Quebec Minister of Immigration, Christine Fréchette, stated that the federal government transported almost all of the migrants entering Canada through Roxham Road to other provinces, said, calling the wave of relocations a “new approach” from Ottawa.
Out of the 380 migrants who arrived in Quebec by that route were relocated, largely to Ontario, the minister said in a scrum in Quebec City.
She commended Ottawa for meeting the province’s demand for help with the recent large inflow of people seeking asylum through the irregular border crossing south of Montreal and called on Justin Trudeau’s government to keep the initiative going
“We are starting to see results,” said Ms. Fréchette. “We’re very happy with that.”
The government has been relocating migrants from Roxham Road regularly because of capacity constraints in Quebec since last summer.
Ms. Fréchette admonished the government to maintain the recent steady rate of removals, repeating her government’s position that Quebec’s “welcoming capacity” has been surpassed. The minister added that roughly 60,000 asylum seekers arrived in Quebec last year, double the annual number from before the pandemic.
Ms. Fréchette called the weekend’s mass relocations a “first step” that could potentially come to involve other provinces receiving asylum seekers from Roxham Road. She stated that 500 hotel rooms have been booked to accommodate migrants in Ontario as a sign of seriousness.
“I don’t have information about what happened on Monday, but we are expecting that this new approach persists,” she said.
“In the future, my government is asking that the share of asylum seekers who stay in Quebec be kept around 22 or 23 per cent, in keeping with the province’s demographic weight within Canada.”
Mr. Legault met with U.S. ambassador to Canada David Cohen to ask for a speedy renegotiation of the agreement governing asylum seekers between the countries.
“I said to him, ‘I don’t understand why it’s taking this long to settle with the United States.’ What we’re asking is that the Safe Third Country Agreement be applied to all ports of entry, including Roxham.”
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