Ottawa, Quebec trade barbs over border
Province pushes federal government for more help with asylum seekers
MONTREAL— The ever-increasing number of asylum seekers crossing the Canada-U.S. border irregularly is heightening tensions between Quebec and the federal government and leading to nasty exchanges among provincial political parties vying for power.
On Wednesday, Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard said Ottawa’s response to his request for assistance on the refugee crisis reflects “a complete ignorance” of what’s going on at the border between his province and New York state.
In 2017, Quebec received roughly 25,000 asylum seekers who entered from legal and illegal border crossings, representing half of the total in Canada.
So far this year, 6,074 people have entered the province from the U.S. — triple the number of people compared with the same period in 2017.
Quebec has asked Ottawa for a plan on how to manage the in- flux of people and has requested additional funds to cover the $146 million in unprecedented expenses the province paid in 2017, when the crisis began.
In a written response to Quebec’s request, federal Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen seemed to chastise the province for its current handling of asylum seekers. “While last summer, Quebec was operating 13 temporary shelters to welcome asylum seekers, I have noticed that only four are currently available,” he said in his letter.
“This risks creating delays at the border and triggering an unacceptable humanitarian situation. We need to avoid causing undue suffering to families who are seeking protection.”
Couillard said Hussen’s response was “not acceptable” and demonstrates “a complete ignorance of the realities on the ground, what Quebec went through last year and, quite certainly, what we will go through this year according to the pro- jections.”
Later on Wednesday, Hussen seemed to try and assuage Couillard, telling reporters in Ottawa, “we wouldn’t have been able to manage the (refugee) situation as well as we did last year without the large cooperation from Quebec.”
Quebec’s immigration minister was scheduled for talks in Ottawa on Wednesday evening with the intergovernmental working group on irregular border entries.