(Montreal) Spending a whole night in the cold and snow directly in front of Complexe Guy-Favreau, in Montreal, is what organizations demanding regularized status for all undocumented immigrants in Canada have decided to do this weekend to urge the federal government to act quickly on this file.
Led by Solidarité sans frontières, these groups have chosen to brave the bad weather of this particularly cold night in March to illustrate the extent to which certain people without status have to live in difficult situations on a daily basis.
For fear of being expelled from the country, these people often stay away from essential services, such as police forces and health systems, which puts them in potentially dangerous situations, recalled Aboubacar Kane, who is one of the spokesperson for Solidarity Across Borders.
“The migrants, they’re out there, they’re suffering, so the way to really restore the balance and give them a really decent and adequate life is to have a really inclusive regularization program in place,” Kane said on Sunday morning. , when he had just spent the whole night in front of the Guy-Favreau Complex.
The federal government is working on such a program. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had asked Immigration Minister Sean Fraser to explore “ways to regularize the status of undocumented workers who contribute to Canadian communities” following the 2021 federal election.
But more than a year later, this program is still waiting, which pushes organizations, such as Solidarité sans frontières, to multiply the gestures of mobilization to be heard.
“In November, we met the Minister of Immigration in Ottawa. The government has made promises, leaked information and is working on a program. In ten weeks, MPs will be on summer vacation, so we are here to tell them that every day there is a life in danger. It is time to get this program out,” said Hady Anne, another spokesperson for Solidarity Across Borders.
Difficult conditions
During a press briefing held on Sunday morning, following their “Nuit des Sans-Papiers”, different groups testified to the fact that the life of a person without legal status can be very difficult – what they consider deplorable in 2023.
“We often consider that having a roof over our heads is a basic and essential need, but for many of our undocumented friends and neighbors, access to decent housing is often out of reach”, denounced in particular the coordinator of the Parc-Extension Action Committee, Amy Darwish.
“Many undocumented tenants face discrimination when looking for housing and are disadvantaged because they don’t have enough proof of identity. So for them, often, the right to housing only exists in theory. »
For her part, the executive director of Stella, Sandra Wesley, noted that undocumented women are more exposed to situations of violence.
“Aggressors, violent people and exploiters know that a woman without status is a vulnerable woman whom they can choose as a victim knowing that they will probably get away with it,” she said.
Aboubacar Kane, who also works for Doctors of the World, also witnesses “every day” situations where people without status come to the organization’s clinic to avoid the health system.
“Most often, these are pregnant women whose insurance does not cover certain illnesses or situations. There is no one to help them, so we do the maximum with the means we have, ”he explained, visibly moved by such stories.
Continuous mobilization
It is difficult to say how many people live in Canada without status. According to what the House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration reported last year, estimates vary between 20,000 and 500,000 people. Local organizations estimate the number at 500,000 people.
In the wake of the public and political debate on Roxham Road, this unofficial entry point located in Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, in Montérégie, the organizations recalled that migrants do not represent a “crisis” in themselves, and that they can, on the contrary, have a positive impact on certain needs in society, particularly with regard to the labor shortage.
To make their point of view heard, these organizations were not at their first mobilization. Last summer, a march to Ottawa was organized, while in the fall, they toured the offices of federal MPs in the Montreal region aboard a caravan.
But until the federal program is unveiled, Hady Anne, of Solidarity Across Borders, has no intention of giving up.
“In life, you have to be the slave of a cause, a noble cause, and this cause is extremely noble. We believe in it hard as iron and we are ready to brave anything, ”he concluded before going to warm up.