"Investing" in Canada's Future

"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."

"Asylum seekers have trouble find a place to live, which contributes to accentuating the housing crisis. Many end up in homeless shelters, which are overflowing."

"The possibility of entering Canada from Mexico without a visa certainly explains part of the influx of asylum seekers."

"The airports, particularly in Toronto and Montreal, are becoming sieves and it is time to act."

Quebec Premier Francois Legault 

RCMP officers unveil a new sign at Roxham Road. (Carlos Osorio/Reuters)

 

The Liberal government of Justin Trudeau has much to account for; its laissez-faire attitude toward illegal entry into Canada has come home to roost. The acute housing shortage that Canada and Canadians have encountered, with the younger demographic marrying and preparing to raise a family experiencing the rude awakening of recognition that the normal trajectory of young adults moving into an era of their own where they expect to buy a home to get on with their lives with the same kind of comfortable predictability as their parents is no longer possible.

People get off a bus at a gas station to take a taxi to cross into Canada at Roxham Road on March 25. (Carlos Osorio/Reuters)

 

There is general agreement among financial houses, economists and the broader public that recognizes the influx of people as a result of immigration, refugee intake, student study visas, work visas and illegal migrant arrivals have stretched Canada's resources -- not just housing, but medical and hospitalization, and other levels of social services, including emergency housing of the unhoused and homeless -- beyond its capacity to absorb any more.

The federal government, it has been revealed, introduced a million newcomers to Canada through refugee intake, immigration, student visas, work permits and migrants in the last year alone. And it has stated it has no intention to cut down on absorbing new waves of people into Canada's population. Canada has always welcomed newcomers, but never on this scale; among G7 countries Canada absorbs far more people than its nearest contemporaries. Canada sees it as a competitive story; as populations are failing to reproduce themselves and becoming older, the economy suffers with not enough people to  fill employment needs.

 

Quebec's premier has now formally requested that the Trudeau government cut back on its embrace of asylum seekers. In 2022, he pointed out, Quebec absorbed more asylum seekers than the rest of the country combined through the unofficial Roxham Road crossing point south of Montreal. COVID slowed the influx. "However, t he arrivals have continued to increase at airports. The number of people arriving on a visitor visa and applying for asylum is also increasing significantly", he wrote.

 

 In the first 11 months of 2023 close to 60,000 new asylum seekers registered in Quebec, which has placed the province in a position of "very significant pressure" on services. Asylum seekers awaiting work permits, stressed the premier, receive financial assistance from Quebec. Some 43,200 asylum seekers received $33 million in aid last October. Mexican nationals represent a growing proportion of asylum seekers arriving, among those from the Middle East, Africa and Central America.

Legault's recommendation is that the federal government take serious action to tighten its policies of granting visas. As well the "equitable" distribution of asylum seekers across Canada should be an issue to be studied, possibly by busing them to other provinces. As well, he expects the federal government to reimburse Quebec for the $470  million it has cost the province on taking in asylum seekers in 2021 and 2022, and formalize reimbursement for subsequent years.

People wait at a gas station to take a taxi to cross into Canada at Roxham Road, an illegal crossing point from New York State to Quebec, in Plattsburgh, N.Y. (Carlos Osorio/Reuters)