were intercepted at Roxham Road, an unofficial point of entry located in Montérégie.
The Legault government has been putting pressure on Ottawa for several weeks to regularize the situation at Roxham Road. On February 20, he sent a letter to Justin Trudeau urging him to put this issue on the agenda during his meeting with President Joe Biden.
He also asked Mr. Trudeau to pay his dues in Quebec and to redirect asylum seekers to other provinces.
A few days later, the Canadian Prime Minister assured that the American President understands that the Roxham Road file is a priority for Canada. He insisted that this subject will be on the agenda when he meets with the American president later this month.