The expansion of the Safe Third Country Agreement, which enshrines the “closure” of Roxham Road, could prove difficult to implement and dangerous for migrants, reveals an official document which puts the cost at 61, $5 million over 10 years.
Ottawa also admits that the changes impose pressures and “challenges” on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and local police. The costs of enlargement are largely related to the processing of applications.
On March 24, Ottawa and Washington made public a new protocol on the common border, a few hours before its actual entry into force, scheduled for midnight the same night. Under this protocol, the Agreement now applies to the entire border. A person who goes through an irregular entry route to seek asylum, including Roxham Road, can therefore be sent back to the United States, which was not the case previously.
So far, the federal government and the RCMP have refused to give more details on the concrete way to implement the new agreement. Three weeks after the official announcement made with great fanfare during the visit of US President Joe Biden, it is in the regulatory change published Wednesday in Canada Gazette learn these details.
“Regulatory changes could, however, impose pressures on the resources of the RCMP”, it is first written, because of the new migratory paths which could appear. It then reads: “It will be difficult for the RCMP to consistently enforce the Regulations given the expanse and terrain of the Canadian landscape, the challenges posed by Indigenous and private lands, and the limitations of existing technology at the border. (eg sensors and cameras). »
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is not announcing investments that would help the police force deal with these pressures. The regulatory text, however, indicates that the RCMP will receive funds related to “wider initiatives to replace and modernize intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance equipment”. A new multidisciplinary team must also determine the technological needs for these border security operations.
If it discovers “high risk” areas, the authorities will be able to reallocate existing resources so as not to “divert police resources”.
A long-standing challenge
This is not the first time that the Liberal government has admitted that an attempt to seal the border would be doomed: “It would also be difficult to enforce the laws on 9000 kilometers of border. It would be practically impossible,” said Ralph Goodale before the Immigration Committee in 2018, when he was Minister of Public Security.
The American signatory to the original 2002 agreement, Gene Dewey, also said in a recent interview with Duty that it would have been “bureaucratically inconvenient” to include the entire border, as neither Canada nor the United States were “equipped” from a bureaucratic perspective to handle arrivals. The treaty would thus have been “unrealistic”, he said.
What has changed since then? It is in particular “trust” and “negative media coverage” that are cited as the context justifying the negotiation of an additional protocol. The saturation of administrative capacity for processing asylum applications is not mentioned, however.
Arguments of trust and negative media coverage “should not justify a change with such an impact on people’s lives,” according to Adele Garnier, a geography professor at Laval University and a migration specialist. These contextual explanations are “a political justification for a quick fix to fix the problem,” she says.
The principle of the safe third country is much more contested than what Ottawa suggests in this text, she adds. Mme Garnier recalls that the Supreme Court must also render a decision on the Agreement soon.
Other expected impacts
The health and safety of asylum seekers could be put at risk by this new enlargement, recognizes the government. A person determined to enter and not falling under the exceptions provided for in the agreement could try to “cross the border into more remote areas and remain undetected until[elle] can apply for asylum”, i.e. after 14 days.
“The changes will impose costs” on migrants, also details the text, for example in the case of the use of “smugglers”.
Several immigration lawyers, migrant rights groups and opposition elected officials in Quebec have already raised similar arguments.
In terms of benefits, it is in the conditional that a reduction in the number of asylum seekers is hypothesized: “Regulatory changes should also benefit Canadians by potentially reducing the number of irregular arrivals”, is it written there.
However, Ottawa does not know to what extent this reduction will take place, as it is “largely unknown”. The extent of the decrease in the number of asylum seekers “cannot be estimated”.
People who arrive by plane or who are already in the territory with other types of visas (visitor or study visas, for example) continue to be able to apply for asylum. In Quebec, in 2022, a third of asylum seekers did not go through Roxham.
The text of the regulatory change also mentions that a reduction would “reduce the pressures” on all levels of government, in particular those exerted on services such as short-term housing. Prime Minister François Legault has repeatedly mentioned that Quebec has “exceeded its reception capacity”, particularly in terms of temporary accommodation.
With Marie Vastel