ICYMI: Quebec demands federal quota system to relocate asylum seekers to other provinces

2024/08/20 Leave a comment

Of note:

Quebec is calling on Ottawa to introduce a nationwide quota system to evenly distribute asylum seekers across Canada.

In a letter sent to federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller on July 22, Quebec Immigration Minister Christine Fréchette recommended that Ottawa set quotas for provinces to receive asylum seekers based on their demographic weight, their capacity to house newcomers as well as their “historic effort” to welcome them.    

The story was first reported by the Journal de Québec.

Fréchette met Thursday with Miller as part of a regular committee meeting to discuss redistribution options, confirmed Miller’s director of communications Aissa Diop.

The immigration ministers of Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and British Columbia also attended, she said.

In July, at the Council of the Federation in Halifax, the provinces called for a “fair distribution” of asylum seekers and demanded that Ottawa consider each province and territories’ resources to support them.

Quebec Premier François Legault has often referred to the influx of asylum seekers in the province as a “national emergency,” saying Quebec no longer has the means to integrate more non-permanent residents.

The day Ottawa pledged $750 million to assist Quebec in supporting newcomers, Legault attributed “100 per cent of the housing problem” in the province to the increase in non-permanent residents.

As of June 19, Quebec reported 597,140 non-permanent residents living in the province. Of that sum, 189,962 were asylum seekers — an amount that represents a little more than half of the total number of asylum seekers in Canada (363,312), according to Quebec’s Immigration Ministry.

However, Ottawa contests those numbers.

Diop would not comment directly on Quebec’s requests in the letter but said a redistribution model for asylum seekers would have incentives for those who support it and disincentives for those who don’t. She would not provide details on Ottawa’s intentions.

“We’re not going to send a message to provinces and territories through the media,” she said. “We need to figure out how to best amalgamate all of their asks and come to a general proposal that would suit everyone.”

She noted the federal government recognizes Quebec and Ontario are bearing the brunt of the increase in asylum seekers.

Limiting work permits provincially

In an effort to ensure asylum seekers go to their assigned location, Fréchette is urging the federal government to restrict their work permits by province.

The restriction would apply until the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada renders a decision on the refugee claim.

The letter also asks Ottawa to relocate asylum seekers to provinces and territories based on factors including their language skills and whether they have relatives living in a given province.

“This system would make it possible to welcome asylum seekers with dignity and ensure that they can contribute to the economic vitality of all regions of Canada,” the letter said.

Creating a countrywide network would alleviate the pressure experienced by Quebec and Ontario — provinces that received a large number of asylum seekers — and prevent non-permanent residents from “systematically heading toward the metropolitan regions of Montreal and Toronto,” the minister argues.

If an asylum seeker were to settle in a different area than the one the federal government assigned, the person would have to assume all accommodation costs upon their arrival, the letter says.

To incentivize provinces to follow the system, Quebec suggests that Ottawa create a new federal transfer tied to an information-sharing system that would help offset some of the costs of services for asylum seekers.

The letter also emphasizes Quebec’s repeated demand for Ottawa to tighten visa requirements.

It says 17,490 asylum claims were filed in the province between Jan. 1 and March 31. Nearly half of them (8,070) were filed by claimants who entered Canada with a visitor visa

Most people seeking asylum in Quebec are from India and Bangladesh, according to the province.

Source: Quebec demands federal quota system to relocate asylum seekers to other provinces

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Todd: Quixotic Trudeau finally getting pushback over asylum-seeker chaos

2024/08/03 Leave a comment

Inevitable although most asylum seeker and refugee stakeholders remain largely in denial:

Reality is teaching some important lessons to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about flirting with the ideal of virtually open borders. So are Canada’s premiers and the public.

Particularly in regard to asylum seekers.

For months B.C. Premier David Eby and Quebec Premier François Legault have been almost frantically trying to send a message to Trudeau and his childhood friend, Immigration Minister Marc Miller, that they should no longer indulge in their romantic rhetoric of the past.

“To those fleeing persecution, terror and war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength. #WelcomeToCanada,” Trudeau told the world on Twitter/X on Jan. 28, 2017.

It was the day after newly inaugurated U.S. President Donald Trump issued an executive order banning refugees from Muslim-majority countries. Trump had also proposed the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants. Trudeau promised to be their saviour.

Even though Eby and Legault are among the most bold in their pushback, they haven’t been alone in trying to educate Trudeau about the costs, in public dollars, of such grandstanding on asylum seekers.

As with the categories of guest workers, international students and immigrants under Trudeau, the number of refugee claimants has soared during his nine-year-old Liberal regime.

There are now 363,000 asylum claimants in the country, according to Statistics Canada — double two years ago.

A couple of years ago most claimants were walking across the U.S. border into Eastern Canada, which U.S. President Joe Biden last year helped to tighten up.

So now most arrive at airports in Toronto and Montreal, and to some extent Calgary and Vancouver, particularly from Asia. They come in  legally with study or travel visas and then make their claims after leaving the airport, saying they’re escaping various forms of persecution.

It normally takes about two years, and often longer if there is an appeal, for the refugee board to research backgrounds and make a ruling on a case, says Anne Michèle Meggs, a former Quebec immigration official who now writes independently on the subject.

This year the average number of asylum claims made per month in B.C. has jumped to 640 — up 37 per cent compared with last year, says Meggs.

B.C. has the third largest intake of asylum claimants in the country. Most still go to Ontario, where she says average monthly claims have leapt by 53 per cent, or Quebec, where they’re up 20 per cent.

Canada’s premiers have been telling Trudeau for the past few months that, regardless of the validity of their assertions, asylum seekers cost taxpayers a great deal of money.

Most arrive with no financial means. And while they wait for their cases to be evaluated to see if they get coveted permanent resident status, federal and provincial agencies often provide social services, housing, food, clothing, health care, children’s education and (in Quebec) daycare.

Stories of an out-of-control refugee system are likely contributing to fast-changing opinion poll results. Last week Leger discovered 60 per cent of Canadians now think there are “too many” newcomers. That’s a huge shift from just 35 per cent in 2019.

It’s the highest rate of dissatisfaction in decades — based in part on demand pressure on housing and infrastructure costs. The negative polling result is consistent across both white and non-white Canadians.

In response to complaints out of Quebec, Trudeau has this year coughed up $750 million more for that province to support refugee claimants who arrived in recent years, mostly at the land border. Last year Quebec dealt with a total of 65,000 claims and Ontario with 63,000, with the largest cohorts from Mexico and India.

But B.C., as Eby is telling anyone who will listen, has received no dollars from Ottawa. The premier described how “frustrating” it is for B.C. to “scrabble around” for funds in the province, where housing is among the most expensive in the world, while Quebec gets extra.

“Our most recent total for last year was 180,000 new British Columbians,” Eby said last month, including asylum seekers among all international migrants to the province. “And that’s great and that’s exciting and it’s necessary, and it’s completely overwhelming.”

Eby didn’t even publicly mention the increasingly bizarre anomaly, based on the three-decades-old Quebec Accord, which each year leads to Quebec getting 10 times more funding than B.C. and Ontario to settle newcomers.

Postmedia News has found Metro Vancouver’s shelters are being overwhelmed by the near-doubling of asylum seekers in B.C. in the past year.

The Salvation Army, which operates 100 beds in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, said that since last summer, the proportion of refugee claimants seeking shelter has climbed to about 80 per cent. Meanwhile, about 60 per cent of beds at the Catholic Charities Men’s Shelter in Vancouver were occupied by refugee claimants. Shelters are predominantly funded by taxpayers.

Government statistics show B.C. is now home to 16,837 asylum claimants, says Meggs. That doesn’t include the 5,300 who last year arrived in the province on a more orderly track as government-assisted refugees.

In an article in Inroads magazine, a social policy journal, Meggs says her ”jaw dropped” when Trudeau said in April the number of temporary immigrants, including asylum seekers, was “out of control” and “growing at a rate far beyond what Canada has been able to absorb.”

The cognitive dissonance, she explained, is because Trudeau’s government is entirely responsible for the system spinning out-of control since 2015 — and not only in numbers, but in selection criteria, or lack thereof.

Trudeau has admitted chaos particularly characterizes the dilemma with international students, whose numbers have tripled under his reign to 1.1 million. Many are now claiming asylum. B.C. has 217,000 foreign students in post-secondary institutions and another 49,000 in kindergarten-to-Grade-12 programs.

Vancouver immigration lawyer Richard Kurland is among those suggesting it would be best if Canada processed about 50,000 refugee claimants a year, since it doesn’t have absorptive capacity for more — like the 144,000 who applied last year.

One big problem is the government knows little or nothing about a lot of asylum seekers, say Kurland and Meggs (who generally shares the centre-left leanings of her brother, Geoff Meggs, former chief of staff to NDP Premier John Horgan.)

The immigration department’s ignorance is in part because many make their claims online. Officials don’t even know where tens of thousands live. Meanwhile, Meggs laments, countless claimants are both aided and exploited by people smugglers, landlords and underground employers.

Meggs doesn’t really know how Ottawa is going to get things under control. And, if Trump is re-elected in November and follows through on his vow to get rid of millions of undocumented migrants, it’s virtually guaranteed many will head north to Canada, trying to find ways to pass through what Meggs describes as an incredibly long and understaffed border.

Even though Meggs isn’t optimistic about the future of asylum-seeker policy in Canada, at least the premiers and public are making noises. The thing is, given the Liberals’ defensiveness, it’s just far too soon to tell if their criticism will inspire not empty words but authentic change.

Source: Quixotic Trudeau finally getting pushback over asylum-seeker chaos

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Canada’s refugee system is overwhelmed by skyrocketing claims. What can Ottawa do to reduce backlogs?

2024/08/02 Leave a comment

It starts with reversing some of the visa waivers or relaxed requirements for source countries that are experiencing a major increase along with some of the post-arrival suggestions mentioned by lawyers. And while some will not like it, AI should be part of the triage process:

Canada’s refugee system has been the envy of the world. It’s recognized as being orderly, fair and efficient when compared to any other western country.

But as the number of asylum seekers keeps surging here — and with the queue and processing times getting longer, the beleaguered system is in desperate need of a rethink to save it from spiraling out of control and being clogged up in endless backlogs.

“It didn’t take long for me to realize with the team that we needed to maintain our ability to render fair decisions despite the growing intake,” Manon Brassard, who was appointed as the chair of the Immigration and Refugee Board a year ago, told a Senate committee in June. “We need to do something about that.”

In 2023, the country’s largest independent tribunal received 138,000 new claims, up by 129 per cent from the year before and by 136 per cent in 2019, before the pandemic halted international travels and slowed the inflow. In the first three months of 2024, already 46,700 claims were lodged, with a total of 186,000 cases in the queue.

In the spring, the federal government tried unsuccessfully to ram through some much-needed changes to the asylum system through an omnibus bill that it said were necessary to streamline the process and tackle a growing backlog.

Those changes would have simplified the initial registration of a refugee claim; imposed “mandatory conditions” and timelines that claimants must follow to avoid their cases from being deemed abandoned; and allowed immigration officials to hold on to a file before referring it to the refugee board for hearing. 

Immigration Minister Marc Miller told the Star in a recent interview that the status quo is unsustainable.

“It was unfortunate,” he said of the foiled reforms carved out of the budget bill amid complaints by advocates for the lack of consultation. “Those amendments were fair in nature, and they were intended to accelerate some of the processing.”

Miller said he has some decisions to make in the coming months and is not ruling out reintroducing the proposed changes in a new bill.

The refugee board’s dilemma

Despite an extra $87 million in federal funding over two years — and new rules to crack down on irregular migration through U.S. land border — the refugee board only has the capacity to process 50,000 claims a year. With more than 186,000 cases pending, it would take almost four years to clear its inventory, even if new intakes were halted.

And the board is not going to get more money. As part of the federal budget cuts, the tribunal must reduce spending by $8.3 million this year, $10.5 million in 2025 and $13.6 million in 2026 and beyond.

Without the proposed legislative changes, the tribunal has few tools at its disposal.

“Money is part of the solution, but it’s not the only solution,” Brassard, who declined the Star’s interview request for this story, told senators in June. “We need to improve the way we do things.”

The board is developing a plan, known as “Horizon 26-27,” to streamline its operations and processes with the help of technology and automation, but few details are available. The aim is that by next March it will be able to process 80 per cent of claims within two years, as opposed to the current 37 months.

Critics urge for greater efficiency 

Critics say that while the board does need more decision-makers, it must also improve efficiency, and the government could help take some of the asylum seekers out of the queue by providing them with alternative pathways.

The tribunal already has policies to expedite less complex claims, such as those that appear to have solid evidence and are from clearly troubled countries.

Brassard told the Senate committee that the board has a task force to review cases — covering Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Turkey and Venezuela — for quicker processing and about a third of the claims go through the screening.

However, immigration lawyer Robert Blanshay said even if an asylum seeker is selected for less complex screening, the case is still required to go before a refugee judge for a decision.

He said the board could hire trained administrative staff to review cases and interview claimants to make a record for the adjudicator to just sign off on, to save time and resources for formal hearings.

“On paper, it has been implemented, but it’s been severely underutilized,” said Blanshay, vice-chair of the refugee and litigation committee of the Canadian Bar Association’s immigration section.

Immigration lawyer Maureen Silcoff, who served as an adjudicator on the refugee board in the 1990s, said there used to be refugee protection officers — neutral parties — tasked with interviewing claimants where credibility was the only concern.

“You had an opportunity to ask questions and get clarification about some points that might be troubling you and could be resolved,” she explained. “The member (adjudicator) who signed off on the decision did so with more comfort.”

Silcoff said it’s worth bringing back the eliminated administrative position and triaging cases into three streams based on complexity: those requiring a full hearing, an interview if there are a few questions, or just a paper review for the most solid claims.

Aviva Basman, president of the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, said the current asylum process is complicated and cumbersome, and the online portal, launched in 2021, takes a long time to fill out, especially when a claim involves multiple applicants.

Currently, foreign nationals can seek asylum at port of entry or make an inland claim after entering the country. However, there continues to be inconsistent and confusing information, for example, about deadlines to file documents, depending on the entry point into the refugee system. 

The less complex file review process is also somewhat unclear, which discourages counsel from even making an attempt because it requires substantial resources to make a case.

“What you have is a complicated, cumbersome refugee claim process where a lot of people are having a hard time,” said Basman. “Having simpler, streamlined processes would be a good thing.”

Alternative pathways for refugees

In addition to adequately resourcing asylum processes, a recent international report recommends governments alleviate pressure on their refugee determination systems by providing safe, orderly alternatives through resettlement programs and regular immigration pathways.

“Narrow- or short-sighted policies that focus on only one piece of the puzzle are likely to merely push the problem elsewhere,” warned the report by Washington-based Migration Policy Institute and the Robert Bosch Stiftung, a German foundation. 

Silcoff said Ottawa could expand on initiatives that offer immigration status to asylum seekers employed in fields with labour shortages, such as a one-time program during the pandemic that granted permanent residence to asylum seekers working in health care and a current pilot that resettles skilled refugees abroad to fill in-demand jobs here. 

“That could be a win-win,” said Silcoff. “It meets our labour market needs and it helps relieve the pressure from the refugee board.”

Source: Canada’s refugee system is overwhelmed by skyrocketing claims. What can Ottawa do to reduce backlogs?

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Ottawa considering buying hotels to house growing number of asylum seekers

2024/07/04 Leave a comment

Sigh. Recognition of reality or abandoning efforts to reduce the numbers or speed up the claim processes:

Ottawa is considering buying hotels to house the growing number of asylum seekers and to cut the cost of block-booking hotel rooms to accommodate them, Immigration Minister Marc Miller says.

The federal government has in the last few years taken out long leases on hotels to help provinces house thousands of refugee claimants. This year, Ottawa has been footing the bill for approximately 4,000 hotel rooms for 7,300 asylum seekers, many of whom have transferred from provincial shelters and churches, according to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

In a recent interview, Mr. Miller said the government is looking at a more sustainable and affordable way to house people claiming refugee status, including buying hotels and converting them.

One model being considered could involve installing federal and provincial officials in the converted hotels to provide front-line services to asylum seekers waiting for their cases to be heard, he added.

Despite efforts to “stabilize” the number of asylum claimants, “these numbers aren’t going down drastically anytime soon,” Mr. Miller said….

Source: Ottawa considering buying hotels to house growing number of asylum seekers

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Le Devoir Éditorial | Un formulaire en échange d’un toit

2024/05/18 Leave a comment

To watch how these discussions progress or not:

…Il y a un bon moment que le Québec s’indigne à juste titre de l’apathie d’Ottawa dans ce dossier. Les deux gouvernements se disputent sur les chiffres, au point où cette querelle a paralysé les actions sur le terrain. La famille Aguamba en a vécu le contrecoup à la dure.

Québec affirme qu’en 2023, il a reçu plus de 65 000 des quelque 144 000 demandeurs d’asile entrés au Canada, soit 45 % de la totalité. Des données ouvertes d’Immigration, Réfugiés et Citoyenneté Canada (IRCC) consultées par Le Devoir montrent une autre réalité, avec environ 35 % des entrées associées au Québec. L’écart s’expliquerait essentiellement par le fait qu’une proportion des demandeurs d’asile bel et bien entrés au Québec vogue ensuite vers d’autres provinces, dont l’Ontario.

Les ministres de l’Immigration des provinces et leur homologue fédéral, Marc Miller, ont convenu la semaine dernière de créer un comité fédéral-provincial dont la mission sera précisément d’étudier finement cette répartition des demandeurs d’asile entre les provinces, afin de mieux se disputer ensuite la part de la tarte financière. S’agit-il d’une diversion politique et d’une manière de pelleter vers l’avant un problème qui, pendant qu’on l’ausculte en comité, ne peut que s’aggraver ?

Ce comité est créé sous l’impulsion de la ministre de l’Immigration du Québec, Christine Fréchette, qui dit s’inspirer d’initiatives semblables tentées dans l’Union européenne, en Allemagne et en Suisse par exemple. Parlementer autour d’une meilleure répartition entre les provinces, pour décharger le Québec et l’Ontario d’une pression indue, est une idée à laquelle on ne peut s’opposer. Espérons que ce nouvel espace de dialogue servira à mettre sur pied des solutions constructives plutôt qu’à poursuivre une guerre de chiffres stérile.

Source: Éditorial | Un formulaire en échange d’un toit

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Is there a better place to put refugees than hotels? The push for a national asylum plan

2024/04/06 Leave a comment

Part of a national asylum plan, not mentioned by refugee advocates, has to include reviewing visa and related policies to reduce the numbers (e.g., reversing the loosening of visa restrictions regarding demonstrating adequate funds or demonstrate they will leave the country when their visas expire, exit controls to ensure solid data on visa overstays, already announced measures to cap the number of international students will have an impact):

Asylum seekers are sleeping on the pavement in downtown Toronto. An encampment spreads outside a homeless shelter in Mississauga. A church in Vaughan is building tiny homes on its Greenbelt property.

These are some of the messy consequences of the surging number of asylum seekers who are coming to Canada and landing in the GTA. And it reflects what happens when all levels of governments lack a co-ordinated game plan and fail to invest in existing infrastructure to accommodate a surging displaced population around the world, advocates for refugees warn.

The Canadian Council for Refugees (CCR) is urging the federal government to address critical gaps in the reception and support of asylum seekers by establishing a national system that replicates the one that currently supports resettled refugees such as those from Ukraine.

“We know in today’s global context that Canada will continue to receive people who are seeking protection from persecution,” Gauri Sreenivasan, the council’s co-executive director, told a news conference in Ottawa on Thursday.

“Canadians are expecting a plan, not stopgap measures, and it is long past time to put in place a comprehensive, co-ordinated, cost-effective system that treats refugee claimants with dignity and fairness.”

Canada received 137,947 new asylum claims in 2023 — up from 60,158 the year before — and many have been caught up in the country’s affordable housing crisis, despite efforts by the federal government to redirect new arrivals from big cities to smaller communities. Ottawa has also invested another $362 million to house asylum seekers this year, in addition to $212 million announced last summer.

“We will continue to be there to support vulnerable people and the communities that provide them shelter,” Immigration Minister Marc Miller told reporters in January when announcing the new money.

But there are cheaper ways to serve those needs with better planning and co-ordination, advocates say…

Source: Is there a better place to put refugees than hotels? The push for a national asylum plan

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Quebec asks Ottawa for $1B to cover rising costs of asylum seekers

2024/02/22 Leave a comment

Understandable, even somewhat hypocritical given that under the Canada-Quebec Accord, Quebec’s financial transfer is independent of immigration levels and thus, given lower immigration levels, gets significantly more funding on a per immigrant basis than other provinces:

The Quebec government is calling on Ottawa to reimburse $1 billion — the amount the province says it has spent to welcome a growing number of asylum seekers.

At a news conference Tuesday, Immigration Minister Christine Fréchette, Education Minister Bernard Drainville, Social Solidarity Minister Chantal Rouleau and Jean-François Roberge, minister of Canadian Relations, said the increase in new arrivals may soon become untenable for Quebec’s education network and social services. 

The province says it spent $576.9 million in 2023 on social services to support migrants. It says that is on top of the $470 million it spent in 2021 and 2022. 

As of Dec. 31, 55 per cent of asylum seekers currently residing in Canada — 160,651 people out of 289,047 — are in Quebec. 

“This is completely unreasonable,” Fréchette said. “Our capacity to provide services to asylum seekers has limits.” 

The province is asking the federal government to relocate asylum seekers more equitably throughout Canada and to slow the influx of asylum seekers entering the country by tightening Canadian visa policies.

It also wants Ottawa to close loopholes that it says would allow criminal groups to infiltrate Canada and to reimburse the province for all costs linked to welcoming asylum seekers from 2021 to 2023. 

Roberge, who is the minister responsible for relations with the rest of the country, said the federal government’s “passive attitude” toward Quebec’s reception of asylum seekers “must absolutely end.”

Fréchette pointed to the four Atlantic provinces, which together received a total of 380 asylum seekers in 2023, compared to Quebec’s 65,570. 

A spokesperson for Quebec’s immigration minister said since Roxham Road closed in March 2023, the five main countries of origin of asylum seekers who stayed in the province are Mexico, India, Haiti, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Senegal. 

The amount Quebec says it has spent on last-resort financial assistance for asylum seekers between 2022 and 2023 went from $163 million to $370 million — a 127 per cent increase.

In January, Quebec said it recorded a spike in the number of requests for social assistance, which it attributed to the increase in asylum seekers. 

Data from the Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Solidarity shows that requests for social assistance made by asylum seekers increased by 27 per cent at the start of 2024 compared to the same period of the previous year.  

In the past couple of years, requests for social assistance by asylum seekers have grown from 27,099 in October 2022 to 43,174 in October 2023, according to ministry data.

So far, discussions with Ottawa haven’t led to an agreement. The federal government transferred $100 million to Quebec three weeks ago to support a program to house migrants, but Fréchette said the injection is “clearly insufficient.”

Increase in asylum seekers weighing down school network

Even if the federal government reimburses Quebec, the ministers say money wouldn’t solve the root of the problem. 

Although Quebec is obligated to provide instruction to asylum seekers who are minors, the education minister says the province is reaching a “breaking point,” where it cannot rule out the possibility that educating them would be unfeasible.

“We are approaching a point where we will not be able to serve people who are already on the Quebec territory,” Drainville said. “What Quebec has done to educate these asylum-seeking children in recent years is exceptional, but now, it can’t continue like this.”

There are 1,200 French-language classes for newcomers in Quebec, which is the equivalent of 52 elementary schools, Drainville said. Montreal’s French school service centre has been receiving 80 new registrations per week. 

At this rate, he says the province would need to open three to four new elementary schools by the end of the school year just to teach young asylum seekers French. 

“The risk is that we will not be able to offer them the education they are entitled to,” Drainville told reporters. “We’re hoping something can be done to bring down the level, and we’re calling on the federal government to take its responsibilities.”

What is most challenging for Montreal’s French school service centre is recruiting teachers in the middle of the school year to meet the needs of additional students, says the centre’s director of services, Mathieu Desjardins. 

There are more than 6,100 students enrolled in elementary and high school French-languages classes of the Centre de services scolaire de Montréal, he said. Previously, the total number of those students did not exceed 5,400. 

“We are still managing to recruit new teachers, but of course, they are teachers who are not legally qualified,” he said. “Resorting to non-legally qualified teachers is one of the solutions we currently have to respond to the teacher shortage.” 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday the federal government recognizes how generously Quebecers have been welcoming asylum seekers.

“The federal government was there with hundreds of thousands of dollars, and we will continue to work hand in hand with Quebec to ensure that we can move forward in the right way,” Trudeau said at a news conference in Vancouver.

“The important thing, obviously, is to reassure everyone from one end of this country to the other that we have a functional, rigorous immigration system where the rules are being followed.” 

Announcement ‘damaging’ for asylum seekers, advocate says

In recent weeks, public discourse in Quebec has revolved around the pressure immigration puts on housing and social services. 

But strains on government services have “more complex explanations than only the arrival of newcomers,” said Louis-Philippe Jannard, the protection stream co-ordinator of the Table de concertation des organismes au service des personnes réfugiées et immigrantes (TCRI) — a  group of over 150 organizations supporting newcomers

“It’s very damaging for asylum seekers to be scapegoated as they have been this morning by the Quebec government,” said Jannard. 

In particular, he says the government suggesting that newcomers were overburdening the education network was “below the belt.” 

“It’s been documented in the past decades as well that there has been some underfunding of the education system,” he said, alluding to numerous reports of teachers leaving the professionafter a couple of years because of poor working conditions. 

“The so-called ‘breaking point’ — I don’t think it’s caused by the arrival of asylum seekers,” Jannard said.  

Source: Quebec asks Ottawa for $1B to cover rising costs of asylum seekers

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La langue ne peut pas être le critère principal dans la répartition des demandeurs d’asile, dit Québec

2024/02/17 Leave a comment

A noter. Quick rebuke to proposal from the French Language Commissioner:

Le critère de la langue ne peut pas être le facteur principal dans la répartition des demandeurs d’asile à travers le Canada, selon le gouvernement caquiste. Si ce dernier souhaite toujours voir davantage de ces immigrants se diriger vers d’autres provinces, cela doit d’abord se faire « sur une base volontaire », a indiqué jeudi la ministre de l’Immigration, Christine Fréchette.

L’élue du gouvernement de François Legault réagissait ainsi au plus récent rapport du commissaire à la langue française, Benoît Dubreuil, qui recommandait mercredi que la maîtrise de la langue française devienne un critère dans la répartition des demandeurs d’asile. Dans ce scénario, les demandeurs qui ne parlent pas français seraient redirigés vers le reste du Canada.

« Il y a exactement une année, le fédéral avait mis en place un système pour faire en sorte de donner de l’oxygène au Québec, pour faire en sorte de répartir l’ensemble des demandeurs d’asile davantage en Ontario et dans les provinces atlantiques », a rappelé jeudi la ministre Fréchette en mêlée de presse avec son collègue à la Langue française, Jean-François Roberge. « Nous, on demande de reprendre cette approche-là et de faire en sorte que, sur une base volontaire, les demandeurs d’asile soient [redirigés]. »

Interrogée sur le critère de la langue française, Mme Fréchette a répété qu’elle demandait « au fédéral d’agir sur une base volontaire pour la répartition des demandeurs d’asile ». « Les moyens qu’il utilisera pour le faire, c’est à sa discrétion », a-t-elle ajouté.

À Ottawa, le ministre fédéral de l’Immigration, Marc Miller, n’a pas attendu pour rejeter les propositions du commissaire à la langue française. En réponse à une question du député de Lac-Saint-Jean, le bloquiste Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, il a soutenu que « déporter des gens qui ne parlent pas le français au [reste du] Canada » serait « un geste illégal, immoral, qui manquerait d’humanité ».

La langue parlée « ne devrait pas être le critère principal », a-t-il poursuivi lorsqu’interrogé directement sur la recommandation du commissaire Dubreuil.

Ottawa doit « sortir de sa bulle »

Au début de l’année, le premier ministre François Legault avait envoyé une lettre à son homologue fédéral, Justin Trudeau, pour exiger que les demandeurs d’asile, qui arrivent en grande partie par l’aéroport Montréal-Trudeau, soient mieux répartis à travers le Canada. « On a une situation qui est critique au Québec », a dit jeudi Mme Fréchette, tout en demandant à Ottawa de « sortir de sa bulle ».

Or, depuis, rien. Bien que le ministre Miller ait assuré jeudi travailler pour « répartir le fardeau que porte le Québec ».

Au Salon bleu, jeudi, le chef du Parti québécois, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, a accusé le gouvernement caquiste d’être « responsable du pire déclin linguistique de notre histoire ». Son collègue député Pascal Bérubé a accusé la ministre Fréchette de ne pas vouloir « froisser son homologue fédéral ». Comme le commissaire à la langue française, la formation souverainiste appuie l’idée d’une répartition basée sur la langue. « C’est une bonne proposition », a dit M. Bérubé, porte-parole péquiste en matière d’immigration.

En réponse à M. St-Pierre Plamondon, le ministre Roberge a rappelé que son gouvernement travaillait à un « réveil national » sur la langue française. « Ça prend du culot pour […] demander un réveil national quand on dort à ce point-là sur cet enjeu-là », a répliqué le chef péquiste, avant d’être rappelé à l’ordre par la présidente de l’Assemblée nationale pour l’utilisation du mot non parlementaire « culot ».

S’il appuie le commissaire à la langue française sur la nécessité d’une meilleure répartition des demandeurs d’asile, Québec solidaire souhaite, comme la Coalition avenir Québec, que ces transferts se fassent de manière « volontaire ». « On ne mettra pas du monde qui ne veut pas aller ailleurs dans un autobus. De toute façon, on ne peut pas faire ça », a soutenu le porte-parole solidaire en matière d’immigration, Guillaume Cliche-Rivard.

« Du moment où ça va être volontaire, ça ne sera pas inhumain. Du moment où les gens vont être consentants », a-t-il ajouté.

Le Parti libéral du Québec, lui, ne voit pas les choses du même oeil que le commissaire Dubreuil. « Si les immigrants veulent rester de façon permanente, on doit mettre en place des programmes qui leur permettront d’apprendre le français. On ne peut pas se mettre à la porte et dire : “Vous ne parlez pas français, on vous refuse l’accès” », a soutenu le chef intérimaire du parti, Marc Tanguay.

Source: La langue ne peut pas être le critère principal dans la répartition des demandeurs d’asile, dit Québec

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‘Breaking point’: Quebec premier asks Trudeau to slow influx of asylum seekers

2024/01/19 Leave a comment

Valid concerns but with respect to costs, Legault avoids discussing the disproportionate amount Quebec gets under the Canada Quebec accord that ensures Quebec gets a fixed percentage of settlement funding irrespective of the immigration share:

Quebec Premier François Legault is asking Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to slow the influx of asylum seekers entering his province, which he said is nearing a “breaking point.”

Legault made his request in an official letter to Trudeau sent Wednesday afternoon, a copy of which was obtained by The Canadian Press.

“We are very close to the breaking point due to the excessive number of asylum seekers arriving in Quebec month after month. The situation has become unsustainable,” Legault wrote.

He said that in 2022, Quebec took in more asylum seekers than the rest of the country combined.

The closure of the unofficial Roxham Road crossing point south of Montreal in 2023 “momentarily” slowed the flow, he said.

“However, the arrivals have continued to increase at airports. The number of people arriving on a visitor visa and applying for asylum is also increasing significantly.”

Nearly 60,000 new asylum seekers were registered in Quebec in the first 11 months of 2023, which has put “very significant pressure” on services, the premier writes.

“Asylum seekers have trouble finding a place to live, which contributes to accentuating the housing crisis,” the letter said. “Many end up in homeless shelters, which are overflowing.”

He said organizations that help asylum seekers can’t keep up with demand. Legault said the children of asylum seekers are also straining schools that already have a shortage of teachers and space.

The premier reminded Trudeau that asylum seekers who are waiting for work permits receive financial assistance from Quebec. Last October, some 43,200 asylum seekers received $33 million in aid.

Legault expressed particular concern over Mexican nationals, who he said represent a growing proportion of the asylum seekers coming to the province.

“The possibility of entering Canada from Mexico without a visa certainly explains part of the influx of asylum seekers,” he said.

“The airports, particularly in Toronto and Montreal, are becoming sieves and it is time to act,” he added.

Legault is formally asking the prime minister to tighten its policies around granting visas. He’s also seeking the “equitable” distribution of asylum seekers across Canada, possibly by busing them to other provinces.

Source: ‘Breaking point’: Quebec premier asks Trudeau to slow influx of asylum seekers

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Vastel: Les prévisibles répercussions d’une volte-face irréfléchie [removal Mexican visa requirement]

2024/01/17 Leave a comment

Indeed:

Le résultat était prévisible. Le gouvernement de Justin Trudeau en avait été prévenu. Le premier ministre s’est néanmoins entêté, dès son arrivée au pouvoir, à lever l’obligation de visas imposée par son prédécesseur aux ressortissants mexicains. Et le Canada peine aujourd’hui, inéluctablement, à gérer l’explosion de leurs arrivées et des demandes d’asile, qui aurait pu être évitée, n’eût été l’acharnement politique du premier ministre au détriment de la bonne politique publique.

Le mois dernier, Radio-Canada nous apprenait qu’Ottawa ouvre désormais la porte à un retour sur cette décision mal avisée. Une sage volte-face, si elle se confirme. Car rien ne justifiait d’éliminer en 2016 l’imposition de visas aux voyageurs du Mexique, hormis la volonté de Justin Trudeau d’honorer une promesse électorale, de démanteler du même coup l’héritage de son prédécesseur conservateur et de tenter, sitôt élu, de se forger une réputation sur la scène internationale.

Les fonctionnaires fédéraux avaient même averti les troupes de Justin Trudeau des risques d’un tel amendement à sa politique d’immigration : que des ressortissants d’autres pays se munissent de faux passeports du Mexique pour pouvoir entrer librement au Canada, que des membres du crime organisé se faufilent pour s’installer au pays et que les demandes d’asile injustifiées se multiplient. Sept ans plus tard, voilà précisément ce que constatent les autorités canadiennes, ont révélé une série de reportages de Radio-Canada l’automne dernier. C’est à croire que M. Trudeau aurait mieux fait de se fier à l’expertise de la fonction publique fédérale plutôt qu’à sa simple volonté politique. Quelle idée saugrenue.

L’ancien premier ministre Stephen Harper avait imposé en 2009, au grand mécontentement du Mexique, l’obligation pour ses ressortissants d’obtenir un visa pour voyager au Canada. Le nombre de demandes d’asile présentées par des Mexicains à leur arrivée en sol canadien atteignait alors des records (9500 pour la seule année 2009), après avoir presque triplé au cours des trois années précédentes. L’effet a été immédiat, et ces demandes ont chuté pour ne se chiffrer cinq ans plus tard qu’à 90.

Mais aussitôt le visa remplacé par une simple autorisation de voyage électronique, la tendance s’est inéluctablement inversée. En 2022, à la suite de la réouverture complète post-pandémie des frontières, près de 8000 ressortissants mexicains ont demandé le statut de réfugié aux douanes aéroportuaires canadiennes entre les mois de janvier et octobre — dont 82 % à l’aéroport international de Montréal. Malgré tout, le gouvernement Trudeau — qui avait laissé entendre en 2016, pour apaiser les craintes soulevées par ses propres fonctionnaires, qu’il plafonnerait l’arrivée de migrants mexicains à 3500 par année — refusait alors toujours d’adapter sa politique d’accueil.

Au cours des neuf premiers mois de 2023, ce chiffre aurait atteint 17 500 demandes. Or, à peine 30 % de celles-ci sont acceptées en moyenne. L’arrivée d’un visa, en 2009, avait fait chuter de 85 % le nombre de fausses demandes présentées.

Le Québec s’inquiète depuis l’an dernier de ce nouveau flux d’arrivées par avion, qui ne sont pas équivalentes au nombre d’entrées irrégulières du chemin Roxham, fermé en mars dernier, mais qui se font encore de façon disproportionnée à Montréal. Les États-Unis sont venus ajouter leur voix, constatant que l’entrée irrégulière de Mexicains sur leur territoire, bien que bien moindre par leur frontière nord, avait plus que quadruplé entre 2015 et 2023 (plus de 4800 arrestations l’an dernier).

Pendant que le gouvernement de François Legault attend toujours qu’Ottawa acquiesce à sa demande de remboursement pour l’accueil quasi exclusif de migrants sur son territoire, les doléances des Américains, elles, ont visiblement davantage convaincu le gouvernement canadien que le statu quo était intenable. La sourde oreille réservée au Québec s’est avérée tout ouïe pour Washington.

Il est désormais à souhaiter que le gouvernement Trudeau mûrisse rapidement sa réflexion et admette enfin son erreur. La précarité économique et l’instabilité sécuritaire qui sévissent au Mexique ne permettent pas — et n’ont malheureusement jamais permis depuis 10 ans — une porte ouverte et sans contrôle à ses ressortissants. La liaison aérienne Mexico-Montréal ne peut devenir une passoire, aux répercussions largement documentées ces derniers mois.

Le Québec, d’abord, s’en trouve à accueillir un nombre de demandeurs d’asile de plus en plus difficile à gérer pour ses services publics. Et c’est l’intégrité du système d’immigration canadien qui risque d’être fragilisée. Cette volte-face arbitraire, qui n’a jamais eu lieu d’être, doit maintenant une fois pour toutes être à son tour renversée.

Source: Les prévisibles répercussions d’une volte-face irréfléchie

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