Quebec to Trudeau, we can’t handle more illegal immigrants

Quebec has been dealing with the brunt of Canada’s illegal immigration problem from the start, now they are saying they have had enough. At a news conference today, the Government of Quebec sent a clear message to the feds, they can’t settle more people and pay for their social services.

From Canadian Press, via CTV:

The number so far this year has tripled to 6,074 from about 2,000 during the same period in 2017 and is forecast to increase significantly this summer, Immigration Minister David Heurtel said Monday.

“Even the numbers we’re getting from the federal government show us that the situation is different, there’s going to be more asylum seekers, so we need a new plan,” he said.

Funny enough, I was writing about that last week before these new numbers came out. Using just the first two months of 2017 vs the first two months of 2018, we see the number of people crossing the border illegally going from 993 in the 2017 to 3,082 in 2018.

Now the Quebec government is warning that they have seen a spike to 6,074 so far this year compared to roughly 2,000 the year before. That is nothing short of shocking.

We are tripling the number of people coming in and there is no plan as Quebec says. Last summer when border crossings hit their peak there was a strain on municipal and provincial social services and a refugee camp set up inside Olympic Stadium.

Eventually there was a tent city, then a portable city, a virtual refugee camp on our border with the United States all to handle economic migrants that were using a loophole in the Safe Third Country agreement we have with the Americans.

This deal, signed in the early 2000s under the Chretien Liberals, was meant to stop refugee shopping. People at the time were arriving in one country and declaring themselves to be refugees. If they were turned down they went to the next country.

Given that Canada and the United States have similar enough refugee protections, the idea was to improve the system by stopping refugee shopping. But there was, and still is, a loophole.

If someone shows up at a non-official border crossing, like say the end of Roxham Road in New York State and walks across to the Quebec side of the border, or they cross a prairie farm field or do any other illegal crossing they are allowed to claim asylum in Canada. They may have broken the law by crossing illegally but claiming asylum gets them into the system.

And while many are upset that the RCMP don’t stop these people from crossing over, the Mounties can’t actually do anything until they are on Canadian soil at which point they must arrest them and turn them over to border agents for processing.

So far no group or organization from officialdom has been willing to stand up and tell Trudeau that he must do something, but now Quebec has. They’ve already sent the feds a bill for $146 million they said they spent housing, feeding and clothing people in 2017 that they say are clearly a federal responsibility but they have not been paid.

Just consider this, if the numbers stay on their current trajectory, we could see 60,000+ illegal border crossers this year, the vast majority of them would land in Quebec.

Do you think Justin Trudeau wants to fight an election in that province over this issue in 2019?

I don’t.

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