All indications are that the steady flow of migrants on Roxham Road will not dry up. But there is no worry, not a big one, not a big one. But we must stop seeing these people as victims of the epidemic and instead as a driving force. Otherwise, we will destroy valuable human capital, require their integration and create more poverty. Sitting on our hands for too long, the excitement could be cruel.
This week I spoke with an American official about the integrity of refugees in the United States. “The elastic stretched to its maximum,” he told me. He was overwhelmed, he never saw it in all his career and dreams of old retirement. His department received fivefold in five years as the number of refugees and people for humanitarian reasons.
At the southern border of the US, in four years, the number of illegal entries increased by a sixth to 2.3 million by 2022, according to US Customs and Border Protection. A new peak. Inevitably, part of all the most beautiful people in Canada ends up on Roxham Road. The result: the number of irregular entries has risen to 40,000 in 2022. A large proportion of people have applied for asylum. It is a derisive image of the Americans, but here is a handwritten note.
In the agreement of the third safe republic, it is meant that it does not. Signed in 2002 between the United States of America and Canada, these two countries signed the Refugee Convention, offering the same protection to people fleeing persecution in their country. Today, the Canadian government claims that the suspension of the agreement will create a diplomatic incident by sending a message to the Americans that they are not honoring their commitment. However, I suspect that the agreement will be received with great support from them.
The agreement has already been put into effect. Not because of humanitarian law issues, but because of a major capacity issue on the American side. There would be 1.7 million asylum applications pending there, seven times more than 10 years ago.
The waiting audience lasts for five years; He has been to Canada twice. Recently, President Joe Biden is also requesting restricted asylum on American soil. “The system has cracks everywhere,” concludes an official who prefers to remain anonymous.
The suspended agreement allows more irregulars to leave American soil with access to all Canadian border crossings along the border, not just Roxham Road. “Maybe you should do your part, who lives in this big, almost empty land,” joked the official. But is Ottawa ready to risk another major increase in asylum applications? The event seems inevitable, but it seems inevitable that everything will be different. Hence the important plan, the vision.
The third wave of the agreement is to secure the borders of the country. Roxham Road becomes the bottleneck that controls the irregular entry of tens of thousands of migrants into Canada.
Closing Roxham Road and maintaining the agreement means the control of the loss of irregular entries, this is the trail of many of these migrants who enter the country, enriching smugglers and feeding the underground whose victims are migrants. Google Maps exists, and our border with the Americans is porous. Quebec is no exception to the rule.
Roxham Road is the “least worst” solution for Ottawa, even if it is at the expense of Quebec. This has a price. The government of Quebec should be liberally rewarded. The large influx of refugees in the Montreal area is forcing the school network. Bernard Drainville, the minister of education, has every right to demand that Ottawa have a footing bill.
If he wants to save Roxham Road, Justin Trudeau will show a lot more leadership and skill than filling the migrant business and sending them to Ontarians at random. This just shifts the problem. We need a structured and highly organized approach, with the participation of all the provinces and interaction with all these people, to include the labor shortages across Canada. Work permits must also be granted quickly to asylum seekers, which is still very lacking.
On the Quebec side, why do they systematically demand that all these people be transported out of Quebec? Why don’t they retain at least French-speaking migrants? Why not allow the areas most affected by unemployment and labor shortages, such as the north coast, into this pool of tireless workers willing to contribute? I think, I think.
It is not that Quebec has reached the capacity to receive them, rather it continues to persist in the already existing reception system that isolates migrants. A government of laws, with all popular support, would be in the best position to expose the power of this living power to the people. It chooses to feed on the prejudices of the environment. It’s never too late to change your approach.
Journalist Laura-Julie Perreault reminds us clearly in her excellent report last Sunday: the majority of these people with a precarious status will remain in Quebec.1 However, they will have 2, 3, 4, 5 years, and even more. no way of taking French lessons. They do not have access from Emploi-Québec. And these people, many of them single mothers, never have access to child care. Because of this, these women cannot work. I do not understand the lack of work. Later, the brass will be accused of living in the state!
Despite all these chances, these people work, combine two or even three jobs at the same time, in difficult situations, they are often overwhelmed. They also learn to speak French. However, as a member of Bourassa-Sauvé, a riding that welcomes many immigrants, they never managed to get their heads out of the murky waters of poverty. The waste of the human head, I said…
In such a context, Solidaire Quebec’s proposal to establish a regularization account for people without status who have been in the country for at least five years is useful. The guardian angel program that regulated the state’s workers’ health care was another, but far too restrictive. This allows people to come out of the margins and integrate them into the formal Quebec economy. They will give tribute and province.
When a member of Bourassa-Sauvé saw it again and again, the uncertain people experience creates an anxious exacerbation of the climate, which is transmitted to the whole family, and the mental health takes a huge blow. All this despair overwhelms the resources of the community, which are already depleted. Quebec is no good.
However, with fresh eyes and a little initiative, in the midst of an unprecedented demographic crisis, the men and women of Roxham Road could contribute even more to Quebec and Canada.
