When the federal government closed Roxham Road last March, immigration officials sighed with all their might. They didn’t see it as a solution to anything, but rather as a big push forward. And they were right.
The figures published by my colleague Suzanne Colpron on Thursday demonstrate this. Quebec, the country’s main drop-off point, welcomed more new asylum seekers during the first 11 months of 2023 than in all of 2022, or nearly 60,000.
And yet, the famous Roxham road – the one that the Legault government has accused of all the evils – is indeed closed with three locks. Anyone who decides to take this small dirt road between New York State and Montérégie is turned away. The reception buildings that the federal government had built there at great expense were dismantled.
In fact, it was not Roxham Road that was ended, but rather the possibility of requesting asylum after entering the country between two official border crossings. Roxham was only the most famous of these crossing points. The most organized. And the most predictable for migrants and for the Canadian authorities.
What did immigration experts predict? That migrants would find other routes to enter the country – potentially dangerous routes – and that smuggling networks would take advantage of the windfall. That Paul was being undressed to dress a doubtful Pierrette.
It was not by looking into a crystal ball that they had this vision, but by looking at migratory flows all over the planet. In Europe, Africa, Asia, on the border between the United States and Canada.
The authorities close one door only to see new ones appear a few months later. Inevitably.
Here, it is towards the airports that many asylum seekers have turned. If, in 2022, 17,165 people claimed asylum when getting off the plane, there were 36,970 who did so from January to the end of November this year.
The federal decision to issue temporary visas more quickly and with fewer restrictions has contributed greatly to this. The lifting of visas for Mexicans wishing to visit Canada is also part of the deal.
A recent Radio-Canada investigation revealed that criminal organizations, including the Sinaloa cartel, issue false Mexican passports to their clients, succeed in getting them into Canada through the front door and then facilitate the clandestine crossing of some of them. between them in the United States via the Canadian-American border. A 9000 kilometer border, full of lesser known Roxham paths.
And what about the new rules that allow anyone who enters Canada irregularly to request asylum 14 days after their arrival on Canadian territory? An unverifiable absurdity.
We really closed a small path to open a ton of others. The number of asylum seekers in the country increased from 91,740 in 2022 to 128,685 in 11 months in 2023.
Like it or not, the increase in migration is an international phenomenon. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees announces new record figures every year. Conflict, climate change, inequality and political repression are forcing more and more women, men and children around the world to seek asylum. And the international conventions that Canada has signed require us to have an adequate system to hear the requests that come to us.
In this context, the main problem is not the number of asylum seekers that Canada is currently receiving and which will be expected to increase, but rather their distribution across the country and the organization of services.
This is where the problem lies and this is where we must act. By building housing that will benefit the entire population, by working on a real distribution plan between provinces which will remove pressure on Quebec, by diligently issuing work permits to asylum seekers, by quickly deciding to grant or not refugee status and by bringing to justice the illicit networks that profit from human misery. All this is more useful than spending energy closing – illusory – access routes.
The country’s authorities – federal and provincial – must demonstrate to the Canadian population that they have the situation under control. No, not the opposite.