Lisée: And what if Quebecers are less racist than other Canadians?

2023/02/25 Leave a comment

Lisée contrasting Quebec and RoC polling data and providing context for Quebec policies on immigration, multiculturalism/interculturalisme and language. Polling data with regional breakdowns between Montreal and the regions would likely nuance his assertions, nor fully explain the high levels of support for Bills 21 and 96 or the general level of political discourse on these issues, but they certainly play a part.

Lisée may have overstepped his case with respect to the number of visible minorities elected in the 2022 election, 12 elected members by my count, 9.6 percent, not 12 percent, largely reflecting the concentration in and around Montreal (just as the GTA bumps up Ontario provincial and federal MP representation numbers:

The number is nine. That’s the percentage of Quebecers who believe some races are superior to others. They, along with other Canadians, were asked this straightforward question by Angus Reid in 2021: “In all honesty, do you think that all races are equal in terms of their natural characteristics, or do you think that some races are naturally superior to others?”

Nine per cent may seem high, but compare it to Ontario, Saskatchewan and Manitoba with a rate of 14 per cent. There is a spike of 19 per cent in PEI (this may be a sampling error) and lows of 11 per cent in Alberta and eight per cent in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Interestingly, one finds that 13 per cent of Indigenous people believe in the inequality of races and 18 per cent of non-Caucasian/non-Indigenous – double the Quebec number.

How can we possibly square this result with the mere existence of Quebec’s secularism law, known as Bill 21, and the apparent consensus outside Quebec that citizens there are closed-minded? The answer, as Justin Trudeau explained the other day, is Quebecers relation to religion, especially with the misogynistic aspects of the Catholic religion of yesteryear and, these days, Islam.

https://e.infogram.com/lisee-racisme-fig-2-en-1h8n6m31ngx0j4x?live?parent_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpolicyoptions.irpp.org%2Fmagazines%2Ffebruary-2023%2Fquebec-racism%2F&src=embed#async_embed

That is why this same Angus Reid poll found what every other poll will tell you: a much bigger slice of Quebec opinion has negative views of religions as a whole and of Islam in particular. Angus Reid reports that whereas 25 per cent of all Canadians feel “cold” towards Muslims, the chill reaches 37 per cent in Quebec. Still in minority territory (63 per cent feel warm towards them) but a significant difference.

Since support for the secularism bill, which bans the wearing of all religious signs for civil servants in authority, hovers around 65 per cent, there are simply not enough Quebecers who dislike Muslims to account for that great a number. Clearly, other variables are at play and racism is not one of them.

In fact, Canadian pollsters regularly find Quebecers more tolerant on a range of issues than other Canadians. Ekos found in 2019 that 30 per cent of Quebecers believed there were too many members of visible minorities among immigrants. That is awful. But this level rose to 46 per cent in Ontario and 56 per cent in Alberta. And among visible minorities, 43 per cent felt there were too many visible minorities among immigrants. In short, Quebecers were less intolerant of racialized immigrants than Canadians as a whole and citizens of color themselves.

https://e.infogram.com/lisee-racisme-fig-3-en-1h7k2305xlekg2x?live?parent_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpolicyoptions.irpp.org%2Fmagazines%2Ffebruary-2023%2Fquebec-racism%2F&src=embed#async_embed

But these are opinions. What about actions? Hate crimes were more numerous in Ontario than in Quebec per capita in 2019, 2020 and 2021, the year in which there is the latest available data. The Montreal police reports that in 2020 and 2021, the first years of application of the law on secularism, the number of hate crimes related to religion was down 24 per cent. Sure, with the pandemic, there were fewer opportunities to meet and hate each other. Yet they also had a pandemic in Toronto and there, according to the Toronto Police 2021 Hate/Bias Crime Statistical Report, religious hate crimes increased by 16 per cent over the same period.

How about discrimination in employment? 2021 Statistics Canada data show that immigrants in Quebec have an employment rate greater than workers born in Quebec (at a ratio of 107 per cent) whereas the opposite is true in Ontario (a ratio of 95 per cent). The gap is greatest for women, with a ratio of 102 per cent employment in Quebec versus 91 per cent in Ontario, probably a result of Quebec’s far reaching daycare program. The same is true for members of visible minorities, whose rate of employment is equal to that of the rest of Quebecers, better than the 95 per cent level in Ontario. Simply put, as an immigrant or a BIPOC, your chances of getting a job is higher in Quebec than in Ontario, especially if you are a woman.

The recent October 2022 Quebec election was remarkable for one barely noticed achievement. For the first time, it delivered the same proportion of elected members from visible minorities, (12 per cent) than their share of the electorate and the same rate (20 per cent) of members of non-French and non-English origin. A perfect score. In Ottawa, Parliament still falls short of its goal of representing 25 per cent of visible minorities, having reached only 15.7 per cent.  In Ontario, with 30 per cent of minority population, the recent parliament counts 23 per cent representation.

None of these numbers are new, but I bet you are reading them here for the first time. Why? Simply because they are so counter-intuitive that few people outside Quebec look for them. Or when these numbers are encountered, they are treated as outliers that surely do not represent reality.

Yet going back in time, Quebec has reached achievements on race significantly before others on the continent. For example, the August 1 commemoration of the British Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 is problematic in Quebec because it ignores the fact that slavery had already been abolished there for 30 years. In Upper Canada, MPs had voted in 1793 to abolish slavery but grandfathered the “property” of current slave-owners. Slavery thus persisted until 1820. The British 1833 act compensated slave-owners for the “loss” of their property.

Quebecers had none of that. Open-minded judges started declaring slavery illegal in Quebec as early as 1798, without delay or compensation. It disappeared completely in very short order, as told by Frank Makey in his seminal Done with Slavery: The Black Fact in Montreal, 1760-1840 (McGill-Queen’s Press). “The way in which slavery was abolished in Quebec turned out to be one of the most humane and least constraining,” he writes. Slavery thus ended in Quebec 20 years before its demise in Upper Canada, 30 years ahead of the rest of the Empire and 63 years before the emancipation of Black Americans.

Jews were barred from elected office in the entire British Empire until 1858, except in Quebec. In 1832 the Assembly, with a Patriote majority (the ancestor of both the Quebec Liberal Party and the Parti Québécois) voted an act granting full citizenship to Jews, the Brits be damned.

As for relations with First Nations, in 1701 the Governor of New France and 39 leaders of First Nations gathered in Montreal for the most far-reaching peace treaty ever negotiated between settlers and First Nations in the hemisphere. That’s Nobel Peace Prize territory. In modern times, Quebec signed the first comprehensive land claim in Canada in 1975 and René Lévesque made sure the Quebec National Assembly was the first Parliament in Canada in 1984 to recognize the existence of Indigenous nations on the territory. In 2003 the Paix des Braves with the Cree nation became the gold standard for the granting of autonomy to First Nations.

Environics Institute reports that like other Canadians 44 per cent of Quebecers believe the government has not done enough to ensure true reconciliation. But there are laggards. Those who find that we have gone too far, that we have been too generous. In Quebec, 13 per cent think so. Too many. In Canada: 20 per cent. Too many and a half.

It is also interesting to note how the anti-religious sentiment of Quebecers is intertwined with the issue of residential schools. Polling firm Léger asked who was responsible for this disaster: the federal government or the Catholic Church. Obviously, the answer is: both. But the pollster forced his respondents to choose. Two-thirds of Canadians pointed to the church. Quebecers even more: 69 per cent. The more memory Quebecers have, the more they condemn the church, at 76 per cent among those over 55 years old. Quebecers also say they are more ashamed, at 86 per cent, than the high Canadian average of 80 per cent.

Surely, tons of columns can be – and have been – written on all the faults and frailties of Quebecers. I have written a few myself. Comparative arguments have little weight when the task is to fight back against discrimination, racial profiling, decades-long neglect of Indigenous communities.

They have value, however, when mainstream voices outside Quebec take a moral high ground to misjudge and mischaracterize Quebec, its citizens and its history on issues of race and tolerance.

Source: And what if Quebecers are less racist than other Canadians?

Filed under Immigration, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Pregnant Russians flock to Argentina, seeking passports — and options — for their kids

2023/02/25 Leave a comment

More detailed account than elsewhere. In contrast to some earlier reports, appears many are fairly afflluent. And not all are birth tourists with some settling in Argentina:

Shortly after Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, Alla Prigolovkina and her husband, Andrei Ushakov, decided they had to flee their Sochi, Russia, home.

Ushakov had been detained for holding up a sign that read “Peace,” and Prigolovkina, a pregnant ski instructor, feared he would soon be drafted and potentially killed, leaving their baby fatherless.

The original plan was to stay in Europe, but anti-Russian sentiment discouraged them.

“We chose Argentina because it has everything we needed: Fantastic nature, a large country, beautiful mountains,” Prigolovkina, 34, told The Associated Press inside the home her family is renting in Argentina’s western Mendoza province. “We felt it would be ideal for us.”

They were hardly alone.

Over the past year, Argentine immigration authorities have noticed flights packed with dozens of pregnant Russians. But whereas Prigolovkina said her family intends to build a life here at the foot of the Andes mountains, local officials believe many of the other recent Russian visitors are singularly focused on receiving one of Argentina’s passports.

All children born in Argentina automatically receive citizenship and having an Argentine child speeds up the process for the parents to obtain residency permits and, after a couple of years, their own passports.

Crucially, the navy blue booklets allow entry to 171 countries without a visa, a backup plan that Russians believe could come in handy in the ever-uncertain future. Due to sanctions, Russians have also had trouble opening bank accounts in foreign countries, something an Argentine passport could solve.

According to official figures, some 22,200 Russians entered Argentina over the last year, including 10,777 women — many of whom were in the advanced stages of pregnancy. In January, 4,523 Russians entered Argentina, more than four times the 1,037 that arrived in the same month last year.

After an investigation, Argentine officials concluded that Russian women, generally from affluent backgrounds, were entering the country as tourists with the plan to give birth, obtain their documentation and leave. More than half of the Russians who entered the country in the last year, 13,134, already left, including 6,400 women.

“We detected that they don’t come to do tourism, they come to have children,” Florencia Carignano, the national director for migration, said during a meeting with international media.

Although Argentina generally has a relatively permissive immigration process, the recent arrest of two alleged Russian spies who had Argentine passports in Slovenia raised alarms in the South American country, where officials reinforced immigration controls.

“We canceled residencies of Russians who spent more time outside than in,” Carignano said, expressing concern the Argentine “passport will cease to have the trust it enjoys in all countries.”

Immigration authorities have also called on the justice system to investigate agencies that allegedly offer assistance to Russian women who want to give birth in Argentina.

It’s unclear how many women have left Russia to give birth in the last year, but the issue is big enough that lawmakers in Moscow this month raised the question of whether those who choose to give birth abroad should be stripped of the so-called maternity fund that all Russian mothers receive — a financial benefit of almost $8,000 for the first child and about $10,500 for the second.

There is no discussion on whether to cut off access to the maternity fund for Russian mothers who give birth abroad, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

The phenomenon also is not entirely new. Prior to the Russia-Ukraine war, Russian women were part of a wave of “birth tourists” in the U.S. and many paid brokers tens of thousands of dollars to arrange their travel documents, accommodations and hospital stays, often in Florida.

Embarking on a long journey during an advanced pregnancy can be particularly perilous, and Russians in Argentina insist that their decision to leave their homes goes beyond a new passport. Despite the government’s claims, some at least seem eager to make Argentina their new home.

In spite of the language barrier and the unfamiliar, stifling summer heat, Prigolovkina and Ushakov have quickly adopted Argentine customs since their July move. Prigolovkina said they especially enjoy spending time in the park with their dogs. And while the family may not have been interested in soccer in Russia, they happily cheered when their newly adopted country won the World Cup late last year.

Still, she also concedes that obtaining a passport for their newborn son, Lev Andrés, was a motivating factor for the move: “We wanted our baby to have the chance to not just be Russian and have a single passport.”

Some experts say a country in which migrants once made up as much as 30% of the population should be particularly sensitive to the plight of Russians trying to start a new life. The South American country was transformed in the late 19th and early 20th century by the influx of millions of European migrants, including many from Italy and Spain.

“Given our history of migration, a country like ours should empathize more with the humanitarian dimension” of these recent immigrants, Natalia Debandi, a social scientist and migrations expert who is a researcher at the publicly funded CONICET institute, said. “They are not terrorists, they are people.”

A study by immigration agents based on interviews with 350 newly arrived Russians concluded that most are married and largely well-off professionals who have remote jobs in finance and digital design or live off savings.

Days before giving birth to a boy named Leo, 30-year-old Russian psychologist Ekaterina Gordienko lauded her experience in Argentina, saying “the health care system is very good, and people are very kind. My only problem is Spanish. If the doctor doesn’t speak English, I use the (Google) translator.”

Gordienko arrived in the nation’s capital of Buenos Aires in December with her 38-year-old husband, Maxim Levoshin. “The first thing we want is for Leo to live in a safe country, without a war in his future,” Levoshin said.

In Mendoza, Prigolovkina is excited for her family’s new life in Argentina and optimistic they will be able to give back to the country that has welcomed them.

“We have left everything behind to live in peace. I hope that Argentines understand that Russians can be very useful in different areas of life, in business, the economy, in science,” she said. “They can help make Argentina better.”

Source: Pregnant Russians flock to Argentina, seeking passports — and options — for their kids

Filed under Birthright Citizenship, Citizenship, Immigration Tagged with , ,

Canada to introduce open work permit for Iranians, simplify process to stay

2023/02/25 Leave a comment

Not sure how widely the measures – waiving fees for passports, Permanent Resident travel documents and citizenship certificates – has been done in the past and for which groups.

Given the announcement in North Vancouver, where many Iranian Canadians live, not sure the fee waivers makes sense from a policy perspective (no issue with open work permit pathways).

The federal government is rolling out special temporary measures to make it easier for Iranians in Canada to stay.

As of March 1, measures will come into effect to simplify the process for Iranians who are visiting, studying in or working in Canada to extend their stay and switch between temporary streams.

For Iranians already in Canada, an open work permit pathway will be introduced as well.

The federal government will waive fees for passports, permanent resident travel documents and citizen certificates for Canadian citizens and permanent residents in Iran who wish to come back, and for those in Canada who want to remain.

Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson made the announcement in North Vancouver today as part of the federal government’s ongoing effort to support Iranians following unrest.

Protests erupted in Iran in response to the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the country’s morality police, leading to a brutal crackdown by the Iranian government.

Source: Canada to introduce open work permit for Iranians, simplify process to stay

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Lanctôt: Préparer l’avenir [future waves of climate refugees]

2023/02/25 Leave a comment

Reminder that today’s problems may be insignificant compared to the futuree:

Puisqu’il faut battre le fer pendant qu’il est chaud et qu’on fait tout pour qu’il le demeure, nous y voilà encore. La panique entourant le chemin Roxham semble s’être installée pour de bon, dans les termes déplorables qu’on connaît. Si au moins il s’agissait de braquer les projecteurs sur le drame humain qui se joue dans l’espace liminal des frontières, ce serait une chose. Or, c’est sur le « fardeau » de l’accueil qu’on se focalise, pendant que les demandeurs d’asile eux-mêmes flottent en périphérie de la discussion, comme une simple variable dans un calcul qui se fait sur leur dos, mais sans eux.

C’est ainsi que, cette semaine, le premier ministre François Legault s’est adressé directement à son homologue fédéral, Justin Trudeau, pour exiger qu’Ottawa agisse pour soulager le Québec de la pression exercée par les demandeurs d’asile sur sa société. La lettre est remarquable en ce qu’elle condense, en quelques paragraphes, plusieurs années d’une construction méticuleuse de la version toute québécoise du discours sur le péril migratoire aux frontières.

Les États-Unis, l’Europe aussi, ont une longueur d’avance à ce chapitre, alors que ces discours se construisent, se reconfigurent et se peaufinent depuis bien plus longtemps. Mais alors que la migration d’urgence s’intensifie partout dans le monde, le Québec fait face soudain, lui aussi, à une détresse qu’il lui était autrefois plus facile d’ignorer. Sans surprise, on réagit en important les dispositifs idéologiques qui, partout ailleurs, président au durcissement des frontières et à la construction de la figure du migrant comme menace.

François Legault l’a bien compris, et sa lettre à Justin Trudeau est une formidable radiographie de la panique migratoire telle qu’elle se vit chez nous. Le premier ministre québécois campe d’abord ses revendications sur le terrain de la défense des services publics, soulignant que l’arrivée « massive » de demandeurs d’asile au Québec pèse bien lourd sur des institutions déjà à bout de souffle.

Il ne se trouvera personne pour le contredire : les services publics, tout comme les groupes communautaires — à qui l’on demande d’éponger le trop-plein du réseau public avec une fraction des ressources —, sont poussés à bout de manière structurelle. La crise est chronique, et elle a été délibérément fabriquée par des décennies de gouvernance néolibérale.

Il est vrai que les ressources manquent pour accompagner les demandeurs d’asile de manière digne. Les histoires que l’on entend brisent le coeur ; des familles qui passent d’un refuge à l’autre, des gens contraints de dormir dans la rue après avoir traversé la frontière par Roxham, une attente interminable pour obtenir de l’aide financière, et le dépassement bien réel des organismes qui prodiguent de l’aide immédiate. Tout cela est insupportable, sauf qu’on pose le problème à l’envers : notre échec à accueillir correctement ces personnes est le symptôme de carences préexistantes, et non leur cause. On pointe la lune et on regarde le doigt.

Il faudrait plutôt renverser la question : comment se fait-il que le Québec n’ait rien de mieux à offrir que l’itinérance et des dédales administratifs déshumanisants à des personnes qui ne demanderaient pas mieux que de pouvoir contribuer à la société québécoise ?

François Legault brandit le chiffre de 39 000 migrants arrivés de manière irrégulière en 2022, ajoutant que cela s’ajoute aux 20 000 personnes admises par voie régulière. Il veut souligner, on l’imagine, l’ampleur de la contribution du Québec. Or, comme le remarquait la directrice générale d’Amnistie internationale Canada francophone, France-Isabelle Langlois, dans une lettre parue dans ces pages, on compte actuellement 100 millions de personnes déplacées de force à travers le monde. À travers les Amériques, la Colombie accueille à elle seule 1,8 million de personnes. On estime par ailleurs que d’ici 2050, plus de 200 millions de personnes seront déplacées par la crise climatique à l’échelle mondiale.

Qu’à cela ne tienne, le Québec, lui, a déjà statué quant à sa responsabilité dans la prise en charge des mouvements de population mondiaux : « La capacité d’accueil du Québec est désormais largement dépassée », écrit le premier ministre. François Legault le dit sans détour : il ne veut pas améliorer la capacité d’accueil du Québec. Il ne demande pas à Ottawa plus de ressources pour mieux accueillir. Il affirme au contraire que le Québec en a déjà fait assez, et qu’il espère même être dédommagé pour les efforts déjà déployés.

Il fait ensuite un pas de côté pour mentionner le déclin du français à Montréal, qu’il associe, d’ailleurs, à l’arrivée de tous les migrants, pas seulement les demandeurs d’asile — après tout, il a une base à exciter. Puis, il réclame l’élargissement de l’entente sur les tiers pays sûrs à tous les points d’entrée au Canada, et la fermeture complète du chemin Roxham. Comme si l’interdiction de demander l’asile au Canada par voie terrestre, ainsi que la fermeture d’un seul point d’entrée devenu emblématique n’allaient pas tout simplement pousser plus de gens sur des routes clandestines.

Au-delà de ce que cette lettre dit de la situation présente, on y lit aussi l’ébauche, plus troublante, d’une vision à plus long terme. François Legault prépare le terrain, il entame doucement la normalisation du mot d’ordre qui sera celui de l’avenir cauchemardesque de la crise climatique : laissez-les se débrouiller.

Source: Préparer l’avenir

Filed under Immigration, Refugees Tagged with , , ,

@IRCC Consultations: Shaping the future of immigration in Canada

2023/02/25 Leave a comment

Somewhat cynical about the consultations exercise.

On the surface, may be a response to the increased public commentary questioning the impact that current and planned high immigration levels have on housing, healthcare adnn infrastructure but without the political will for a fundamental review of immigration programs and policies, which appear largely based on a “more the merrier” approach. The “learn more” section suggests that no fundamental review is planned.

Will be interesting to see if those consulted include critics of the current approach, not from the various advocacy groups but more broadly:

Immigration is critical to Canada’s long-term success. To fully harness the potential of immigration and create the best experience for newcomers,

Canada needs an immigration system that is strong, easy to navigate and adaptive to change.

The Honourable Sean Fraser, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, today announced the start of a broad-based engagement initiative—An Immigration System for Canada’s Future—aimed at exploring how immigration policies and programs can support a shared vision for Canada’s future. The engagement, which will continue throughout the spring, will include in-person dialogue sessions across the country, thematic workshops and a survey for the public and our clients. The input gathered will inform Canada’s future immigration policies and programs, and will help shape a system that will benefit communities across the country for decades to come.

The next generation of Canada’s immigration system will involve continued, whole-of-society collaboration. That is why this engagement initiative is intended to capture a diversity of perspectives from a broad range of partners and stakeholders, including all levels of government, businesses, academia, post-secondary institutions, settlement organizations, implicated sectors in Canada and our clients.

To kick off the engagement initiative, Minister Fraser chaired the first dialogue session in Halifax. The session provided an opportunity for the Minister and participants to exchange ideas and discuss how Canada’s immigration policies and programs can better support the needs of communities from coast to coast.

If you would like to contribute to the future of Canada’s immigration system, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) will also be launching a survey, which will be available to the public later in March in addition to the dialogue sessions and thematic workshops with stakeholders. We encourage you to visit our website to learn more about how to get involved.

Source:

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Clark: Let’s get politicians to tell us how they would close Roxham Road, not why, Yakabuski: Trudeau can no longer avoid tough choices on Roxham Road 

2023/02/24 Leave a comment

As always, the herd instinct at play in coverage of irregular arrivals and Roxham Road, given Premier Legault’s public pressure and Pierre Poilievre’s simplistic solution.

Two of the best are Clark, who calls for a needed but unlikely change, and Yakabuski who argues time for though choices:

Let’s hold all our politicians to one simple rule about Roxham Road: Don’t tell us what you want to do about it. Tell us how you would do it.

Quebec politicians have been calling for the unofficial crossing on the border between Quebec and New York state to be closed. And Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has called for the feds to do so within 30 days.

But as it turns out, there is no switch that opens and closes the border. So what is it they are actually proposing?

Mr. Poilievre said that all it takes is a simple decision, but he couldn’t say what the government should decide to do.

Of course, there are plenty of reasons why the government should do something. People want the border to be under control. They want migration to be safe and orderly.

And there is palpable frustration when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau essentially says he’s got nothing other than time to wait for U.S. President Joe Biden to solve the problem by changing a border agreement. And that’s essentially what Mr. Trudeau was saying Wednesday when he said that if Roxham Road was closed, asylum-seekers would just cross at other places. It’s probably true, but not a solution.

So how can it be done? Quebec Premier François Legault wants a deal with the U.S., too, but faster. Mr. Poilievre – and most politicians – don’t want to specify. Real proposals usally involve doing things the politicians don’t want to talk about. And many so far have been ineffective or ridiculous.

When People’s Party Leader Maxime Bernier was running for the leadership of the Conservative Party in 2017, he proposed sending the military. In 2018, two Conservative MPs proposed declaring the entire 8,891-kilometre border into an official border crossing, arguing that would trick the U.S. into taking back those who entered Canada at Roxham Road. That same year, then-Parti Québécois leader Jean-François Lisée briefly suggested a fence, or “a sign, a cedar grove, a police officer, whatever.”

Mr. Poilievre told reporters on Tuesday that it must be easy, because Mr. Trudeau shut down Roxham Road during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. But that didn’t happen with a snap of the fingers. When the two countries shut their borders, the U.S. agreed that Canada could direct border-crossers back. When the borders reopened, that arrangement ended. And here we are again.

That’s one thing to remember: Once they step foot into Canada, non-Americans can’t be sent back to the U.S. unless the U.S. agrees. The Safe Third Country Agreement allows for asylum seekers who enter Canada at official border posts to be turned back, but not those who cross in between. Canadian governments have tried for years to get the U.S. to change that, to no avail. On Wednesday, Mr. Trudeau said he’s working on it.

Of course, the simplest way to stop people from crossing at Roxham Road would be to scrap the Safe Third Country Agreement. Then asylum-seekers would just show up at official border crossings, as they did before 2004. And as Mr. Legault pointed out the other day, Mr. Trudeau tweeted in 2017 that Canada welcomes those fleeing persecution and war. It’s just that scrapping the agreement would almost certainly bring a lot more of them.

Some have proposed a fence. But obviously, people can go around it. There are lots of places to cross the border. It might disrupt the organized route to Roxham Road but police would probably have to intercept border-crossers at more places.

And there is Mr. Bernier’s idea: Send in the troops. Or police. But the real question is what they would do. Presumably they wouldn’t shoot everyone. Would all asylum-seekers be thrown in jail indefinitely?

Maybe there are better ideas. It would be nice to hear them. But Canadian politicians who don’t tell us how they would do it are avoiding the talk about costs, or the potential for border breaches to proliferate, or locking people up, or toughening the system.

Those are things debated by American politicians, who argue about harsher rules to discourage asylum-seekers from trying to enter the U.S. Mr. Biden is proposing refusing asylum claims from people who travelled through central America.

But now, Mr. Trudeau has essentially admitted he won’t do anything until Mr. Biden agrees to solve the problem for him.

And those such as Mr. Poilievre who call for Roxham Road to be closed are just mouthing meaningless words until they tell us how.

Source: Let’s get politicians to tell us how they would close Roxham Road, not why

François Legault has got his mojo back, or sort of.

After returning from Ottawa this month with a fraction of the billions of additional health care dollars he had been demanding for his province, the Quebec Premier was ridiculed by opposition parties and political pundits alike for being all bark and no bite.

Thanks to Ottawa’s recent transfer to cities in Ontario of asylum seekers arriving at the unofficial border crossing at Roxham Road in Quebec, Mr. Legault has been able to boast to the home crowd that he’s still got it. That his government’s constant efforts to force Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to do something about the “migrant crisis” facing Quebec is finally getting results. Thanks to his leaked letter to Mr. Trudeau and an op-ed in The Globe and Mail, Mr. Legault can tell Quebeckers that he has finally got the rest of Canada’s attention, if not its respect.

In truth, Ottawa last year began bussing some asylum seekers from Roxham Road to hotels in Cornwall, Niagara Falls, Ottawa and Windsor when it could no longer find rooms in Quebec. Since early 2023, those transfers have been occurring on a systematic basis. Mr. Legault wants Ottawa to continue to transfer migrants to other provinces, arguing correctly that Quebec has “taken on a completely disproportionate share” of asylum seekers entering Canada since Roxham Road was reopened in late 2021.

Mr. Legault also wants Mr. Trudeau to permanently “close the breach” in Canada’s border-security by prohibiting migrants from claiming asylum at Roxham Road, as it had temporarily done for an 18-month period during the pandemic. Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is calling for Roxham’s closing within 30 days, also citing the pandemic-related closing as proof that Ottawa has the authority to act unilaterally to address the loophole in the Canada-U.S. Safe Third Country Agreement that enabled more than 39,000 migrants to enter this country in 2022 at what has become our most official unofficial border crossing.

Immigration Minister Sean Fraser called Mr. Poilievre’s ideas “reckless” and lacking in “depth and understanding.” Amid a global migration crisis, Mr. Fraser added, Canada has a “responsibility to implement real, long-term solutions.”

Real, long-term solutions are not this government’s strong suit. It does excel at posturing, virtue signalling and dithering. But it has offered little evidence that it is taking concrete steps to address the increasing flow of asylum seekers at Roxham Road.

It is easy to understand why a government that prefers to project a compassionate image would be reluctant to act in any manner that might make it look heartless to some. Turning asylum seekers away at Roxham Road, in effect surrendering them to U.S. immigration authorities, would subject the Trudeau government to a backlash from within Liberal ranks.

Yet, it must be pointed out that this government has no problem turning away asylum seekers who arrive at official land border crossings. Are those who arrive at Roxham Road any more worthy of refugee status in Canada than the others?

What we do know is that almost half of “irregular border crossers” who arrived in Canada after 2016 saw their asylum claims rejected by the Immigration and Refugee Board or abandoned or withdrew their applications before a final IRB determination. And that the surge in irregular crossings at Roxham Road has left the IRB with a backlog of more than 74,000 cases that is growing rapidly each month. A refugee system that is meant to provide asylum to those fleeing persecution in their country of origin is being exploited by smugglers who prey on vulnerable people seeking to escape economic hardship in Latin America and Africa.

There are those in Liberal circles who argue that the “fundamental premise” at the heart of the STCA – specifically, the designation of the United States as a “safe” country for refugee claimants – no longer holds true. But as the Federal Court of Appeal found in 2021, it is up to the federal cabinet to undertake continual review to ensure that the United States continues to meet the criteria for safe country designation.

Not once since taking power in 2015 has the Trudeau government sought to cancel this designation – not even during the dark days of Donald Trump’s presidency, when some migrant children were separated from their parents.

The Supreme Court of Canada is expected to rule on the STCA this year. Even if it upholds the legality of the agreement, a new proposal by President Joe Biden to turn away all asylum seekers at the U.S. border who arrive from a third country via Mexico raises new questions about Canada’s continued designation of the U.S. as a safe country.

For Mr. Trudeau, there are no “real, long-term solutions” to the Roxham Road dilemma that do not include making tough, even excruciating, choices.

Source: Trudeau can no longer avoid tough choices on Roxham Road

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UK now among most accepting countries for foreign workers, survey finds

2023/02/24 Leave a comment

Interesting shift:

The UK has become one of the world’s most accepting places for foreign workers, according to a survey in 24 nations revealing a sharp increase in British acceptance of economic migration.

People in the UK emerged as less likely to think that when jobs are scarce employers should give priority to people of their own country than those in Norway, Canada, France, Spain, the US, Australia and Japan. Only Germany and Sweden were more open on that question.

In what the study’s authors described as “an extraordinary shift”, only 29% of people in the UK in 2022 said priority over jobs should go to local people, compared with 65% when the same question was asked in 2009.

The findings come as employers call for more migration to help fill more than 1m vacancies, and after the prime minister appointed the anti-immigration firebrand Lee Anderson as deputy chair of the Conservative party. He has called people arriving in small boats on the south coast “criminals” and called for them to be “sent back the same day”. Police have been deployed to hotels where asylum seekers are being housed amid violent protests by anti-immigration activists.

“It was unthinkable a decade ago that the UK would top any international league table for positive views of immigration,” said Prof Bobby Duffy, the director of the Policy Institute at King’s College London, who shared the findings from the latest round of the survey exclusively with the Guardian and the BBC. “But that’s where we are now, with the UK the least likely, from a wide range of countries, to say we should place strict limits on immigration or prohibit it entirely.”

The UK ranked fourth out of 24 nations for the belief that immigrants have a very or quite good impact on the development of the country – ahead of Norway, Spain, the US and Sweden.

One factor in the shift in opinions on the question of “British jobs for British workers” may be that in 2009 the UK was in a deep recession, with more than double today’s unemployment, whereas today the economy suffers from a worker shortage, with 1.1m vacancies in the UK, 300,000 more than before the pandemic.

Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, last year urged employers to look to the British workforce in the first instance and “get local people”, although the government has widened visa programmes for seasonal workers and care staff.

Duffy said the findings showed that “it’s time to listen more carefully to public attitudes”. He said: “Politicians often misread public opinion on immigration. In the 2000s, Labour government rhetoric and policy on this issue was more relaxed than public preferences, and arguably they paid the price – but the current government is falling into the reverse trap.”

People in the UK are now the least likely of the 24 countries that participate in the World Values Survey study to think immigration increases unemployment, and second from top in thinking that immigrants fill important job vacancies.

They are very likely to say immigration boosts cultural diversity, and very unlikely to think immigration comes with crime and safety risks. However, more people in the UK think immigration leads to “social conflict” than in several other countries, including Canada, Japan and China.

The UK ranks highly for believing immigrants have a positive impact

The World Values Survey asks the same questions in countries that account for almost half the world’s population. The surveys in each country are not carried out simultaneously, so the latest UK findings are compared with data from other countries gathered since 2017.

“We have seen a shift that is quite remarkable in the UK,” said Madeleine Sumption, the director of the migration observatory at Oxford University, adding that the findings were in line with decreasing public concern about immigration since the 2016 EU referendum.

“There is speculation it is about the fact that the end of freedom of movement has created a feeling the UK now has more control,” she said.

She added that there had also been positive media coverage about what migrant workers bring to the economy, especially given worker shortages in industries such as agriculture.

“I think it potentially creates space for a less polarised debate about immigration,” she said. “To the extent there is a consensus that immigration can be positive for the country and the question was how to manage it well, you can imagine that would be more a technocratic debate.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “Our points-based immigration system recognises the valuable contribution that people from around the world can make to our economy, public services and wider society. It attracts the best and brightest talent from across the globe by putting skill and talent first – not where someone comes from.”

Source: UK now among most accepting countries for foreign workers, survey finds

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Must read: Australia’s Migration System: Breakdown & Fixes, a candid assessment from Australia’s Minister of Home Affairs

2023/02/23 Leave a comment

How nice it would be to have a Canadian minister talk so frankly about real issues, problems and failures.

Of course, much easier when a government is new to office, and has no record. Largely impossible for any current Canadian government minister to make such a statement after seven years in power, but it is nevertheless that many if not most of the issues she raises apply equally to Canada:

We’re here today on the land of the Gadigal people.

I acknowledge their enduring custodianship of the land and waterways around Sydney, and I acknowledge any First Nations people with us today.

I live, work in and represent one of the most culturally diverse parts of Australia.

More than two thirds of my neighbours have at least one parent born overseas. For more than half, both parents were born overseas.

And so I’m lucky to see, up close, the hugely powerful ways in which our country is economically and culturally enriched by our migrant history.

Whether it’s the thriving, migrant-owned businesses that dominate the high streets of my electorate, or the smell of spit roast in our street at Greek Easter, or the joy of watching my kids grow up alongside children from dozens of different cultures, my patch of our country virtually pulses with life.

Migration is Australia’s special sauce.

Everything big and important we have achieved, for most of the last 100-years, has occurred, in part, because we’ve invited people from around the world to come and help us with our national endeavours.

Think of Australia emerging out of the Second World War, severely underpopulated. With the clarion call to “populate or perish”, migration supported Australia’s national security, and laid the foundation for the post-war boom that lasted for two decades.

The 1970s saw Australia emerge as a vibrant, modern, middle-power, with strong links to our Asian neighbours. Our nation buried the White Australia Policy and embraced multiculturalism.

Migration helped Australia rebound out of the dark days of the 1990s recession. From the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s, the share of skilled migrants in our annual intake doubled.

What followed was Australia’s economic miracle: from 1991 onwards we enjoyed the longest running period of continuous economic growth, on record, anywhere in the world. 

Migration delivers in huge ways for Australia when the system matches the needs of our nation, in that moment.

Yet I would challenge anyone in this audience today to explain what our migration system today is designed for.

What national problems are we seeking to solve? How is this program helping Australia on our national journey, as we look to the rest of the 2020s and beyond?

I have been the Minister for Home Affairs for 8 months, and no one has yet been able to answer these pretty fundamental questions. And that, my friends, is part travesty, part massive opportunity.

Because we do have some big national problems.

Our economy is stuck in a productivity rut and real wages are lower now than they were a decade ago.

Australia is the developed country in the world most at risk of a warming climate. But it is also the country with the biggest opportunity to transition to a net-zero economy. We need to make sure we have the skills to do this.

We confront the most dangerous geopolitical circumstances Australia has faced since the 1940s. We need to build better sovereign capabilities, fast.

And, we have an ageing population, which means big pressures on the economy, and the need for many more workers in health and aged care than we will be able to find in our domestic population.

Migration will never substitute our focus on skilling Australians. It is not the full answer to any of these problems. But it is a part answer to all of them.

Unfortunately, the system today is not designed to help us manage any of this. Our migration system has been on continental drift for a decade.

Australia’s migration system is broken. It is unstrategic. It is complex, expensive, and slow. It is not delivering for business, for migrants, or for our population.

In November last year, I asked former Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, Dr Martin Parkinson, to work with migration experts Dr Joanna Howe and John Azarias, to review Australia’s migration system and help our government get this program working in the national interest.

Today, I want to talk to you about some of the insights from that process and share some thinking on early directions for reform.

The many ways in which migration is broken

I have said the program has been on continental drift for a decade.

I’m going to talk you through a bit more detail on what the implications have been for the country. And to do that, I need you to understand one thing about the current structure of the migration program.

Our migration system is made up of two big programs: a capped permanent program and a demand-driven temporary one. 

Australia’s migration history has been built on permanency and citizenship. That is, we invite people to come to our country, and we want them to invest and build a life here: to start businesses, get their kids educated, and to make this country their own. That’s the Australian model.

Today, really for the first time in our modern history, our uncapped, unplanned temporary program is the centrepiece and driver of our migration system. This simple fact is the source of huge problems.

Since 2005, the number of net skilled permanent migrants coming to Australia each year has stayed roughly the same – at somewhere around 30,000 people.

Yet in that time, the number of temporary migrants has exploded. 

In 2007 we had about 1 million temporary migrants in Australia, excluding visitor and transit visas. Today that number is 1.9 million.

This rather staggering shift in direction has happened without any real policy debate or discussion. It happened not through thoughtful planning and strategy, but by negligence and continental drift. And, this reliance on temporary migration is having enormous economic and social consequences.

We don’t do any real planning and thinking about who these 1.9 million people are. You can see from the slide that just 6% are here on skilled visas. Are these 1.9m people bringing the skills and capabilities we need to drive our nation forward? We just genuinely don’t know.

The temporary program is now not just the biggest source of migrants overall, it is now also the biggest feeder into the permanent program. Let me say that again. When we fill those limited precious permanent slots each year, 65% are filled by people who are already in Australia, on temporary visas.

So that unstrategic, drifting nature of the temporary program is now the tail wagging the dog of the permanent program.

Today, it is relatively easy for a low skill, temporary migrant to come to Australia, but difficult, slow and not particularly attractive for a high-skill, permanent migrant to come here. We’ve got the system backwards.

This focus on temporariness means that migrants cannot truly flourish.

We want our migrants to be brilliant potential citizens. Today, many of those 1.9m temporary migrants live in a state of permanent temporariness, unable to invest in their education, get a loan to start a business, or feel emotionally that they can set down roots.

Instead, many are trapped in a Kafkaesque limbo, perpetually filling in forms and cycling through different kinds of temporary visas. Not good for them, not good for the country.

Many temporary visas require employer sponsorship and engagement. And in some contexts, this is a recipe for the kind of endemic worker exploitation we all know is occurring: in agriculture, in hospitality, in retail. No one in this audience wants this to be happening in our country.

So the big problem with our system today, the big Kahuna, is the fundamental structure. If we want this system to deliver for our country, we need to revisit how we think about the role of temporary and permanent migration in Australia, and how these systems interact.

And we need to start that discussion with a consideration of who we need to help us on our Australian journey, and design a new program around those clear goals and objectives.

Many other problems…

While the structure of the program matters most, there are some other big opportunities here in the reform discussion.

One is the untapped potential in the population of migrants who are already here. In my view, international students are where the big dividends are. We are training international students in our world-class education system. But after their studies are finished, many are required to leave.

When students do stay after graduation, they aren’t transitioning well into the labour market. Around 50% are working in lower-skilled roles than they are qualified for.

They’re not the only group. Skilled migrants will often come with a partner who is as well qualified as the primary applicant. But the evidence suggests those partners are not engaging well with the labour force. Again, value just left on the table, for that family and for our country.

Inertia and drift have infected almost everything. Our system is clogged with arcane, ineffective rules which don’t serve a clear purpose.

We use outdated occupation lists to determine workforce needs. This is a particular problem in tech, where the skills needs of industry (and even the language used to describe the needed skill sets) move really quickly. We don’t have a data-driven approach to building those lists, and we don’t think about the strategic needs of the workforce and our nation in building them.

We have a labour market testing process that in some cases is little more than a box ticking exercise. The way we recognise skills and qualifications earned in other countries is really, really problematic.

We have a points system which helps determine which migrants will be able to come which doesn’t differentiate properly on age, income or skills. That system gives the same number of points to a 39 year old as to a 24 year old, even though their economic output will be substantially different.

The combined effect of all these outdated rules is complexity, cost and delay. The system needs rules, of course. But let’s make sure they’re achieving what they are meant to.

Because at the moment, we’re simply making Australia an unattractive destination for the workers we really want and need. We have a desperate shortage of nurses, yet an overseas trained nurse practitioner can pay up to $20,000 and take 35-months to get their qualifications recognised.

This is Professor Brian Schmidt. Brian is an American-born physicist who is now Vice Chancellor of the Australian National University. He migrated to Australia in 1994.

Today’s brilliant young astrophysicist will likely have to wait for 178 days, and pay thousands of dollars upfront, just to get a visa decision. That’s if they are lucky – many will wait significantly longer than a year.

Would Brian Schmidt have come to Australia under these circumstances? Or would one of the most preeminent minds of his generation have taken his Nobel Prize, and gone elsewhere. What a tragic loss that would have been for our country.

You won’t be surprised, after what I have said here, that Australia’s share of the global pool of skilled migrants has almost halved over the past three decades.

And indeed, many of you in this audience would observe that other countries are driving the war for talent, relentlessly identifying the skills they need, finding them around the world, and inviting those migrants to join their national endeavours.

In Australia, you get this: complexity, bureaucracy, cost, uncertainty and delay. And once you’ve endured all that, maybe – maybe – you’ll be allowed to come for a defined period, on a temporary visa.

Highly valued migrants from around the world face bureaucratic delay coming to Australia, and red carpet treatment migrating elsewhere.

We just can’t let that continue. And our government does not intend to do so.

Solution

The upshot of all this – and indeed I could go on – is that our migration system today is something of a renovator’s delight. Let me share with you some of the ways in which we are working to change how this system operates.

We started this journey at the Jobs & Skills Summit in September last year where the call from those of you in this room for substantial reform of our migration system was unanimous. Businesses small and large told us that they needed a bigger permanent program, and we have delivered that.

We’ve drastically reduced the visa backlog – many of you will remember there were almost a million unprocessed visas sitting in the system when we took office, now it’s fast approaching half a million, which is roughly normal.

We’ve established Jobs and Skills Australia, a new part of government that will provide expert, evidence-based advice on skills shortages, vacancies and the overall state of the labour market. And we’ve got Minister Andrew Giles working to design a better system to prevent migrant exploitation.

We’re doing what we can with broken pipes.

What is clearly required here is structural reform which is significant in scope and scale.

We are looking at eight big changes that will drive a new model for migration in Australia:

  1. The first is simple but important. We need to articulate a clear definition of why our migration system exists, and what problems we want it to solve, so we can design a program where the structure, rules and administration meet those objectives. The Migration Review is finalising the early part of this work.
  2. We need to redesign the fundamental structure of the migration system, and rebalance the temporary and permanent programs. We need sensible, good discussion on the long-term management of the migration program as a whole, including working with our State Government colleagues to address infrastructure, services and housing. I should note that the changes I’m describing here don’t necessarily mean more migrants. The push is for more care, time, attention and strategy to getting the right people here when we need them.
  3. We need to remove policies which create ‘permanently temporary’ conditions. This will mean being clear on where migration is truly temporary and managing this fairly.
  4. We need to sharpen our focus on skills, both having clear strategic thinking behind who we are trying to get here, and where they will come from, as well as a streamlined process that doesn’t frighten them away. This will involve actively selling our country to the migrants we need, not just sitting back and seeing who we get. Part of our goal here will be to create a system that helps deliver skills to our regions, and to small business – two groups which are struggling to access our migration system today.
  5. We need to unlock migrant potential, by improving the speed and ease with which we recognise migrants’ existing skills when they arrive, and increasing support to translate the skills of secondary applicants and others into the labour market.
  6. We need to better coordinate and integrate the needs of the labour market, training and education system and the migration system – and that will mean giving Jobs & Skills Australia a formal role in our migration system for the first time.
  7. We need to design out migrant worker exploitation wherever we can.
  8. We need to fix the administration of the system – simplify the arcane rules and reduce complexity. No more spaghetti diagrams please.

These are the big directions of our work, and I’m really looking forward to working with you in this room on this nation-shaping reform project.

Our next steps are to prepare, based off the work of the Migration Review Team, a draft architecture for a new migration system. We will release that for consultation and discussion in April. And I will be very genuinely keen to hear what you think.

Closing

Let me finish with a quick closing thought.

Australia is often called the Lucky Country, and I know this is overused. But it’s overused because it’s so powerful.

Donald Horne would probably say that back in his day, Australia could have sustained the kind of policy ineptitude I have described on something so fundamentally important to us as a nation.

I truly, deeply believe those days are behind us. The economic, social and security challenges we face are much more serious than what I see when I look back, at least in my adult lifetime. We simply cannot afford to drift any longer. Not with something so truly pivotal to who we are, and what we are, as a country.

One of the most sacred tasks of the national government is to determine who we should invite here to help Australia continue its journey.

Today I have talked about a lot of problems. But what is actually more important to me is the opportunity. Australia is a truly great country, with a fundamentally broken migration system.

Imagine what we can achieve when we get this powerful engine working again for the national interest.

Source: Australia’s Migration System: Breakdown & Fixes

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Legault pitches English Canada for closure of Roxham Road and transfer of migrants

2023/02/23 Leave a comment

While Premier Legault has a point, he and many commentators in Quebec and the Rest of Canada all too often forget about the annual grant for immigration and integration to Quebec under the 1991 Canada-Quebec accord: funding cannot be reduced no matter how much Quebec decreases the number of immigrants it selects and no matter how great the decrease compared to the Rest of Canada.

The numbers for 2022 illustrated this: $697.03M for 69,000 Permanent Residents, rest of Canada $832.41 M for 366,000 Permanent Residents. Or, about $10,000 per Quebec Permanent Residents compared to about $2,300 for the rest of Canada. This overstates the difference somewhat given what is included in the Accord but not dramatically so.

The Minister’s comments, as quoted, suggests the government has no realistic solution to the underlying problem, which likely is the case, but then some honesty and frankness would be welcome:

After demanding for months that Ottawa stop the flow of migrants into the country, Quebec’s premier is making his pitch to English Canada for the closure of an irregular border crossing popular with asylum seekers — and for their transfer outside his province.

The number of would-be refugees entering Quebec “has exploded,” François Legault wrote in an English-language letter published Tuesday in The Globe and Mail, adding that the province’s social services have been pushed to their limits. The sooner the federal government closes Roxham Road — an irregular border crossing in southern Quebec frequently used by asylum seekers — the better, the premier said.

“This situation even raises several humanitarian considerations, as it is becoming increasingly difficult to receive asylum seekers with dignity,” Legault said.

The letter is similar to the one Legault wrote to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Sunday. But unlike the letter to Trudeau, Legault’s message in the Globe does not include concerns that the arrival of thousands of asylum seekers is putting the French language in Montreal at risk. The premier also doesn’t mention that he’s asked Trudeau for more money to pay for the costs of caring for would-be refugees.

“We have therefore asked the federal government to settle new asylum seekers in other provinces that are capable of supporting them with dignity,” Legault wrote in the Globe. The letter called for Ottawa to transfer to other provinces all new asylum seekers who enter irregularly, “while Quebec catches its breath.” Ottawa should issue work permits and process refugee applications faster, he added.

“In the meantime, Mr. Trudeau’s government should send the message loud and clear to would-be migrants not to come via Roxham Road anymore.”

For months, the Legault government has been calling on Ottawa to close Roxham Road and to transfer asylum seekers to other provinces. The influx of would-be refugees in Quebec has put significant strain on the housing, education and social services sectors, the government says.

According to federal government statistics, more than 39,000 people claimed asylum in Quebec in 2022 after crossing into Canada outside official ports of entry, mostly through Roxham Road. About 369 people who crossed irregularly over that period claimed asylum in the rest of the country. In total, around 64 per cent of all asylum claims in Canada in 2022 were made in Quebec.

In response to Legault’s letter to Trudeau, the office of federal Immigration Minister Sean Fraser said Monday that Ottawa had transferred thousands of migrants to Ontario to take pressure off Quebec, adding that the government was working with other provinces and municipalities to find other temporary accommodations.

Source: Legault pitches English Canada for closure of Roxham Road and transfer of migrants

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Close Roxham Road border crossing within 30 days, Poilievre urges

2023/02/23 Leave a comment

Could we not have some more serious discussion of solutions rather than simplistic Conservative virtue signalling and, for that matter, simplistic Liberal virtue signalling?

Ironically, arguments that Canada is “broken” apply particularly in the case of immigration and thus no need for cheap points:

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is calling for the federal government to close the Roxham Road border crossing within 30 days amid a rising influx of migrants entering Quebec irregularly and spurring calls from Quebec leaders who say their communities cannot keep up with the pace.

Speaking to reporters in Ottawa on Tuesday, Poilievre laid the blame for the surge of migrants squarely at the feet of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who he accused of encouraging irregular crossings at Roxham Road and not addressing a backlog of refugee claims.

The Conservative leader argued that Trudeau had already demonstrated Roxham Road could be closed without violating the Safe Third Country Agreement with the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic, and urged the government to do so again — failing to mention the entire border was shut down during that time.

“If we are a real country, we have borders. And if this is a real prime minister, he is responsible for those borders,” he said.

The Safe Third Country Agreement requires asylum seekers arriving in Canada or the U.S. to make their claim in the first country they arrive in and forbids them from first arriving in one country and then making a claim in another. However, migrants who cross the border between official posts can claim asylum after they are intercepted by police as they are already on Canadian soil.

Poilievre’s comments come as Quebec Premier Francois Legault this week called on Trudeau to make the Roxham Road crossings a top priority for next month’s meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden and to renegotiate the agreement.

He reportedly told Trudeau in a letter on Sunday the pact has pushed asylum seekers to Roxham Road, and that a renegotiated treaty should apply to all entry points.

On Tuesday, the Globe and Mail published an English-language letter by Legault where he said the number of would-be asylum seekers entering Quebec “has exploded,” pushing the province’s social services to their limits. The premier also pitched other provinces to take in some of those migrants.

The public letter did not include concerns reportedly expressed by Legault in his letter to Trudeau that the influx of migrants is threatening the French language in Montreal, or his request for more money to pay for the costs of caring for asylum seekers.

Federal statistics show that more than 39,000 people claimed asylum after they were intercepted by the RCMP crossing Canada’s land border into Quebec in 2022, compared with only 369 in the rest of the country.

In total, around 64 per cent of all asylum claims in Canada in 2022 were made in Quebec.

Last year’s numbers were a sharp increase from 2021, when 4,095 migrants were intercepted on Quebec’s southern border.

Poilievre did not offer specifics about how to address the immigration backlog — currently sitting at more than 910,000 applications — but did say money can be redirected from policing the irregular crossing to bolstering the legal immigration system, which he said would help reduce wait times.

“We probably have the best immigration system in the entire world. But Trudeau is breaking it,” he said.

Immigration Minister Sean Fraser said in a statement to Global News that proposing to close Roxham Road within 30 days “without advancing a plan to manage the consequences will not solve the problem” and would only promote more irregular border crossings elsewhere.

“The ideas put forward by Pierre Poilievre are not only reckless, but they lack depth and understanding,” Fraser said.

“As Canada works to navigate a global migration crisis, it is our responsibility to implement real, long-term solutions.”

Fraser acknowledged that Quebec has faced “immense pressure” and said Ottawa has transferred thousands of migrants elsewhere in Canada since last June.

A spokesperson for Fraser’s office clarified that to date, those transfers have been to Ontario, but a “pan-Canadian” approach is in the works.

“We are continuing to work with other provinces and municipalities to identify communities that have the capacity to accommodate additional asylum claimants as we work toward a long-term solution,” Fraser said in his statement.

The minister also encouraged people who want to enter Canada to consider other ways to enter the country.

Source: Close Roxham Road border crossing within 30 days, Poilievre urges

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