Opinion: What happens when Roxham Road is closed? Quebec Premier François Legault’s claim that Quebec lacks money and capacity to manage Roxham Road arrivals deserves little sympathy.
Quebec Premier François Legault, supported by federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, urged the federal government to shut down Roxham Road. This is the spot where, over the past six years, thousands of refugee claimants crossed into Canada and asked for refugee protection.
The premier of Quebec complains about the alleged unfairness of Quebec bearing costs associated with asylum seekers who enter at Roxham Road. Canada allocates a proportion of federal funding to Quebec for newcomer settlement that is not indexed to the actual number of newcomers that Quebec admits. Quebec receives proportionately more money than other provinces to settle newcomers and does not account for how it spends it.
Canada did this by exploiting a loophole in the Refugee Convention, which prohibits states from sending refugees back to countries of origin, but is silent about deflecting them to third countries . Fast forward a few years, and we discover that some asylum seekers are crossing into Canada at Roxham Road. It is not unlawful for a refugee to enter a country “irregularly” under the Refugee Convention or Canadian immigration law.
People will pay, and if they don’t have the money, they will borrow it and become indebted to traffickers, who will exploit them. Smuggling will proliferate. We will hear more stories about more people who suffer debilitating injury or freeze to death trying to cross the border from U.S. into Canada or vice versa. Smugglers will be blamed for facilitating border crossing, and for the injuries and deaths that ensue. Wait for it.
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