QUESTION PERIOD — Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship
Asylum Seekers
March 29, 2023
My question is for the Government Representative in the Senate. Closing Roxham Road was undoubtedly inevitable. Like many others, however, I’m concerned about what happens next. One can’t help but notice the difference between how the 133,000 Ukrainian refugees have been treated and how the asylum seekers who arrive on foot at our borders are treated. Some have crossed a dozen countries to reach Canada.
Will closing the Roxham Road loophole cause more human misery or make it even worse? What means will desperate people use to enter Canada? It’s entirely understandable that the government would want to redirect migrants to institutional processes, but what are we going to do to ensure that these actions do not result in even greater tragedies?
Thank you for the question. It’s important to note the significant challenges and the issues involved in the decisions to renew the agreement with the U.S. We need to ensure that this can be applied to the entire border, and not just official border crossings.
Canada has definitely done its part, as it always has, by welcoming those seeking asylum through official channels. As you know, Quebec alone has accepted more than 40,000 migrants who tried their luck and managed to get to Canada by irregular means.
We have a 9,000-kilometre border, more or less, and we have to admit that it would be impossible for officers to monitor it. We do not have the resources and neither does the United States. The government is aware of the existing issues and knows that would be even more difficult come winter. The government is working with the provinces and our American counterparts to ensure that we can manage the situation in a compassionate and responsible manner.
What the government wants from this agreement is to enable those wishing to come to Canada to do so through recognized and official channels, because that is how they can access services we can manage and monitor. They have the right to remain in Canada by making an application. Otherwise, they must return to the United States, as required by the rules.
Precisely, for this return to the United States, the Americans are grappling with an even bigger wave of migrants than we are. Some of the asylum seekers trying to enter Canada have already been turned back to the United States since Sunday.
Senator Gold, does the government know how the U.S. authorities are going to deal with these people and what will happen to them in this country that is already overflowing with migrants?
That is an excellent question, senator.
As everyone knows, our Minister of Immigration and his team, as well as his counterpart and his team, have been looking for quite some time at the details of this protocol that was signed a year ago.
I am not aware of all the details of their conversations, far from it, but I’m sure and I know that this is one of the issues on the table, and it will remain there because the governments of Canada and the United States understand full well the humane issues involved and the importance of managing this file compassionately and responsibly.
