Ford’s blunt talk on border crisis exactly what’s needed.
FORD IS TELLING TRUDEAU WHAT NEEDS TO BE SAID ABOUT THE BORDER CRISIS
Doug Ford’s only been in office a matter of days but his refusal to help Ottawa disperse a surge of asylum-claimants arriving from Quebec already has him taking some serious flak.
Much of it comes from the same camp that failed to foresee the problem, helped make it worse, hasn’t come up with a workable solution and still lacks a serious proposal for dealing with the cause. But never mind that. The charges against the new premier are that his reluctance to help ease the pressure on Toronto — where most of the claimants are landing after crossing the U.S. border in Quebec — is mean-spirited, unhelpful and contrary to Canada’s traditionally tolerant approach to refugees and immigrants.
It may indeed be unhelpful: to Ottawa, which has been slow to react and ponderous in approach, and to Toronto, which lacks the space, resources and finances to handle the inflow on its own. But there’s a reason for that, and the other complaints are open to question.
There’s no particular evidence to the charge that it’s meanspirited. If Ford has dark and dirty thoughts about newcomers to Canada, he keeps it well hidden. He represents a typically diverse area of Toronto — the 2016 census gives Etobicoke North one of the city’s highest concentrations of visible minorities — where his family remains highly popular, to the bewilderment of many in the city’s higher-toned neighbourhoods. The worst that’s been dredged up since he became premier is his use of the term “illegal border crossers” to describe refugee claimants. The Toronto Star calls this “dangerous rhetoric” and quotes a lawyer arguing that the word “illegal” isn’t strictly accurate because their cases haven’t been heard yet.
Well, it’s true their ultimate status hasn’t been ruled on yet. But there’s a sign at the busiest Quebec border site that says: “It is illegal to cross the border here or any place that is not a Port of Entry.” The RCMP, which taken up a semipermanent presence at the crossing, shouts out warnings to new arrivals that crossing there is illegal and they will be arrested.
So, strictly speaking and in the most exacting possible terms, the arrivals aren’t yet illegal, because it takes time for their cases to be heard. But they’re crossing at an illegal site in an illegal way, and being warned by police that they’re breaking the law. So suggesting they’re involved in an illegal act isn’t really a sign of manifest bigotry. It could similarly be noted that they aren’t refugees either — as their defenders casually term them — since that also hasn’t been ruled on.
What they are is a conundrum to which the federal Liberals have been slow in responding. The surge of asylum claimants was allowed to build to a crisis point in Quebec, where Premier Philippe Couillard complained it cost the province $146 million in 2017, and was only worsening this year. After being lectured by federal Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen, Couillard denounced Ottawa’s attitude as “unacceptable” and said it showed “a complete ignorance of the realities on the ground.”
The Liberals responded by agreeing to help shift some of the overflow to other provinces, Ontario being the most obvious. Hundreds of claimants thus began arriving in Toronto, which is no better equipped to deal with them than Montreal, and where Mayor John Tory soon began parroting Quebec’s demands for money and a workable strategy.
Again, the feds had nothing substantial to offer. Initially they insisted their hands were tied until the new provincial government took power. Then, when Ford revealed his refusal to play along, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau felt obliged to suggest he was too dim to appreciate the complexities of the asylum system, and revealed he’d spent time “explaining how the … system works.”
Ontario voters might submit that treating their newly elected premier as a dunderhead is not the epitome of helpfulness. Liberals were miffed in turn that Ford put the blame for the situation “100 per cent” on them, and suggested “the federal government should foot 100 per cent of the bills.”
But Ford’s not far wrong in that; when the surge began it was put down to fear in the U.S. that the Trump administration would end their protected status and send them home. Trudeau unquestionably encouraged their hopes when he tweeted that Canada would welcome all those “fleeing persecution, terror & war,” which reflected Canada’s traditional generous spirit but also signalled to tens of thousands of potential arrivals that Canada had thrown open its doors to all comers.
Most arrivals at that point were Haitians, but the makeup has changed and many now are Nigerians who first gain entry to the U.S., then head quickly to the Canadian border. There is little doubt many are exploiting a loophole in Canada’s Safe Third Country Agreement with Washington that makes entry easier as long as they do it at an illegal crossing. Trudeau’s government recognized this reality when it sent federal representatives to Nigeria to stem the flow.
It’s fair to say Ford isn’t being polite and co-operative. Instead he is calling attention to the starkness of the problem by asserting — bluntly, admittedly — that Ottawa’s dithering and delay has given a difficult situation time to build to a crisis that is now troubling two of the country’s biggest cities.
Ottawa hasn’t shown itself to be either capable or competent in handling the file. It still has no proposal for remedying the cause of the dilemma; instead it’s focused on trying to disperse those who have already managed to make their way across the border. Having been elected on a promise of fiscal restraint, Ford doesn’t want to get stuck with bills Ottawa would prefer to offload. Ontario can’t afford it in any case, thanks in large part to the profligate borrowing and spending habits of Ford’s Liberal predecessors.
All the tisk-tisking about the new premier’s manners misses the point. When Ottawa shows it has a concrete idea on how to move forward to address the core of the issue, it will have earned a more co-operative response. Until then, it can point its fingers elsewhere.
THE FEDERAL LIBERALS HAVE BEEN SLOW IN RESPONDING.