“We’re not talking about police going in to remove families,” says Quebec immigration minister.
QUEBEC — The Quebec government has no intention of asking Ottawa to uproot asylum seekers already entrenched in Quebec in order to relocate them to other provinces, Immigration Minister Jean-François Roberge said Thursday.
Releasing a working document sent by federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller to Quebec last summer, Roberge said Ottawa itself has presented plans to the provinces to manage the movements based on a work permit system, offering them the services they need.
“Let’s tone things down,” Roberge told reporters on his way into question period. “Don’t make the premier say what he didn’t say. Let’s be human and stay calm.”
Legault has been raked over the coals by federal politicians and Quebec’s opposition leaders for saying in Paris that Ottawa should make the relocation of asylum seekers within Canada obligatory and not voluntary.
“What I want is for there to be results,” he said. “So, yes, it must be obligatory, but the federal government must manage it.”
In Ottawa, Miller responded by saying Legault’s reaction was “senseless, not reasonable” and could even be described as “inhuman.”
But Roberge tried to nuance Legault’s remarks, explaining the term “obligatory” refers to the work permit and support for housing and services, which many of the 160,000 asylum seekers currently in Quebec need to get on their feet.
“We’re not talking about police going in to remove families,” Roberge said. “There have been exaggerations.”
Quoting the document that examined the situation worldwide, Roberge said that in Switzerland and Germany asylum seekers have to set themselves up in a certain region in order to get services. The distribution is based on the region’s capacity to welcome and take care of them.
He said the permit system would work because it would be aimed at asylum seekers who are not yet entrenched, not working and without French who might in fact feel more at home in another province, anyway. Most of them settle in the Montreal region and many are not able to work.
“That requires the leadership (from Ottawa),” Roberge said. “We would be doing in Canada exactly what is being done in Europe. It is entirely possible (to move people) because many don’t have all this right now and are newly arrived.
“Because right now we are beyond our ability to educate, beyond our capacity to teach French, beyond our capacity to provide health services, beyond our capacity to house,” he said.
Roberge noted it currently is costing Quebec $500 million a year supporting such people via welfare and other social support measures.
“It is not punishing people to send them to a region where they would have a work permit, be able to find housing, be able to teach their children,” he said. “But we don’t want to uproot people or remove children from schools.
“We’re human. We’re Quebecers.”
This report will be updated.
X.com/philipauthier